6.002x Circuits and Electronics MITx on edX Course Report - 2013 Spring

Abstract

This report describes 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics, one of the first 11 courses offered by MITx on edX, a platform for delivering massive open online courses (MOOCs). In the Spring of 2013, 6.002x was released as an open online course for the third time, with content largely mirroring previous offerings (Seaton et al, MITx Working Paper #4). 6.002x covered a first course within an undergraduate electrical engineering or electrical engineering and computer science curriculum. This report describes the course structure, in terms of the number of basic e-text, auto-graded problems, and video components. Following a methodology established for analysis of the first 17 HarvardX and MITx courses (Ho et al, HarvardX and MITx: The first year of open online courses), course registrants are described in terms of viewed, explored, and certified sub-populations, together with demographics. The diversity of student activity in the course, and the persistence of student interactions with the courseware, are addressed. The report concludes with a general comparison of features across the second iteration (Fall 2012) and current offering of 6.002x.

Keywords: MOOC, Massive Open Online Course, MITx, HarvardX, edX, online learning, distance learning, higher education