Three posters presented at the Coursera Partner Conference in Den Haag, Netherlands in March 2016. Residential student behavior and perceptions in MOOCs, The African Scholarship Cohort Program Overview and Changing Paradigms: Completion Rates versus NetPromoter Scores

1. University of Virginia (UVa) Case Study of Residential Student Perceptions
and Behavior in MOOCs Dr. Kristin Palmer, kristin@virginia.edu @kpatwork

2. University of Virginia (UVa) Uganda Scholarship Program with Mbarara
University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Management Science
Michael Koenig, Sr. Assistant Dean for Degree Programs and Executive Director Program Innovation michael.koenig@virginia.edu and Dr. Kristin Palmer, kristin@virginia.edu
Summary:
Darden faculty and students traveled to Uganda to partner with a new MBA program in the country and work with local businesses as part of the
Darden’s Global Consulting Projects elective program for residential students. Learners in Uganda were provided scholarships to the Coursera UVa
MOOC Specialization Foundations of Business Strategy. 118 Learners in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya are currently taking the specialization and
working on projects for local businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Benefits:
The partnership with Mbarara has been an opportunity to expose Darden faculty and students to Sub-Saharian Africa, foster university relationships
with a young management school, facilitate building ties for Mbarara to the local businesses which will then employ graduates, and develop more
robust businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, this pilot offers insight for emerging markets and strategies for engaging these markets.
Implementation:
1) Built relationship with Mbarara University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Management Science
2) Site visit in Summer 2015
3) MUST-IMS colleagues coordinate and provide nominee details originating from the varied stakeholders throughout East Africa.
4) Congratulatory email sent to each nominee, asking them to complete a very simple online application which will capture each nominee's name,
employment and contact details, and ask them to answer a few simple application questions to help confirm commitment to this endeavor.
5) For all those who are nominated and complete the online application, a second email congratulating these selected nominees on their selection
to receive the scholarship is sent welcoming them to the East African cohort for the Specialization in Business Strategy. This email will include
the Coursera provided link to register at no cost for the first course in the specialization.
6) Coursera and Darden team coordinated the launch of this East African cohort as a private group. Only those who complete the first course in
the Business Strategy Specialization along with the cohort will continue and receive the link to register to the second course in the
Specialization.
7) Created surveys and watched persistence week over week and course over course to see the affect of financial aid and scholarship for emerging
markets
Initial Lessons Learned: Logistics have proven quite difficult and the next time we do this, we will make sure to have orientation materials that guide
learners click by click through the content and a point of contact at Coursera.

3. Moving Paradigms: Net Promoter Scores(NPS) versus MOOC Completion Rates
Kristin Palmer, kristin@virginia.edu @kpatwork and Christopher J. Devers, chris@edprofessor.com @edprofessor
Summary: This research projected started off as a mixed-methods approach to compare completion rates to learner
satisfaction in the UVa MOOC Introduction to Personal Branding. The first part of the study was a online survey
modeled after the study last year by PENN, University of Washington, and Coursera. The second part of the study is
a set of focus groups to gather qualitative feedback. Although the study is currently active, it is apparent that the
Net Promoter Score (NPS) for Coursera is high. With 356 respondents, the NPS is 55. It is a recommendation of this
study to start looking at Net Promoter Scores instead of Completion Rates for MOOC courses and providers.
Top Business Metrics: In business, key measures include Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT), Net Promoter Scores
(NPS), and Customer Effort Scores (CES). Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) are based on specific questions given
to customers after an interaction with a company. For example, asking how the customer would rate their
experience with customer support after calling a toll-free number to resolve an issue. Answers are typically Likert
Scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied. Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are when one asks a customer: “On a scale
of 0-10, how likely would you be to recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague?” Responders are then
split into categories where those with a 9 or 10 response are considered “Promoters,” a 7 or 8 response are called
“Passive,” and 0-6 scores are “Detractors.” The Net Promoter Score is the percentage of detractors subtracted from
the percentage of promoters. A score higher than zero is good, but the best companies aim for scores around 50.
Customer Effort Scores (CES) are the latest trend in measuring business performance. In this model, business look at
how much effort customers need to expend to get their issues resolved with low scores being the goal.
Online Survey Results: The respondents have been fairly typical: employed, well-educated, and self-identifying as
medium socio-economic in status. A surprising statistic was that 65% of respondents were female. The feedback so
far anecdotally has aligned with previous studies: learners love having access to high quality educational content,
they use this content to improve their lives, and they plan to utilize the skills they are learning in their future jobs.