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hello I'm Don houman I'm the managing
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director of the Wharton schools
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Innovation group uh today I'll be
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speaking with Daphne ker Daphne is the
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co-founder of corsera the world's
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largest provider of mukes uh she's also
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a computer scientist at Stanford
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University Deanie uh discussed the
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corsera initiative with us two years ago
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and today we're looking for an update to
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find what's new what's changed and
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what's coming in the future thanks
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Stephanie for coming and talking to us
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this uh this morning um pleasure to be
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here it's been a couple years since we
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saw you last and uh 2012 when we saw you
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was according to the New York Times the
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year of the moo that's right and then a
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a number of people in the higher
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education press decided that by 2013 the
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Revolution was over so my question is is
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the revolution over no I think um the
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both the we're in the Gartner hype cycle
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and were just I think emerging from the
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trough of disillusionment partly what
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happened was that the hype was
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completely unmar it was based on a
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presumption that we're going to put
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universities out of business a position
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that we neither endorsed nor thought was
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the right thing to do um and then in
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2013 we had the disillusionment because
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whoa It's been 12 months and we still
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haven't put universities out of business
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oh my gosh so I think neither of those
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two views are the right one uh what
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we're we're seeing as our target
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audience is people who are primarily
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working adults and are not currently
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candidates for um for traditional forms
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of Education that's the vast majority of
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our audience and they keep coming we
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have over 10 million users on the site
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right now and they're very happy with
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what they're getting and the rate of
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increases remain constant yes we're
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seeing a significant increase over time
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in both the number of users overall but
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also the number of active users on the
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site and also very significant increase
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in number of people who consider this
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sufficiently valuable that that pay for
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one of the verified credentials the
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verified certificates that we offer in
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terms of uh looking at the the metrics
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that some of those that you just
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mentioned wondering what the key metrics
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are for you in terms of uh uh addressing
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some of the critics of the moo landscape
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people have suggested for instance that
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the early demographic studies that
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showed uh that most participants are not
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who we imagine but are rather well
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educated uh from uh developed Nations uh
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disproportionately
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male
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um uh have those demographics changed or
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or uh is that uh a metric that you
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follow in terms of evaluating the
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initiative right so we definitely follow
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those metrics those initial studies were
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done on a subset of early courses that
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were primary primarily graduate level
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courses when offered at the universities
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that offered them and as such appealed
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primarily to people with University
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degrees um if you look at our current
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demographics um 75% of our users do have
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college degrees that in turn means that
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25% don't which is still 2 and a half
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million people so that's just an awful
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lot of people that are getting access to
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education that don't currently have that
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um however I think it's important to
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remember that even the 75% who do have
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college degrees that doesn't mean that
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there your wealthy yuppies working on
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Wall Street um there are many parts of
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the world where having a college degree
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is far from being guarantee of
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employability in some cases like um in
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the developed in the developing
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countries um many of the colleges offer
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a very um mediocre educational
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experience that in many cases is by is
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far from being guarantee of a of a good
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job in many other parts of the world um
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people are finding that the education
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that they got when they went to college
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15 20 years ago is no longer adequate
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for the kind of jobs that the current
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economy needs and they absolutely need
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to have that kind of refresher in order
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for them to have access to the jobs that
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they like we're getting so many stories
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from people who say that by taking these
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courses even when they had college
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degrees it was a complete transformation
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for them in terms of their career
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prospects is there evidence from the
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employer side of the that that the or
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what evidence is there that the
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employers are valuing either the
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signature track certificates or or if
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you could speak to as well this new
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concept of a specialization so first of
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all um there is evidence from both the
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employer side and the employee side uh
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we're at something like 70% of people
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who earn verified certificates from a
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either a a course or a specialization
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are posting those credentials on
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LinkedIn we're currently the second
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biggest credential supplier if you will
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corsera on LinkedIn right after my
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Microsoft which is incredible for two
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and a half years that suggests that the
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that the prospective employees are
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seeing value in these credentials in
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terms of the employer side um we had one
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of our other university Partners Duke uh
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together with RTI did an interesting
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study of employers in North Carolina so
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this is not you know just high-tech
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Employers in Silicon Valley this was
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across multiple sectors and I think 73%
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of them said that they would value a
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credential from AO as a component in a
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hiring process so I think we're starting
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to see significant uptake on the
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employer
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side um with regards to corsera as an
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organization uh I have a couple of
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questions one is the uh last time we met
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we talked about various potential
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avenues for Revenue generation uh any
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updates on the business model behind
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corsera so partly as a matter of focus
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we have decided that we're going to
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initially really pay attention to the
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verified certificate for both courses
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and specializations as the primary
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revenue source for us that's worked out
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really well in the sense that if you
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look at the number of people of course
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completers the fraction of course
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completers who are opting to earn a
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verified certificate that number has
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climbed steadily from less than 10% when
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we started to to somewhere between 20 to
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25% um right now with some of the
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courses especially ones that are part of
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those specializations that that we
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talked about which are these larger
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units of learning where there's also a
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project at the end that demonstrates the
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ability to apply those learnings in the
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context of real world problem the
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conversion rate into the verified
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certificate in those courses is often
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north of
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40% uh among course completers and
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that's a very significant fraction so
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we're very confident that this can be a
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significant Revenue source that will
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make us sustainable while still allowing
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us to continue to offer free
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education is there an appetite on the
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part of uh of companies who have HR
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departments and their own internal you
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know professional development processes
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uh to reach out to you to use your
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materials or the or let's say the the
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learning assets that are available
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through the corsera platform for their
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own internal purposes absolutely we've
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had contact with a relatively large
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number of companies including some of
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the largest and highest branded
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employers out there uh we have put this
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on hold temporarily until we build the
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current platform that is moving to an on
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demand model which would make the
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courses available to anyone at any time
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rather than at particular dates which is
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the model that we've had so far um this
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will help our Learners in the general
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public who are often working adults and
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would cannot structure their lives
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around their learning they need to
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structure their learning around their
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lives um but also it would be uh
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incredibly important as we've heard from
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these potential corporate partners
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because need their employers employees
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to have access to the content whenever
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they need it to be there as opposed to
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um you know at some particular start
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date that's arbitrarily determined by
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some a faculty member's calendar so
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that's going to be a key part of getting
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this into these corporate training
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programs I wonder how that uh uh syncs
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with uh some of the feeling around the
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cohort model that was so distinctive
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regarding what you had managed to
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accomplish at scale and the role of uh
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social learning in the process of uh of
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professional development and um
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remaining motivated and staying with a
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project through to the end aren't those
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two at odds that's a really great
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question and one that we spent a lot of
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time thinking about uh we are very
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committed to the social component of
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learning uh but I think what we realized
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is that when you have a very large
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course uh what matters is that there are
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people around you doing the same thing
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at the same time as opposed to it's the
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same people from the beginning to the
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end of the course so um if you're in
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module three what matters is that there
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are a few hundred or thousand people all
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working with you in module three that
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you can engage in conversation with
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doesn't some of them might have started
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earlier and are going slowly some of
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them might have started very recently
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and are blazing through the course but
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that doesn't really matter to you in
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terms of the social engagement that you
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have that being said we're also building
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out the capability to create
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preconstructed cohorts so for example a
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group of employees at a company or a
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group of uh uh Learners in one of the
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learning hubs that we have in US
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embassies around the world could come in
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and say we're going to take the course
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together as a group all of us on the
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same schedule and the ability of the on
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demand platform to accommodate the fact
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that they want to start today as opposed
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to in 3 months is going to be really
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important for enabling that while still
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allowing them to create that little
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social community of people who really do
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get to know each other and it really is
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a cohort in a way that 50,000 people
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isn't um I have a question about corsa's
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uh choices regarding uh its uh
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for-profit structure by comparison to
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most notably I guess Ed X which chose to
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go the 501c3 nonprofit approach does
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that difference in corporate structure
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uh change the way decisions are made at
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corsera uh we believe that by going this
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route it has made us more on Nimble and
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uh faster to move because we don't need
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to get approval from a governing board
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for every decision uh we believe that
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it's also given us um a sense of urgency
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which is not as easily obtained when you
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have you know $60 million and and the
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backing of two of the world's richest
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universities so I think we have been
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able to be very fast to execute while
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still I think remaining very true to the
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social mission that inspired us to start
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this in the first place so to be very
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concrete as an example when we launched
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the verified
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certificates um we realized that $50
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might not be a significant amount to
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someone here in the US or in Europe but
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it is for someone in Africa or in India
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and so we launched it together with a
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financial aid option which uh allows
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someone who is who really can benefit
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from the credential but can't afford it
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to request basically a fee waver and we
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just grant it um I don't think edex has
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had that maybe they had it recently but
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they didn't in the beginning and I think
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it really speaks to the fact that we're
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sort of balancing the you know the
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commercial component of who we are but
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also staying very true to our social
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goals so the Venture capitalists aren't
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a problem for you no uh they have not
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been pushing us to monetize in fact I
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have to say that the biggest pressure
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for us to bring in Revenue has largely
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been that we wanted to bring Revenue
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back to our University Partners so that
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they can sustain course development
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because otherwise it's a drain on
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resources that might be hard to justify
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because it's coming at the expense of
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something else so we've started to bring
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in revenues early as we did primarily so
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as to allow our University Partners to
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increase their content Pipeline and just
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one last question is just looking into
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the future a bit mhm uh can you project
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where corsera might be in two or 3 years
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yeah well I think it's a really exciting
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question and I think there's different
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parts to it first of all today we're
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getting close to 900 courses I think
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that early in 2015 will be at a thousand
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I think in three years we'll have 5,000
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courses um which is about the curriculum
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of your average medium to large
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University in terms of the breadth of
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courses that we're able to offer when
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you layer on top of that the very
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significant trend ation localization
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effort that we're currently undertaking
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that will be uh a time at which we can
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teach anybody anywhere anything they
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want to learn which I think is a really
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compelling Vision in terms of
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democratizing education and we all know
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that democratizing education can have
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profound impact on pretty much any
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problem that plagues the world and and
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making it a better
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place
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