Who Takes Online Courses UMass Boston

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Who Takes Online Courses UMass Boston?

• Presentation to Executive Leadership
• December 16, 2008

OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND POLICY
STUDIES
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Counting Students Taking Online Courses

• Online activity is coordinated through the
  Presidents Office University of Massachusetts
  Online.
• Their staff is housed in the Presidents Office
  and works with a Council of Deans of Continuing
  Education
• Continuing, Corporate and Distance Education
  (CCDE) facilitates and finances the majority of
  the online, for credit, courses
• Each year, UMOL requests data on the annual
  activity in online courses
• This includes demographic data requiring student
  headcount statistics (unduplicated counts)

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Online Registrations

• Usually, CCDE reports on the number of
  registrations they have in courses
• This makes sense, as students pay for each course
  they take
• Using this measure, the registrations in online
  courses have increased 57 from FY06 to FY08

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Unduplicated, Online Course Taker Headcounts

• OIRP counts each individual student only once, no
  matter how many times they have enrolled in an
  online course over the year
• Using this measure, the headcounts have increased
  27 from FY06 to FY08
• Note the students counted here may also be
  taking on-ground courses, but they enrolled in at
  least one online course during the year

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Online Course Takers Characteristics

• Two thirds of the students taking at least one
  online course are undergraduates
• The average age of online course takers is 32
• Two thirds of the students taking at least one
  online course are women
• One third of the students taking at least one
  online course in the most recent fiscal year were
  US students of color

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Total Annual, Unduplicated Headcount Online
Course Taker, Unduplicated Headcount

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Annual, Unduplicated, Online Course Takers
Where do they live?
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Online Course Takers More Characteristics

• In FY08, one in five of our annual headcount
  students took at least one online course
• Three quarters of the students taking at least
  one online course were from Massachusetts
• The majority of online course takers are degree
  seeking this figure has grown from 55 in FY06
  to 65 in FY08

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Online Course Takers, Degree Seeking Non-Degree
Seeking