Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), capable of providing free (or low cost) courses for millions of learners anytime and anywhere, have gained the attention of researchers, educational institutions, and learners worldwide. Even though they provide several benefits, there are still some criticisms of MOOCs. For instance, MOOCs’ high dropout rates or predominantly elite participation are considered to be important problems. In order to develop solutions for these problems, a deeper understanding of MOOCs is required. Today, despite the availability of several research studies about MOOCs, there is a shortage of in-depth research on course characteristics, learner characteristics, and predictors of certification rates. This study examined MOOC and learner characteristics in detail and explored the predictors of course certification rates based on data from 122 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MOOCs (MITx) on edX platform as well as data about the 2.8 million participants registered in these MOOCs. The results indicated that as the number of courses offered and the number of learners enrolled increased in years, there was a decrease in the certification rates among enrolled learners. According to our results, the number of average chapters completed, total forum messages, and mean age predicted course certification rates positively. On the other hand, the total number of chapters in a course predicted the course certification rates negatively. Based on these results, shorter and more interactive MOOCs are recommended by considering the needs of the learners, course content design, and strategies encouraging the enrolled students to enter the courses.

中文翻译：

---

MITx MOOC中的课程特征，学习者特征和认证率分析

大规模开放在线课程（MOOC）能够随时随地为数百万学习者提供免费（或低成本）课程，已经引起了全球研究人员，教育机构和学习者的关注。尽管它们提供了很多好处，但对MOOC仍然存在一些批评。例如，MOOC的高辍学率或主要是精英参与被认为是重要的问题。为了开发针对这些问题的解决方案，需要对MOOC有更深入的了解。如今，尽管有一些有关MOOC的研究可供使用，但缺乏对课程特征，学习者特征和认证率预测因子的深入研究。这项研究详细研究了MOOC和学习者的特征，并基于edX平台上来自麻省理工学院122所MOOC（MITx）的数据以及在这些MOOC中注册的280万参与者的数据，探索了课程认证率的预测指标。结果表明，随着所提供课程的数量和注册学习者人数的增加，多年来，注册学习者中的认证率有所下降。根据我们的结果，完成的平均章节数，论坛留言总数和平均年龄对课程认证率的预测均呈正数。另一方面，课程的总章节数对课程的认证率产生负面影响。根据这些结果，考虑到学习者的需求，建议使用更短和更具交互性的MOOC，