Two free fully online courses were offered by Peoples-uni on its Open Online Courses site, both as self-paced courses available any time and as courses run over four weeks with tutor-led discussions. We tested the hypothesis that there are no measurable differences in outcomes between the two delivery methods. Similar numbers attended both versions of each course; students came from multiple countries and backgrounds. Numbers of discussion forum posts were greater in tutor-led than self-paced courses. Measured outcomes of certificates of completion, quiz completion and marks gained were very similar and not statistically significantly different between the tutor-led and the self-paced versions of either course. In light of little discernible difference in outcome between self-paced learning compared with courses including tutor-led discussions, the utility of the time cost to tutors is in question. The findings may be relevant to others designing online courses, including MOOCs.

中文翻译：

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辅导老师会影响在线学习吗？两种开放式在线课程的比较研究

Peoples-uni在其“开放在线课程”网站上提供了两门免费的完全在线课程，既可以随时进行自定进度的课程，又可以进行为期四周的课程，并由导师进行讨论。我们检验了以下假设：两种分娩方法之间的结果没有可测量的差异。每个课程的两个版本都有相似的数字；学生来自多个国家和背景。导师主导的讨论论坛帖子数量要多于自定进度的课程。结业证书，测验结业证书和获得的分数的测量结果非常相似，并且在任教课程和自定进度的两种课程中，统计学上均无显着差异。鉴于自定进度的学习与课程（包括由导师主持的讨论）相比在结果上几乎没有明显的区别，时间成本对导师的效用值得怀疑。调查结果可能与其他设计在线课程的人有关，包括MOOC。