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HarvardX course enrollments break the 500k mark

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Based upon data gathered August 5-11, 2013, total enrollments for HarvardX courses (including past, current, and future offerings) exceeded 500,000.

509,294 to be exact.

CS50x, “Introduction to Computer Programming,” remains the top enrolled course at nearly 160,000. ER22x, “Justice,” follows at nearly 70,000. The first two offerings from the Harvard School of Public Health—PH207x, “Health in Numbers,” and PH78x, “Human Health and Global Environmental Change,”—and the future SPU27x, “Science and Cooking,” round out the top five.

In addition to “Science and Cooking,” popular forthcoming courses include MCB80x, “Fundamentals of Neuroscience,” and SW12x, “China.”

Harvard, in fact, has developed and run the most number of courses on the edX platform (17) and is responsible for almost one-third of total enrollments to date (1,819,229).

While the numbers live up to the “massive” in MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), the individual learning experiences are decidedly more personal:

  • “I stood in my bean patch in West Virginia today and was humbled to think I was able to take part in this learning experience with participants from all over the world. Please allow me to express my kharin ekhein. (Hope I said that correctly!)” – Comment on CB22x, “Ancient Greek Hero”
  • “The community and sense of connection between not only the 120,000 students worldwide taking the course online, but the hundreds sitting in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, really defined the experience for me.” – Comment on CS50x