I’ve written before about MOOCs’ great potential to boost higher education in Myanmar, and figured I should find out how they’re faring in places where they’ve been given a fair trial. The most recent MOOC Research Conference, held at the University of Texas, Arlington in December 2013, brought together key figures in the field. It was organized by the MOOC Research Initiative, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

One clear message was that MOOCs are often oversold in the media – it’s time to look beyond the hype. The most compelling evidence came from a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who sought to understand the movement of a million users through Coursera courses offered by U Penn in a single year: June 2012 to June 2013. What they found was quite disturbing. In brief, many apply, but few are active, participation falls off dramatically after the first couple of weeks, and only very small numbers persist to the end. Moreover, users do not come from demographic groups typically excluded from traditional universities. Overwhelmingly for these online courses, they were wealthy, educated, male Americans.

Maybe, then, there’s not much promise here after all? Looking through the evidence presented at the conference, it’s certainly too early to draw that conclusion. Summarizing the main themes, George Siemens had this to say: “While prominent media promotes grand narratives of MOOCs as disruptive, transformative, and sure to end the current model of higher education, MRI grantees, keynote speakers, and panels offered a vision of MOOCs as supplementing and enlarging the role of the university.”

That evaluation in fact offers great hope for MOOCs in Myanmar – not as a volley of silver bullets capable of solving the many problems that afflict the higher education system, but rather as part of a structured package designed to help enhance teaching and learning across the sector. Provided they are fully integrated into a larger vision for university reform and renewal, MOOCs still have an enormous amount to offer.