Coursera is Building a Platform-Wide Learning Community Through Discussions

Coursera Community, a platform-wide discussion forum launched by Coursera last year, has been growing through months into a vibrant learning community with more than 3,500 users and 700 topics.

Usually, discussions on MOOC platforms are limited in courses. Each of those courses contains a small, closed network of instructors and learners. While this setting is still retained, Coursera Community creates another network for users who wish to interact with the mass.

Coursera Community features subject-based discussions boards and a few “Common Rooms" that group discussions on networking and general study tips. Under this setting, users with similar experiences have been helping each other to solve their problems in learning and at work. In the thread “How do I actually land a job after completing Coursera Courses?", when a user shared the way they demonstrate the value of online courses, several replied the with their recommended presentation on resumes, enriching the discussion into a job-hunting knowledge base.

To assist the discussions, Coursera Community Managers have initiated threads of common topics while replied to some threads to provide supplementary information. However, if Coursera can keep the growth of the discussions, this community can become self-sustaining and make online learning truly “massively open”.