Dive Brief:

• Wake Technical Community College, the first two-year school in North Carolina to offer a massive open online course, enrolled nearly 17,500 students in its MOOC.
• Based on the success of the course, Introductory Algebra Review, the college will roll out a chemistry MOOC in the summer, and a computer literacy course is also in the works.
• The algebra MOOC, which launched a year ago, was created on Udacity's platform using a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dive Insight:

The Wake Tech story is a good illustration of the strengths and drawbacks of MOOCs, as only about 1,000 people actually completed the algebra MOOC so far. A MOOC can work well as a preparatory course, but when the student gets to a difficult point or otherwise lacks the discipline to push through, the external motivation or extra assistance is lacking. Wake Tech will use Blackboard with the new MOOCs to save money on the developmental side, the News & Observer reported.