Communications of the ACM
Masculine Open Online Courses
Credit: The Australian
Men appear to outnumber women by a significant margin as teachers of massive open online courses (MOOCs), although the gap might be closing.
Women teach only eight of the 63 courses listed on edX's website, and eight additional courses are co-taught by men and women, according to an informal Inside Higher Ed tally. At Coursera, women exclusively teach 71 of 432 courses, and two of Udacity's 29 courses are taught by women. However, the gap has closed since this January, when edX offered no courses taught solely by a female faculty member and Coursera offered 35.
"This is a remarkable statistic, if it's true, but I do think that it may be pretty early to call the gap 'persistent' for a medium that is in its infancy," says Harvard University professor Elisa New. This fall New is offering two modules of larger courses through edX, and she says "the pipeline is pretty jammed with women" who are experimenting with online learning.
The percentage of women teaching online courses grows with each new set of proposals, says edX faculty committee chair Robert Lue, noting that women account for half of the proposals approved for next spring. University of Wisconsin at Madison professor Lisa L. Martin says female professors might avoid larger classes in general due to gender stereotypes.
From Inside Higher Ed
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