First step in providing value for course completion: Ensure that the student is who he says he is.
The major players in the Massive Online Open Course space, coursera, udacity and edx have so far not charged a fee. Their revenue plans are not yet clear. They’ve got other challenges to overcome as well: Plagiarism, and student identity challenges.
Coursera is the first to step forward with a solution to the identity issue with their “Signature Track”
a new option that will give students in select classes the opportunity to earn a Verified Certificate for completing their Coursera course. Signature Track securely links your coursework to your identity, allowing you to confidently show the world what you’ve achieved on Coursera.
Signature Track offers:
Identity Verification. Create a special profile to link your coursework to your real identity using your photo ID and unique typing pattern.
Verified Certificates. Earn official recognition from Universities and Coursera for your accomplishment with a verifiable electronic certificate.
Sharable Course Records. Share your electronic course records with employers, educational institutions, or anyone else through a unique, secure URL.
The Chronicle, and Inside Higher Ed have reported on this as well.
The Signature Track isn’t free: Coursera plans to charge between $30 and $100 for this feature. So, this represents first steps for MOOCs on two fronts: Non-free courses, and student verification. I believe both will add significant value to these courses.
The value of student verification
Employers do value MOOC completion, but they’re also aware that sometimes the student’s credential was not earned by him or her. Employers will soon learn the difference between a verified course and one that is not verified, and the students will follow suit.
The value of “skin in the game”
In a related recent blog I wrote about the value of student investment in the course. So far the evidence is anecdotal, but it seems that even a small investment by the student, be it intellectual or monetary, changes their attitude and can lead to higher completion rates.
Disclosure:
I teach one of the courses that will be part of this new program at Coursera.
the augmented trader 
plerudulier
January 12, 2013
Reblogged this on Things I grab, motley collection .
anonymous
February 6, 2013
Taking money from students is the worst monetization model for MOOC. In fact if they will do so they will immediately stop beeing “mooc”, as they are supposed to be free, via wiki: “Open access. MOOC participants do not need to register as students and are not required to pay a fee.” If they start charging they will not live up to the hype they created. Even if it is 1 dollar symbolic payment it would create massive logistics problems for ppl around the world.
Having said that I strongly agree with this: “even a small investment by the student, be it intellectual or monetary, changes their attitude and can lead to higher completion rates.”. I remember attending private english classes, they were in fact best educational experience ever for me :) And huge part of this was me taking it really seriously because I was aware I paid for this. But it’s not they way to go with MOOCs imo.
Miguel Angel
February 24, 2013
The link to edx is wrong. The correct one is https://www.edx.org/
Thank you for the post.
Tucker Balch
February 24, 2013
Thanks, I just corrected that.
Wagner Yukio Matsushita
June 16, 2013
Hey Prof. Balch, if you could post the percentage of students of yours that signed into the Signature Track, it would be nice. I was one of these students. I payed gladly and would pay again. I think it’s too bad that not all courses offer the option to the Signature Track program. I think that knowledge must be free, but not education. We are at a point where pretty much all knowledge is on the web. So, there is nothing stoping someone who wants to learn. However, if you take a course from a good teacher who can lead you through the subject, the learning curve can be much smaller. That has a price in my opinion. The MOOCs are a revolution in education and I’m most of all thankfull for the opportunity that it brings to the whole world. I hope it endures and I know that money has to be a part of it.
By the way, I hope that some of the money I paid made it’s way to you :) And thank you very much for the course. I enjoyed it very much. I really hope that you get to teach us the Part 2. I am finishing the Machine Learning class on Coursera and can’t wait to put it to use on the market. Thank you again for putting the time into creating that course. You are a cool guy.
Tucker Balch
June 17, 2013
Thanks for the nice message. 385 students of 21,000 signed up for the signature track — about 1.8%