POTSDAM, Germany, August 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

The typical participant in free, open online information technology courses is between 30 and 40 years old, male and has worked for more than ten years in a technical profession with a high IT content. This first structural analysis of the so-called Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs) has been undertaken by the German Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) one year after the launch of its interactive Internet learning platform http://www.openHPI.de. The number of interested online learners worldwide is now around 50,000, said institute director Prof. Christoph Meinel.

Of all the active participants in the past twelve months more than half have successfully earned a certificate upon completion of a course. The openHPI team considers active users those registered participants who do the homework and take part in discussion forums. Every third participant belongs to this group. Meinel reports that "if the total number of those who signed up for our courses is taken into account, then we see an average of 17 percent earning a certificate at the end of a course." American providers, on the other hand, report their course completion rate to be in the single digit percentage range, said the HPI director.

The openHPI team recorded an average of 2,900 discussion posts per course. "These discussions are in a sense the heart of our courses and make them into a unique learning experience," said Meinel. Parallel to the high activity of openHPI users is the low dropout rate. 75 percent of those who submit homework in the first week of the six-week course remain active members up to the final exam. Meanwhile, there are openHPI users on every continent and in 114 countries around the world.

Press contact: presse@hpi.uni-potsdam.de, Spokesman Hans-Joachim Allgaier, Tel. +49-331-5509-119.

SOURCE HPI Hasso-Plattner-Institut