Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research---An Early edX Free Online Course

• Activity Number: 10
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 3, 2014 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Host Chapter-Boston
• Author(s): Marcello Pagano*+
• Companies: Harvard School of Public Health
• Keywords: free online courses ; biostatistics ; flipped course

Abstract

On October 15, 2012 edX, the Harvard-MIT consortium that provides free on-line courses, launched PH207x Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research. This course covered approximately the biostatistics and epidemiology curriculum usually required of MPH (Masters in Public Health) students attending the Harvard School of Public Health. With little to no advertising, the peak prevalence in the course was 55,000 students; roughly 250 years' worth of scholars who would ordinarily take the course in its brick and mortar manifestation in Boston. After the thirteen weeks it took to deliver the course, we were left with educational materials, including videos, we used this year to bolster and modify our brick and mortar courses. This talk discusses some of the lessons learned, including whether this is just the latest in the list of incremental technological breakthroughs in education (radio, tapes, TV, overheads, PowerPoint, etc.) or whether this time the educational impact is of the order of books and the free library.