Business School Rankings 2020: Methodology

MoocLab's Business School Rankings by MOOC Performance 2020 are the first ever business school rankings based on the provision of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These rankings evaluate schools offering open online courses on the three leading MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn.

The Business School Rankings serve two main purposes:

• To provide performance information and comparisons to potential students across the core areas of business school MOOC activity
• To allow business schools to evaluate their MOOC performance, set strategic goals and enhance their MOOC-based offering

The results are based on the following 5 performance indicators that measure a school's MOOC performance:

• Number of MOOCs (10%)
• Number of Learning Pathways (15%)
• Number of credit-granting credentials (20%)
• Number of MOOC-based Degrees (25%)
• Teaching Quality Ranking (30%)

See MoocLab's World University Rankings by MOOC Performance 2020

Number of MOOCs (10%)

The number of MOOCs were recorded for each school offering courses across the three main MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn.

Number of Learning Pathways (15%)

Learning Pathways are course programs consisting of a series of related courses to provide learners with more in-depth learning of a particular subject or skill. Learning pathways are available on all three MOOC platforms in the form of "Specializations" on Coursera, "XSeries" on edX and "Programs" on FutureLearn. The number of Learning Pathways were recorded for each school offering these programs across the three main MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn.

Number of credit-granting credentials (20%)

Some MOOC-based programs offer the possibility to earn academic credit. The number of credit-granting programs were recorded for each school offering these programs across the three main MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn.

MOOC-based degrees (25%)

MOOC-based degrees offer a more affordable (and more flexible) alternative to on-campus degrees as well as other online degree programs. They also have the advantage of being "stackable" as they are built on MOOCs and/or MOOC-based micro-credentials. The number of MOOC-based degrees were recorded for each school offering these programs across the three main MOOC platforms - Coursera, edX and FutureLearn.

Teaching Quality Ranking (30%)

The Financial Times Executive Education open-enrolment Rankings 2019 for Teaching were used as a performance indicator for the quality of a school's teaching methods and materials. The Financial Times rankings list the world’s top 80 providers of executive education programmes across a wide range of criteria. Find out more about the Financial Times Executive Education open-enrolment Rankings 2019 here.

Exclusions

Only schools listed in the Financial Times Executive Education open-enrolment Rankings 2019, and offering open online courses on Coursera, edX or FutureLearn were included in MoocLab's Business School Rankings.

Data sources

Data relating to MOOCs and MOOC-based credentials was collected directly from the three main MOOC platforms, Coursera, edX and FutureLearn. For the Teaching Quality Ranking, ranking scores were obtained from the Financial Times Executive Education open-enrolment Rankings 2019 for Teaching.

Rank calculation

To calculate the ranks, the weighted composites of the Z-scores for the 4 individual measures were calculated (reverse coded when necessary) for each school where the weights represent relative importance of the different measures. The schoolwith the highest score was given a rank of #1.

See MoocLab's Business School Rankings by MOOC Performance 2020