Mighty MOOC: online nutrition course becomes a surprise success.

Negrea, Sherrie

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When Cornell and UNICEF jointly developed a free online program on infant and young child nutrition in 2012, instructors expected about 200 people to enroll during the first year.

Instead, more than 5,500 UNICEF, governmental, and nongovernmental workers around the world registered.

Not only did enrollment surge, but 32 percent of students have finished the training, far exceeding the 2-10 percent completion rate for massive open online courses (MOOCs).

"I think the course is meeting a need," says Christina Stark, senior extension associate in nutritional sciences and program leader of Cornell NutritionWorks, a website for nutrition professionals that hosts the course. "And I think there is a strong desire for training in this area for the audience we are trying to reach."

The idea came from Mandana Arabi, PhD '07, who was working for UNICEF at the time and wanted to create a cost-effective, online course for staff and collaborators. So far, nutritionists and other health professionals from 170 countries have taken the classes, including Leela Ramesh, a volunteer for the Art of Living Foundation, a nongovernmental organization in Bangalore, India.

"As child malnutrition is a matter of great concern, and as healthy children are the best architects of a future India, I would like to help to combat it and to build a better and healthier India," says Ramesh, who is using what she learned in the course to launch a nutrition awareness program in her region.

Cornell nutritional sciences professors Kathleen Rasmussen, Rebecca Stoltzfus, and Jean-Pierre Habicht offer recorded lectures for units on infant and young child feeding, while UNICEF staff and other international experts deliver the rest.

Unlike other MOOCs, the course offers rolling enrollment and does not require a facilitator. Whenever students register for the course, they have three months to complete it.

In a study on the course published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics last August, Stark and co-author Jamie Pope of Vanderbilt University write that online courses are a "cost-effective and convenient way to provide high-quality continuing professional education, particularly for those in low- and middle-income countries."

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Now in its third year, the course is being revised to include more information on maternal nutrition and the monitoring of infant and young child feeding programs. Additionally, the course's success has spurred a follow-up training. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Stark and Stoltzfus, director of Cornell's Program in Global Health, are planning a similar course for community health and development staff in Tanzania.

Joining with educators at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College and Sokoine University of Agriculture and other Tanzanian partners, Cornell will be preparing the course units and recording lectures in English and Swahili. The course is expected to debut in early 2016.