AI Case Study
Coursera launches employee learning and skill gap assessment tool for businesses using machine learning
Coursera has introduced a feature which allows its corporate customers to determine how their employees are doing with online learning courses as well as identify skill gaps compared with other companies. This is done using machine learning and provides companies with metrics for their employees' skill gains while giving them the opportunity to recommend training modules.
Industry
Public And Social Sector
Education And Academia
Project Overview
Coursera has introduced a new feature for its business customers which "lets companies that subscribe to its training programs see which of their employees are earning top scores in Coursera classes; how their employees’ skills measure up to their competitors’; and what courses would help fill any knowledge gaps. Companies will be able to access the tool, which uses machine learning to derive insights, in the online dashboard of their Coursera profiles later this year... the team incorporated a psychometrics methodology called item response theory (IRT) into some of its machine-learning models to gauge learners’ abilities based on how they performed on Coursera quizzes and assignments. The approach allowed the team to measure proficiency in a given skill area across learners who were answering different questions of varying difficulty... That’s important because a more advanced learner will, on average, take harder courses on Coursera and attempt harder questions than a beginner. The IRT model accounts for that by figuring out what skill a particular quiz question is assessing and the relative difficulty of that quiz question before evaluating a learner’s proficiency. 'What you get is a percentile for your employees in each skill area, relative to whatever comparison group you choose, whether that’s all the companies on Coursera or just companies in your industry or your country or companies of a similar size'".
Reported Results
Newly announced; results not yet available
Technology
"Coursera says machine learning enables it to examine how its millions of learners are performing across its platform and provide predictive insights, such as a given learner’s skill level, along with more standard student metrics. In theory, these machine-learning models should also get smarter as learners and instructors create more data that can be fed back into the system."
Function
Human Resources
Training And Career Development
Background
"Here’s the conundrum with corporate online learning: there are so many classes available from sites like Coursera, edX, and Udacity that companies don’t know what content to offer their employees. And once companies do choose a learning program, it’s tough for them to figure out what skills their employees pick up and to what degree they’ve mastered them. They need an objective metric to evaluate proficiency."
Benefits
Data
User performance such as course completion and quiz scores.