The Future of Online Learning in Higher Education and Georgia Tech’s Online Computer Science Masters Program

In May 2013, Georgia Tech and its partners, Udacity and AT&T, announced a new Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) to be delivered as a series of massively open online courses (MOOCs). This first-of-its-kind program was launched in January 2014 and has sparked a worldwide conversation about higher education in the 21st century.

OMSCS started in 2014 with an initial enrollment of 380 students; its Spring 2022 enrollment is 12,016 students, and so far over 6,500 students have graduated from the program. OMSCS is apparently the biggest MS in CS program in the world. Starting in 2017, Georgia Tech expanded its online offerings to its undergraduate computer science students.

This talk will describe the OMSCS program, how it came about, its first eight years, and what Georgia Tech has learned from the experience. It will also discuss the speaker’s vision of the future of higher education and the role of online learning in that vision.