  Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are seen as a next step in distance online
learning. In the MOOC vision, large numbers of students can access the course
content over the Internet and complete courses at their own pace while
interacting with their peers and instructors online. Despite the initial
enthusiasm about MOOCs, large number of students were observed dropping out of
the online courses. In this paper, we pinpoint the reasons behind the high
student dropout rate and discuss how the interaction capabilities of MOOCs
contributed towards the low completion rate.

Computers and Society