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Massive Open Online Courses, a Global Learning Revolution: First Finance Institute Launches New Courses for Today's Business People

First Finance Institute
2014-02-10 15:55 2974

HONG KONG, Feb. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Building on the success of its groundbreaking Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Financial Analysis, First Finance announces three major initiatives:

  • A multi- expert, multi-lingual international online learning portal: firstbusinessmooc.org,
  • The first ever MOOC taught by a Harvard Business School professor (Financial Analysis MOOC by Marc Bertoneche)
  • The Wall Street MOOC, led by Stephen Weiss, American financier, renowned author of the bestseller 'The Billion Dollar Mistake' and a regular CNBC contributor.

First Finance's initial MOOC in financial analysis ended on December 8th, 2013.  Developed by First Finance in partnership with Pascal Quiry, an HEC-Paris professor and seasoned Corporate Finance practitioner, the MOOC reached an incredibly wide audience from diverse backgrounds.

Attendance levels largely above the sector's average, very high levels of satisfaction, completion, and conversion rates for the Corporate Finance Foundations® (CFF® Certificate)

The fact that more than 10,000 participants from thirty countries took part to the French language MOOC on Financial Analysis is a testament of success. The course participants were mainly working corporate professionals (54%) and students (29%), followed by out-of-work individual (12%) and teachers (5%).

For Eric Chardoillet, President and Founder of First Finance, the high level of education of participants and the predominant presence of professionals working in the financial or corporate sectors bear witness to the quality of the educational content of the MOOC, as well as to the relevance of this training format:

"The results are very positive. We have been able to attract a wide, diverse audience of students. This is a very challenging and demanding public, adept at cutting-edge digital solutions. We had to design an innovative and compelling training product and that's what we did."

The success of the initial First Finance MOOC is not just shown in the number of participants but also in key performance indicators. For example, the satisfaction rates for participants were very high with post-training surveys showing that 98 % of the participants were satisfied with the MOOC and 88% appreciated the accessibility of the instructional team. More than 90% said they are willing to participate in another FIRST FINANCE MOOC.  In addition, nearly 30% of registered participants completed the entire course compared with an average 4% on international MOOC platforms like Coursera (according to a recent study from the Graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/ahead/perna_ruby_boruch_moocs_dec2013.pdf).

"Our students have found our solution innovative and very didactic. They appreciated the highly operational approach of the course taught by Pascal Quiry and the range of educational tools that we have implemented: video content, case studies and common thread, weekly quizzes, discussion forums, chat with supervising team and live sessions and meet-ups. This validates our strategy of continuous investment in instructional design."

Many registrations to the attestation of achievement

Another great achievement of this MOOC was the degree to which students chose to have their participation formally recognized.  Almost 7% of course participants pursued the online attestation track which was the first level of validation (versus an estimated industry average of 1%). In addition, another 400 participants registered to take the CFF®: Certificate in Corporate Finance Foundations®.

This is a dynamic ratio that shows the synergies between online training and certification. The potential developments for FIRST FINANCE, which is offering certificates in Capital Markets and Corporate Finance, are of major importance.

Ongoing success has motivated FIRST FINANCE to launch Firstbusinessmooc.org, an international multi-expert platform that will host MOOCs in Finance and other areas of management.

The success of this first edition led First Finance to structure its catalogue by launching the firstbusinessmooc.org platform: a multi-expert, multi-lingual portal that hosts a series of professional MOOCs (especially in finance, but also in other areas of management).

An extensive range targeting a large audience of professionals and students

This new MOOC offer is positioned to complement the range of more standard training and coaching solutions at the heart of FIRST FINANCE business. A key differentiator is that, unlike many platforms offering academic or theoretical MOOCs, FIRST FINANCE MOOCs are designed by expert practitioners who are among the best in their fields. They are made for professionals and give right to a certificate.

Eric Chardoillet ambition is to become the international reference for professional MOOCs in the field of finance and a key player for more generic MOOCs in business management.

"Our first MOOC is a success that encourages us to go further. Firstbusinessmooc.org, our platform, will enable us to expand our offering and to provide advanced international trainings in financial markets and corporate finance, but also more broadly in management. We hope to have trained 120,000 people by the end of 2014."

To support this new ambition, the firstbusinessmooc.org portal will be supported by a state-of-the-art technical infrastructure (customized CANVAS instances, live sessions supported and produced by SPREECAST).

The registrations to two new MOOCs are already open

In order to offer the best educational approach and tailored programs, FIRST FINANCE is partnering with internationally recognized experts for its next two MOOCs, launching in February. Their goals: to continue the internationalization of FIRST FINANCE and recruit 40,000 participants globally. Registrations are open:

First Finance will launch another 10 MOOCs by the end of 2014.

Source: First Finance Institute
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