Case Study: Fanshawe College boosts MOOC retention and global enrollment with D2L Brightspace

To set itself apart, a community college creates a different kind of MOOC

Fanshawe College, a Canadian community college, launched the Applied Sustainability MOOC to differentiate its offering from university-led courses and to attract and retain learners despite lacking marquee professors or credentialed credit. The challenge was to showcase the college’s practical, applied approach while competing in a crowded MOOC market and overcoming typical low completion rates.

Using Brightspace Open Courses, Fanshawe gamified the course with LEED-inspired levels (green/silver/gold/platinum), gave learners choice, and replaced the traditional professor with an on‑site “explorer” to engage students. The approach—supported by personalization tools like Intelligent Agents and conditional releases—drew 538 students from 17 countries in the first cohort and achieved 17.5% completion (rising to 22% in cohort two), more than double the typical MOOC completion rate of about 6.8%.

Fanshawe College

Ryan Walmsley

MOOC Co-administrator