Completion rate
The share of enrolled students who finish a course. It is the honest measure of whether a course works, and it is usually far lower than course pages imply.
Published self-paced courses commonly see single-digit or low-double-digit completion. Cohorts with live sessions do better, because a scheduled hour with other people is a commitment in a way that a video library is not.
It is worth measuring per course rather than as a platform average: one badly-paced module usually explains most of the drop-off, and the fix is a content fix, not a marketing one.
For example
200 students enrol, 34 reach the last lesson: a 17% completion rate, which is ordinary for self-paced online courses and nothing to be ashamed of. The number worth watching is where they stop — if 120 of the 166 who quit did so inside Module 2, the problem is Module 2, not motivation.
On Prolaud
Completion is computed from lesson progress on the enrolment record, alongside attendance and assignment results on the same student.
Related terms
- Student record — Everything an academy knows about one learner in one place: enrolments, payments, attendance, submissions, results and credentials.
- Cohort-based course — A course taught to a group who start and finish together on a fixed schedule, usually with live sessions, rather than a recording each student works through alone whenever they like.
- Drip content — Releasing a course's lessons on a schedule instead of all at once — for example one module a week after enrolment, or on fixed calendar dates for a cohort.