Table 1 The Seven Types of Learner Prototypes Discovered by FutureLearn
1. Highlight capacity orientation in course and platform design
As early as 2017, Coursera CEO Rick Levin pointed out at EMOOCs 2017 that the majority of MOOC learners are not school students but lifelong learners who are already working and hope to pursue professional and personnel career development (Wang et al., 2018). Coursera’s survey on learning results in 2019 has once again reached the same conclusion, that is, that 87% of MOOC participants learn for career development, such as a promotion, a higher salary, or the start of a new career.
Against this background, Coursera has highlighted the orientation of capacity and industry in the design of courses and platforms in recent years, meeting lifelong learners’ needs for specialised development the greatest possible degree. In 2018, Coursera designed the “Skills Graph” function and asked teachers to add a clear ability tag to the course during the design and release. When learners click into the introduction of a course, they will see directly the skills they may obtain from learning it.
On this basis, Coursera updated the release of “Global Skills Index”8 in 2019. This index summarises the capacity ranking of different countries and regions in the three fields of business, science and technology, and data science, and puts forward specific capacity requirements for workers in different trades, such as science and technology, finance, consulting, insurance, manufacturing, and media. For example, the top scientific capacity for workers in finance is data modelling, while the top business skill for workers in scientific technology is design thinking. The role that the release of the “Global Skill Index” plays in serving lifelong learning is as follows. On the one hand, it may design and develop course products and contents which are more compliant with skill development requirements for learners according to skills graphs from the perspective of platform and course developers. On the other hand, learners can choose pertinent courses in accordance with their own field, trade, and skill requirements.