Actually, the project of free online courses from Stanford University started in the fall of 2011 from the courses Machine learning (ml-class.org) , Artificial intelligence (ai-class.com) and Introduction to Database (db-class.org) . ')
Here on Habré wrote about the analysis of the number of students of the course ai-class.com by the number of views on youtube. Then they agreed on the opinion that youtube badly considers the views of the embedded player and real listeners are several times more than the views. Those. It’s impossible to measure the real number of listeners, but you can measure the dynamics of the departure of listeners, for example, by comparing the number of views of these and these videos on youtube.
For myself, I can say that I have recorded on this semester at ml-class.org and ai-class.com. I left the first course after the 3rd lecture, the desire of Andrew Ng to tell so that it was clear even to those who did not learn linear algebra and differential equations, in my opinion spoiled the course, and I already listened to very similar things in the SAD . I finished the second course until the end the other day I will write the final exam.