The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Enjoyable Econometrics” of Erasmus School of Economics has reached a milestone with 10,000 enrolled learners. Creator of the online course is applied econometrician Professor Philip Hans Franses, who launched the MOOC in October 2019, after the successful publication of his book of the same title by Cambridge University Press.
Franses says: ‘You cannot predict in advance how many students eventually take interest in an open online course, but I am very pleased with this preliminary result in less than 3 years!’
An important motivation for Philip Hans Franses to make this MOOC was to emphasise that econometric models and methods can also be applied to more unconventional settings: ‘There are typically settings where the practitioner must collect its own data first. Such collection can be done by carefully combining existing databases, but also by holding surveys or running experiments. A byproduct of having to collect your own data is that this helps to choose amongst the potential methods and techniques that are around.’
Course information
The goal of the MOOC “Enjoyable Econometrics” is to show that econometric methods are often needed to answer questions. A question comes first, then data are to be collected, and then finally the model or method comes in. Depending on the data, however, it can happen that methods need to be adapted. Philip Hans Franses: ‘For example, where we first look at two variables, later we may need to look at three or more. Or, when data are missing, what then do we do? And, if the data are counts, like the number of newspaper articles citing someone, then matters may change too. But these modifications always come last and are considered only when relevant.’
Econometrics at Erasmus University Rotterdam
Another interesting MOOC on econometrics is the Coursera course “Econometrics: Methods and Applications”. It is also developed by the Econometric Institute of Erasmus School of Economics and has reached nearly 140,000 enrolled learners in less than 5 years. The Econometric Institute was founded by Henri Theil and Nobel Prize laureate Jan Tinbergen in 1956 and was the first research institute in the field of econometrics in the world. Nowadays Erasmus School of Economics is home to no less than 900 bachelor and master students in Econometrics and Operations Research.
- More information
For more information, please contact Ronald de Groot, Media & Public Relations Officer at Erasmus School of Economics: rdegroot@ese.eur.nl, mobile phone: +31 6 53 641 846.