Why is grading work from large numbers of MOOC students difficult?

Grading work in MOOCs is inherently difficult due to the massive scale of enrollment, which often reaches tens of thousands of students per course. This volume makes traditional, instructor-led assessment logistically impossible.12

To address this challenge, providers have adopted several strategies:

• Automated Grading: Most courses utilize assignments that can be marked automatically by computers. While this is effective for many science-based subjects, it remains a significant limitation for arts and humanities disciplines where subjective evaluation is required.1
• Peer Learning and Assessment: To manage the lack of human instructors for grading, many courses employ peer-based strategies where students evaluate and comment on each other's work.12

Critics often point to this reliance on automated or peer grading as a potential weakness in the model, raising concerns regarding the quality control of education and the lack of professional feedback.1