Who downloads online content and why?

Online learners sometimes prefer to download course content rather than view it on a course website. These students often miss out on interactive content. Knowing who downloads course materials, and why, can help course creators design courses that fit the needs of their students. In this paper we explore downloading behavior by looking at lecture videos in three online classes. We found that the number of days since a video was posted had the strongest relationship with downloading, and non-technical considerations, such as typical classroom size in a student's home country, matter more than technical issues, such as internet speed. Our findings suggest that more materials will be downloaded when a course will be available for limited time, students are less familiar with the language of instruction, students are used to classrooms with a high student-teacher ratio, or a student's internet speed is slow. Possible reasons for these relationships are discussed.