A quote from The Economist (Higher education: The attack of the MOOCs):
The new money should allow Coursera to build on any advantage it has from being a first mover among a rapidly growing number of MOOC providers.
I'd like to know, would it be OK to change it to
The new money should allow Coursera to build on any advantage it has from being a first mover among the rapidly growing number of MOOC providers.
P.S. Does the indefinite article before "first mover" indicate that Coursera is "one of the first movers", but not the very first?
the number of MOOC providers
is 10. It refers to the number, not the (group of) providers. A number = many, not specifying how many (1,2,3,...) providers there are.