E-Learning | News
Schools Jump onto Free Online Course Service but Hedge on Certification
Coursera's on a growing streak. The number of new institutions of higher education to sign onto the free online course site has more than doubled, bringing the total count of colleges and universities participating to 33 from 16. Among the new schools participating: Berklee College of Music, Columbia University, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, and Wesleyan.
Each participating institution contracts with the company to provide classes taught by members of their faculty. With the new additions, Coursera now hosts more than 200 courses from 33 domestic and international universities and reaches 1.3 million students, or "Courserians," as they're called, around the world.
Students can sign up for free to gain access to online video lectures and interactive activities, such as discussion forums. The initiative has also sparked creation of in-person meetups in 600 cities, according to the company. The classes, which also include required reading, assignments, and quizzes, last a set number of weeks and in many cases earn a certificate at the end for those who successfully complete the requirements.
One new participant is the University of California Irvine, which has added seven courses and is already involved in a Coursera-like initiative run by the OpenCourseWare Consortium, but without the interactive components that Coursera provides. UCI also offers educational materials on iTunes U, YouTube, Connexions, California State University-managed MERLOT, and other repositories.
So making the decision to join Coursera wasn't a big leap, according to Gary Matkin, dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning, and Summer Session, and Larry Cooperman, director of UCI's OpenCourseWare. "It's another channel, another way of getting our stuff out there," notes Matkin.
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