Top campuses jump into the free online course game

Twelve universities follow elite institutions down the MOOC path

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor
Read more by Denny Carter

Two universities gave millions to Coursera this week.

A dozen of the country’s top universities will make courses available for free on the open online class site Coursera by the beginning of 2013. The announcement was made on that same day that investors — including two campuses — invested millions in the web-based learning site.

By January, Coursera officials expect the site to offer 100 free courses in the arts, computer sciences, health, mathematics, history, literature, and other disciplines. All courses will be free for any individual with a computer and internet connection to enroll.

Coursera was founded in the fall of 2011 by Stanford Computer Science Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, and in April 2012 announced that Princeton, University of Michigan, Stanford and Penn were entering into agreement with Coursera to bring course content online for free.

Coursera has seen more than 680,000 students from 190 countries and more than 1.6 million course enrollments across its 43 courses.

Read the full story on eCampus News