GLOBAL

Coursera expands slate of universities and courses

Coursera, a start-up online education company that has enrolled 1.35 million students in its free online courses since it began just five months ago, is now more than doubling – to 33 – its partners, universities that will offer classes on its platform, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.

All together, Coursera will provide more than 200 free massive open online courses, known as MOOCs. The new partners include two more Ivy League institutions, Brown University and Columbia University; a liberal arts college, Wesleyan University; specialised institutions like the Mount Sinai School of Medicine; public research universities like the University of Florida; and more international schools like the University of Melbourne, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The calibre of Coursera’s partners has given it credibility and cachet in higher education circles, so much so that some university presidents have begun to fret that it will reflect badly on them if they fail to sign on.
Full report on The New York Times site