by Josie Loza, Omaha.com
Colleges have offered Web-based courses for years, but the free offerings by top-tier research universities are a milestone. They’re called MOOCs, or massive open online courses. And they could transform higher education at a time when schools are grappling with shrinking budgets and protests over soaring tuition and student debt. Suporters say the online courses can lower teaching costs, improve learning both online and on campus, and expand access to higher education. “It holds the potential for serving many, many hundreds of thousands of students in a way we simply cannot today,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education. Last month, a dozen major research universities announced they would offer MOOCs on the Coursera platform, invented by two Stanford professors. This fall Coursera will contain 116 courses from 16 universities. Enrollment so far: 900,000 students. Other schools are using edX, a competing Web portal that Harvard and MIT built. So far, students can’t earn college credit for the courses, but that hasn’t dampened demand.
http://blogs.momaha.com/2012/08/21038/
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