by Timna Jacks, Syndney Morning Herald
Oscar Cooke-Abbott is halfway through an undergraduate course in Physics at elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oh, and he’s 16. He is one of an estimated 2000 school students in Australia studying courses at the world’s top universities for free, through an online platform called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Oscar and his friends believe the platform is “the future of the classroom”. And the Australian tertiary sector appears to agree. Universities are now exploring options to give students like Oscar credit for their hard work. Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington is lobbying Australia’s state-based school assessment authorities to accredit the university’s Astrophysics MOOC, taught by Nobel Laureate and Vice Chancellor-to-be Brian Schmidt.
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