UCSD has announced it will soon start offering free online courses beginning later this year. UCSD joins 29 other schools in partnering with Coursera, an educational program that offers free online courses to the public in conjunction with universities worldwide.
After launching in April 2012, almost 2.8 million users have participated in Coursera’s online education program, with roughly 1.45 million course enrollments every month. Coursera has recently signed participation contracts with universities such as UC Santa Cruz, Northwestern University, Penn State University, University of Tokyo and University of Geneva. A total of 62 institutions now offer massive open online courses, or MOOCs, using Coursera.
Courses in Chinese, Spanish, French and Italian are the newest subject additions to the Coursera program and will be offered by select universities.
“One of our top priorities is to reach the people who need education the most, including those who would not otherwise have access to the type of courses offered by the institutions that we have the honor of working with,” Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller said.
Coursera is open to the public and requires only an Internet connection to enroll. No state money is spent on Coursera and faculty members teach the courses on their own time. Coursera currently does not offer course credit to students.
“Coursera’s primary goal is to provide access to information,” Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Barbara Sawrey said. “Their business model is not driven by awarding credit or collecting money.”
Late last year, the American Council on Education began reviewing several Coursera courses to count toward transfer credit for college degree programs. Coursera currently offers verified certificates in select classes for a fee.
The Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences will offer UCSD’s first Coursera course beginning April 19. UCSD professor Williams Ettouati will teach the nine-week course, Drug Discovery, Development and Commercialization. The course will consist of a three-to-four-hour weekly workload, and upon completion, students will receive a Statement of Accomplishment.
A six-week course called Bioinformatics Algorithms, which will be taught by Dr. Pavel Pevzner and Ph.D. candidate Phillip E. C. Compeau, is expected for a future date.
Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Sammy Chang says that UCSD’s involvement in Coursera will be a good way for students to be involved in online education.
“At this point, I think it should be a really good discussion within the UCSD community — the undergraduate community as well as the professors and the academic senate — to exactly understand what the goal and what the role of online education should be,” Chang said. “I think right now for UCSD, it’s a wait-and-see moment, to see if this Coursera can really work, or not.”
