Rebel Pirate
01-28-2013, 11:11 AM
Do you like to learn? Would you take more college courses if they were available to you without charge? Check out www.coursera.org
Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. They envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. The enterprise began in fall 2011 with four universities offering seven courses and has grown to the point where they now offer 215 courses from 33 universities (including the University of Florida) in 20 broad categories, such as computer science, social sciences, business & management.
Will I need to pay anything to take a course? No
Will I earn college credits and make progress toward a degree from one of the participating universities? No, at least not yet.
Will I get a certificate after completing the class? That varies by class; some yes, some no.
I don’t know about you, but I’m always skeptical when someone offers me a free lunch. Lunch is never free, so someone must be paying for it. I wonder who is paying for it…and why? Are “they” just expecting a deferred payment? It’s good marketing for these universities and for the professors/instructors. Perhaps they will be able to entice a few partakers of their free offerings to become paying students. Perhaps a few professors/instructors will sell a few books. But, there’s no requirement to purchase/pay anything.
Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. They envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. The enterprise began in fall 2011 with four universities offering seven courses and has grown to the point where they now offer 215 courses from 33 universities (including the University of Florida) in 20 broad categories, such as computer science, social sciences, business & management.
Will I need to pay anything to take a course? No
Will I earn college credits and make progress toward a degree from one of the participating universities? No, at least not yet.
Will I get a certificate after completing the class? That varies by class; some yes, some no.
I don’t know about you, but I’m always skeptical when someone offers me a free lunch. Lunch is never free, so someone must be paying for it. I wonder who is paying for it…and why? Are “they” just expecting a deferred payment? It’s good marketing for these universities and for the professors/instructors. Perhaps they will be able to entice a few partakers of their free offerings to become paying students. Perhaps a few professors/instructors will sell a few books. But, there’s no requirement to purchase/pay anything.