<p>U.Va</a>. Enters Agreement To Distribute Courses Online</p>
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Through a partnership with online-learning pioneer Coursera, four U.Va. courses soon will be available worldwide, at no cost, to anyone with a computer and Internet connection. The "massive open online courses," or MOOCs, offer coursework from the world's best universities while strengthening brands and broadening outreach.
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<p>This is very innocuous. Some of the most respected Universities in the country are providing some free courses on-line, without any credit attached to them. UVa has chosen a few of its most popular courses for this program. It will help to attract some more international attention to the U., without watering down anything.</p>
<p>I agree totally Charlie. I wasn’t trying to cause alarm, quite the opposite, which is why I included the quote in case people didn’t read the article.</p>
<p>UVA Professor David Evans (Computer Science) is part of the leadership team for another startup in this space, Udacity (udacity.com). Another professor and some UVA students are also involved.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how this plays out, not just wrt Virginia, but with all schools. Everyone knows that something needs to ‘give’ --the old higher-ed models aren’t working so well in today’s society. But a lot of us (myself included) aren’t sure exactly what change is best.</p>
<p>do you guys think this will be instrumental at all in terms of the finances of uva?</p>
<p>I think it will almost certainly be of no financial benefit in the near term. There is no revenue associated with Coursera, as everything is free so far. The funding is from venture capital and presumably some work provided by the partner universities. It’s unclear what the business model will be, at least until (and if) the partnership provides courses for credit. At that point, what will the courses cost? This gives some positive buzz to the schools involved and may be a great experiment, in which it is good to have UVA participate.</p>
<p>I just attended a conference where the MOOCs were a topic of conversation. One person (who I feel comfortable giving the label “expert”), said that all of the MOOCs have plans to monetize. </p>
<p>I’m not privy to the particulars, of course.</p>
<p>Also, regarding online learning efforts at the university…</p>
<p>[Faculty</a> Senate Panel Reports on U.Va. Online Learning Initiatives](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=19131]Faculty”>http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=19131)</p>
<p>Apparently some other universities are involved with selling “certificate” programs to persons who complete some online courses, without giving out official college credit. Those certificates may be issued by a third party corporation, which charges for it.</p>
<p>Monetizing wouldn’t surprise me a bit. It’s hard to do things for free.</p>