Because I have a Coursera account (which apparently makes me a “Courserian”), I received the email below this morning about seventeen more universities joining in with Coursera. You can read the whole thing, but to me, this is starting to have the feel of the metaphorical freight train and a lot of institutions are seeing themselves on the tracks. They either have to jump on the train or get the hell out of the way.
Oh, and I could be wrong about this, but I’m willing to bet that all 33 universities associated with Coursera haven’t really had any sort of online course offerings to speak of before Coursera came knocking. So again, the “next big thing” in online teaching is being lead by institutions who haven’t done much of it. Hmmm.
More great universities. More amazing courses. Huge Coursera welcome to our 17 new partners!
Dear Courserians,
Today, we are thrilled to welcome 17 more universities — including four international schools — onto Coursera:
Berklee College of Music
Brown University
Columbia University
Emory University
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Ohio State University
University of British Columbia
University of California, Irvine
University of Florida
University of London
University of Maryland
University of Melbourne
University of Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt University
Wesleyan University
View a full list of schools and courses here.
These 17 universities will expand the course offerings even further, adding new classes in the fields of music, medicine, and humanities (among other disciplines) from renowned professors like Arnold Weinstein of Brown University and Grammy award winning Gary Burton from Berklee College of Music. We are proud of the diversity of the course offerings — from “The Science of Gastronomy” from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to “Financial Engineering and Risk Management” from Columbia University. Many of these courses are pushing the boundaries of what was thought to be possible to teach online.
Working with schools, professors, and students over the past six months has taught us that online education has an incredible power to bring people together and open up doors that might otherwise remain shut. If you haven’t already, read Laura Cushing’s first-person essay of how online courses have given her the opportunity to learn more than she ever thought was possible.
We are deeply inspired by these stories — your feedback continues to help shape the evolution of our course experience.
We’re learning along with you, and thank you for being part of this!
Happy learning!
Daphne, Andrew, and your Coursera team
:-/