Eleven of some of the best UK universities are partnering with the Open University to launch free internet courses, in a bid to catch up with rival US programmes Coursera, edX & Udacity King's College London, along with the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick have partnered with "FutureLearn", a company set up by the Open University that will offer free, non-credit bearing courses to internet-users around the world.
The courses are structured along the lines of the American 'massive open online courses' (Moocs), which have attracted millions of users across the globe, and are especially popular in emerging economies - a key market place for UK universities.
Futurelearn will be independent but majorly owned by the OU. It will collate a range of free, open, online courses from the leading UK universities, that will be clear, simple to use and accessible. It will utilise the OU's expertise and experience in delivering distance learning. This would effectively increase the accessibility to higher education (HE) for students across the UK and in the rest of the world.
"The Open University (OU) has decades of experience in world-class distance learning - each year we teach around 2,50,000 registered students, with literally millions of others accessing our free, informal, online offerings. Futurelearn will work with some of Britain's best-known universities to write the next chapter in the story of British higher education", Prof Martin Bean, vice-chancellor of the Open University told IndiaEducation.net.
According to David Willetts who is the Minister for Universities and Science responsible for higher education in England, the UK must be at the forefront of developments in education technology. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) present an opportunity to widen access to and meet the global demand for higher education. This is growing rapidly in emerging economies like Brazil, India and China.
The UK higher education industry, which is worth �14 billion, stands in the top five export earners for Britain.
"There has been rapid and widespread growth in open online courses but until now UK universities have only had the option of working with US-based platforms. Futurelearn will aim to bring together the leading UK universities to create a combined and coherent offer for students in the UK and internationally. I look forward to using the OU's proud history of innovation and academic excellence to create something the UK will be proud of and the world will want to be a part of", said Simon Nelson who is heading FutureLearn as the "Launch CEO".
Moocs have grown rapidly in the US over the past year, with two providers leading the field:
� Coursera offers courses from 33 universities, including Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Duke and has reached more than 1.7 million users.
� EdX, a non profit start-up from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has 370,000 students enrolled on online courses this autumn.
� "Udacity" is yet another such venture which was launched in Feb 2012 and offers 15 courses and already has 4 lakh users.
The courses are structured along the lines of the American 'massive open online courses' (Moocs), which have attracted millions of users across the globe, and are especially popular in emerging economies - a key market place for UK universities.
Futurelearn will be independent but majorly owned by the OU. It will collate a range of free, open, online courses from the leading UK universities, that will be clear, simple to use and accessible. It will utilise the OU's expertise and experience in delivering distance learning. This would effectively increase the accessibility to higher education (HE) for students across the UK and in the rest of the world.
"The Open University (OU) has decades of experience in world-class distance learning - each year we teach around 2,50,000 registered students, with literally millions of others accessing our free, informal, online offerings. Futurelearn will work with some of Britain's best-known universities to write the next chapter in the story of British higher education", Prof Martin Bean, vice-chancellor of the Open University told IndiaEducation.net.
According to David Willetts who is the Minister for Universities and Science responsible for higher education in England, the UK must be at the forefront of developments in education technology. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) present an opportunity to widen access to and meet the global demand for higher education. This is growing rapidly in emerging economies like Brazil, India and China.
The UK higher education industry, which is worth �14 billion, stands in the top five export earners for Britain.
"There has been rapid and widespread growth in open online courses but until now UK universities have only had the option of working with US-based platforms. Futurelearn will aim to bring together the leading UK universities to create a combined and coherent offer for students in the UK and internationally. I look forward to using the OU's proud history of innovation and academic excellence to create something the UK will be proud of and the world will want to be a part of", said Simon Nelson who is heading FutureLearn as the "Launch CEO".
Moocs have grown rapidly in the US over the past year, with two providers leading the field:
� Coursera offers courses from 33 universities, including Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Duke and has reached more than 1.7 million users.
� EdX, a non profit start-up from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has 370,000 students enrolled on online courses this autumn.
� "Udacity" is yet another such venture which was launched in Feb 2012 and offers 15 courses and already has 4 lakh users.
