4/17/2013
Written by
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of 12 top universities joining the open, online course company called Coursera to offer web-based courses for free. The partnership puts Illinois, and the Department of Computer Science, at the leading edge of the massive open online course movement.
Among the eight courses initially being offered by Illinois through Coursera, three are from Department of Computer Science faculty and affiliate professors, covering topics like programming Android applications using Java, parallel programming using CUDA and MPI, and building computer-aided VLSI chip design tools. All courses are free to enroll for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection.
Senior Lecturer Lawrence Angrave, who is teaching the course on Android applications, is excited about the reach of this new effort. “To solve the problems of today and tomorrow, we need more people who can be technically creative,” said Angrave. “This is an incredible opportunity to give thousands of people a programming lab on their laptops, and to introduce the next generation to computer science.”
“This is an exciting opportunity to project the university’s and the department’s knowledge and excellence to the world,” said Rob A. Rutenbar, computer science department Head and Abel Bliss Professor. “These courses mean we can reach a new—and growing—group of lifelong learners.”
As the first land grant institution partnered with Coursera, Illinois expects to be able to offer a diverse set of courses. For example, Illinois’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will initially offer classes in organic chemistry, microeconomics, sustainability, and earth science. The online format gives instructors wide flexibility in the content, style, timing, and length of their courses. Short, focused courses may last only 4 weeks, while more comprehensive courses may go as long as 7 to 10 weeks.
Coursera was founded in the fall of 2011 by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. It partners with top universities to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Coursera has seen over 680,000 students from 190 countries and more than 1.55 million course enrollments across its 43 courses.
Illinois’s courses are expected to start in the fall. For more information on the university’s offerings, see: http://www.coursera.org/illinois.
Other universities who have recently signed agreements with Coursera include the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Georgia Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, University of California – San Francisco, University of Edinburgh, University of Toronto, University of Virginia, and University of Washington. Princeton, University of Michigan, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania joined earlier in 2012.