MOOCs Go Mainstream

The Washington Post’s commuter newspaper, the Washington Express, highlighted the growing presence of massive open online courses (known as MOOCs) in Washington, D.C.-area college strategy in an article entitled, “Connected Classroom” by Ambreen Ali. Here’s what they found:

• George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia, offers 25 online degree programs and plans to add 3 more in 2014 (which includes an online education master’s program and graduate certificate in geospatial intelligence). GMU  also offers several MOOCs on economics and entrepreneurship.
• Georgetown University launched a globalization course this past October.
• The University of Maryland partnered with Vanderbilt University in Tennessee to teach programming classes.
• Additionally, Google, Harvard and MIT partnered together to expand their edX MOOC platform to obtain an “open source education,” in which people might not have to go to Harvard to get a Harvard degree. Also, Google is supporting MOOC.org (launches in 2014) that offers free online courses from universities, businesses and non-profits.
• Several schools are offering online master’s programs. For example, Georgia Tech’s launched an online master’s degree in computer science.

 

Spencer Irvine is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.
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