UNC will offer 4 MOOCs in fall

Starting this fall, students in any country across the world can log onto a computer and enroll in a lecture taught by a UNC professor — at no cost.

The University announced today it will offer four MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses — this fall that cover several disciplines. The courses are offered for free worldwide for anyone with an internet connection.

UNC joins 29 additional universities that will offer courses operated by Coursera, an online educational platform, according to a press release from the company. Coursera already offers courses sponsored by 33 universities worldwide.

“Partnering with Coursera represents one more way we can make Carolina and the high quality of our teaching of our faculty accessible to online learners,” Chancellor Holden Thorp said in a statement.

The University formed a MOOC task force in the fall to review 10 proposals that were submitted by faculty interested in teaching courses.

Carol Tresolini, vice provost for academic initiatives and chairwoman of the task force, said though only four proposals have been approved to become MOOCs, the other six might eventually be approved if the resources are available.

“The foremost purpose is to extend the intellectual resources of the University to the public. In this case it’s to a worldwide public,” Tresolini said.

She added that the cost of providing the MOOCs has not been determined.

“The availability of MOOCs just has us all thinking very hard about what this means for higher education,” Tresolini said, adding that accessibility is a central goal to the program.

“As a public university, this is something we’re very interested in,” she said.

Jeff Pomerantz, an associate professor in the School of Information and Library Sciences, who will be teaching a course, said the large volume of students eligible to enroll in courses — which could be hundreds of thousands of people— poses a unique challenge.

“Those things change the dynamic between the instructor and students and between institutions and students,” he said.

Pomerantz added that he is thrilled to be involved with MOOCs, and he finds it to be an exciting experiment.

Evan Feldman, an assistant professor in the music department, who will also be teaching a course, said he submitted a proposal to the task force because he had already been developing projects similar to the program.

“The real reaction was the excitement of being able to work on these projects we’ve been thinking about and the daunting realization that it’s a lot of work to develop the class,” Feldman said.

He added that while he believes traditional education will remain, the newest technical innovations have always existed at the forefront of education.

“UNC knows that online learning and distance learning is something that is becoming more vital to a campus community,” Feldman said.

“We can reach a larger audience to fulfill our mission.”

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