Free Lecture on Foreign Univeritas

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a free online course (online) first last spring, Ashwith Rego immediately register in order to learn from some of the world's top researchers without having to leave his home in India.

"I never imagined that I could be taught by professors from MIT, let alone for free," said 24-year-oldengineer working in Bangalore are.

From Harvard to Stanford, a growing number of elite universities are opening their digital doors to the public. They offer the most popular courses in the virtual world for free, so anyone with an Internet connection can learn from leading scholars and scientists.

Many universities have offered courses in cyberspace for years, but the participation of top-tier research university marks a major milestone in the development of digital learning.

Development of the course on the Internet of a massive (massive open online courses, MOOC) has the potential to transform higher education in a time when universities face declining budgets, rising costs and tuition fees will protest and student debt have soared.

Supporters of this system say that online courses can reduce the cost of teachers, improving the campus and learning in the virtual world, and significantly expand access to higher education, which can drive technological innovation and economic growth.

"This system has the potential to serve hundreds of thousands of students in a way that we can not do now," said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council of Education.

Last month, a dozen major research universities announced that they will begin to open up the course by means of learning called Coursera, joining Stanford University, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Parties to the University of California at Berkeley said that online courses will tersebdia this fall through EDX, Web portal, which was launched last May by Harvard University and MIT at a cost of U.S. $ 60 million from the two schools.

"I believe in the end this is going to revolutionize education," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

So far the students can not use the course to increase college credit, but it did not reduce demand.

Is EDX said that 154,000 students from more than 160 countries have signed up for the first MIT online course entitled "Circuits and Electronics" last spring. Only about 17,000 students who passed the course, but the number is still far greater than the number that can satisfy the lecture hall.

More than 120 universities have shown interest to join the consortium, said the president edx Anant Agarwal, who heads the Laboratory of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at MIT.

"Our goal is to re-create the education system," said Agarwal, who created the first MIT courses. "This will dramatically improve the quality, efficiency and scale of learning around the world and on our campuses."

So far, the online courses to attract more new workers who want to improve their skills and knowledge, but do not have the time and money to attend college.

This new generation of online course featuring interactive technology, open-enrollment, high-caliber curriculum and ability to teach tens of thousands of students at once. Parties of the universities said that the course in cyberspace equally strict on-campus courses.

The students at Harvard University, one of the creators of a learning tool on the Internet. (Photo: Reuters)

Some universities, including the University of Washington and the University of Helsinki, said they would offer college credit for courses in Coursera.

If more colleges follow their lead, daraing learning will allow more students to enter college and graduate quickly, experts said.

In addition to potential cost savings, the new generation of online course this can change how students learn on campus with the task of freeing professors to give lectures and give them more time for research and discussion with the students.

"This will transform the work of the professors," said William Tierney, higher education experts from the University of Southern California.

But there are still many questions that remain. Are the courses are rigorous enough to justify college credit? How to prevent cheating? Can the university asking for thousands of dollars in tuition if students can take classes for free in cyberspace?

Some educators say that the course is Internet can not replace the academic community and traditional on-campus learning experience.

But others warn that the MOOC has the potential to undermine the university's finances, as well as free content on the Internet has threatened newspapers, magazines, and other industries.

If students can get a high quality academic content for free, the university will be forced to demonstrate the educational value they offer in addition to lectures and exams.

"I think we can not ignore this," said Tierney. "People think what happened to the newspaper industry is not going to happen in the world academia."

Once up and growing, many courses can almost take care of itself. They generally show a short video contains a lecture followed by a quiz that tests students on the concepts they have just learned. Most of the math and science exams can be judged by the computer, while the humanitiescourse participants evaluate each assignment papers each.

The courses are run by the schedule ranges from a few weeks to several months, so the students can form discussion groups and help each other with homework.

"There is a very active student community on the Internet," said George Skelly, a lawyer from Boston who took electronics courses MIT this spring. "I like having thousands of assistant professors who are ready at any time."

This year, some facilities appeared on the Internet and attract elite universities who are eager to develop their digital learning program.

Coursera created by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, two professors from Stanford who started creating these facilities after teaching computer science courses on the Internet that attract more than 100,000 students last fall.

Last fall this time, Coursera will offer 116 courses from 16 universities for disciplines such as medicine, philosophy and artificial intelligence. So far, about 900,000 students have signed up.

The Mountain View-based startup has raised $ 16 million from venture capital firms of Silicon Valley and $ 3.7 million from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.

Although Coursera is an attempt to make a profit, the company is committed to continuing to deliver the courses for free, says Ng.

"If a child can not study in India, it is a tragedy. If universities like Princeton to teach millions of students, I think the world would be a better place, "said Ng.

Coursera are looking for ways to bring in revenue, including asking students to pay the certificate and request payment from the companies who are looking for the best students.

Faced with a shortage of human resources in the fields of engineering, many technology companies have requested introduced to students who successfully complete their online courses, says Ng. Some students told her that they get a new job after showing Coursera certificate to the company.

Georgia Institute of Technology plans to open five courses in Coursera this fall, says Richard DeMillo, a computer science professor who heads the Center for 21st Century Universities.

"We're in the midst of experiments that have the potential to make a breakthrough," says DeMillo. "Things are very large may be generated by it." (AP / Terence Chea)