By Katherine Forestier. Massive open online courses are seen as a game-changer in education. But they worry the establishment, even as more universities rush to introduce them, writes Katherine Forestier.
The numbers, at least, are massive. One million users signed up to 16 University of Pennsylvania online courses; about 83,000 for the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's course "The science of gastronomy" and 23,000 for Chinese University's "The role of renminbi in the international monetary system".
No lecturer could ever imagine reaching out to so many students, unless they double as a television star like Manchester University's physicist Brian Cox. Massive open online courses, or Moocs, are being heralded as a game-changer in higher education by the likes of Simon Marginson, the Australian higher education guru now based at the Institute of Education in London, or as a tsunami sweeping through the sector, by Li Fei, vice-president at Wuhan University. More...

By Sarah Elzas. France's higher education system is going online with an extra eight million euros being invested in Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs).
France's Minister for Higher Education, Geneviève Fioraso announced the new funding on Tuesday in addition to 12 million euros already planned to develop these online courses.
The first eight French Moocs start Thursday, via the French platform called France Université Numérique (Fun).
Some 88,000 people had already signed up for the 25 courses that are due to start this year. More...

Presenters; Steve Gilbert, Beth Dailey, and John Sener
Description
Get across the starting line! Seven Futures of American Education (7F) is designed to help those who work in higher education (faculty, administrators, other professional staff) increase their ability to create positive educational change by using the ideas in Seven Futures.
Perspectives -- This schMOOC will present the Seven Futures perspective on improving educational quality. Participants will discuss these perspectives and compare them with their own personal perspectives. Participants will also identify where they stand on committing to quality improvement, and identify one or more issues they face in trying to improve educational quality.
Strategies -- 7F will present and discuss a wide array of strategies for re-empowering learning and teaching, revitalizing the educational enterprise, and using online learning to improve education. Participants will select one or more quality improvement strategies that address their self-identified issues, based on a combination of Seven Futures and personal perspectives. More...

L'enseignement en ligne prend un virage décisif, ce 16 janvier. C'est à cette date que débuteront les premiers MOOC de la plateforme France Université Numérique (FUN). 
Le coup d'envoi s'apprête à être donné du côté de France Université Numérique (FUN) ! C'est en effet le 16 janvier que commenceront véritablement les tout premiers MOOC proposés sur la plateforme FUN, annoncée en octobre dernier par la ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, Geneviève Fioraso. Suite...

A team from UC San Diego is launching a new course on the Coursera online learning network that breaks ground on several fronts. In “Bioinformatics Algorithms – Part 1,” UC San Diego computer science and engineering professor Pavel Pevzner and his graduate students are offering a course that incorporates a substantial research component for the first time.
“To our knowledge, this is the first major online course that prominently features massive open online research, or MOOR, rather than just regular coursework” said Pevzner. “All students who sign up for the course will be given an opportunity to work on specific research projects under the leadership of prominent bioinformatics scientists from different countries, who have agreed to interact and mentor their respective teams.”
“What sets us apart is combining research with a MOOC,” said Ph.D. student Phillip Compeau, who helped develop the online course. “The natural progression of education is for people to make a transition from learning to research, which is a huge jump for many students, and essentially impossible for students in isolated areas. By integrating the research with an interactive text and a MOOC, it creates a pipeline to streamline this transition.”
Bioinformatics Algorithms (Part I) will run for eight weeks starting October 21, and students are now able to sign up and download some of the course materials on Coursera. More...