MOOCs in other parts of the world

EUA has published its second Occasional Paper on the topic of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Authored by Michael Gaebel, Director of the Higher Education Policy Unit at EUA, it also looks in detail at a number of issues related to the development of MOOCs that are directly relevant for universities. The full paper can be downloaded here.
MOOCs in other parts of the world
Universities in some other parts of the world did not only join the international platforms, but can also rely on an increasing number of offers from national and regional initiatives.
In July 2013, the Chronicle reported on Schoo in Japan, the Japanese version of Coursera. Schoo is said to target Japanese young professionals with around 130 courses and a total attendance of 40,000 users. The company, which gathered US$1.5 million venture-capital, hopes to have more than a million students by the end of 2013 (Chronicle of Higher Education 05/07/2013).
China has a longstanding tradition of distance learning. The Open University of China, formerly the Radio and Television University, has an extended network of regional and local branches all over the country, providing courses, with tutorials and exams. National exams could be taken with or without course attendance.
MOOCs have been received with some curiosity as a new educational resource for both Chinese higher education institutions and the wider society, and in many respects it resembles the discussions that take place elsewhere. Students seem to have been among the first to embrace the new trend: some of the fancy international courses that have achieved high popularity in China are quoted and referred to on many different websites, and are subject to vivid discussions among students (such as the Harvard courses on Justice). Overall, participation in international MOOCs seems to be highly reputational, and it is expected that students will soon start to include their participation in MOOCs of famous universities in their CVs.
University professors seem to react with a sort of “no choice, have to participate in MOOCs” attitude, and also in anticipation of pedagogical reforms towards student-centred learning, enabled through “blended learning”. Widening access to education obviously is an important issue for China. There is some reflection on how MOOCs could enhance learning and teaching at developing universities in Western China, but also on Chinese courses that could meet the interest of learners around the world.
Leading Chinese universities have obviously decided that they cannot afford to stay away. The Shanghai Jiaotong University – initiator of the Shanghai ranking – has established a forum on MOOCs in China;50 Peking, Tsinghua, Fudan, and Shanghai Jiaotong joined edX in June and July 2013. So far, Peking has four courses on edX, and is currently launching another six courses on Coursera. According to local newspaper reports in September 2013, students enrolled at Peking University can now earn credits from the university’s own MOOCs.51 Tsinghua, after an intensive pilot phase, launched in October 2013 its own platform XuetangX,52 offering its own courses and courses from edX.
Chinese MOOCs and open courses can be found at several portals. glr.cn (www.topu.com) offers a wide range of open courses, some of them also not academic. Sohu,54 another portal for open learning offers an array of open courses provided by Chinese universities, as well as several Chinese TV and online media agencies. It also refers to courses from prestigious international universities (such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton).
Netease (http://open.163.com) is yet another portal with a wider range of courses from universities and education-related agencies. The international courses are clearly dominated by US institutions, but there is also the UK Open University, Nottingham, and HEC Paris with seven courses on business and management. Most courses have Chinese subtitles. The website enables access by personal computer and mobile phones. The offer also includes the Chinese website of the Khan Academy, in English with Chinese subtitles (http://open.163.com/khan/).
In February 2013, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan launched a “MOOCs” project aiming at including 15 universities with 100 courses.
In India the Academic Financial Trading Platform (www.academictrader.org), founded by Carnegie Mellon University professors, launched online business education courses in 2012 specifically for Indian MBA students and executives.56 Under the slogan “Education is a right, not a privilege”, Educateme360.com, a New York-based Indian start-up, offers customised online learning to Indian students. Their courses, currently still in the pilot stage, aim at fighting illiteracy and developing blended learning. They will be made available in various Indian languages. EduKart, which promotes itself as “India’s leading online education company” offers degree courses recognised by the Indian University Grant Commission (UGC) and also professional certificates. Most courses are provided by Indian higher education institutions, some by international higher education institutions. EduKart emphasises that it tailors its offer to industry needs: it provides corporate courses; supports job matching; and rates its graduates on an “EduKart Rating of Employability”.
In Africa, Africamooc (http://aelsnet.net/mooc-what-is-that/) hosted by AeLSNet (Africa eLearning Service Network) is a repository of eLearning courses and materials. The motto of its founder is: “If your online course is available for free, we will host it for free on the AeLSNet ePortal Africa.” It provides a long list of MOOC providers, and gives an overview on current and soon to start MOOCs – most of them from the big international platforms. But so far, it lists no African MOOC providers or no African MOOCs.
African Management Initiative (AMI; www.africanmanagers.org/free-online-learning-ami-developafricas- first-mooc) has been established by the Association of African Business Schools, together with the Global Business School Network and several foundations. Its website presents it as “The first Massively Open Online Course designed by Africans for Africans”: It provides a free online platform offering management courses and practical business education.
There has been talk about the World Bank funding a Coursera MOOC to provide market-relevant IT skills in Tanzania, but apart from a mention on the World Bank blog, there seems to be no further information on this initiative.
For the Arab world, the Edraak Platform, established by edX and the Jordanian Queen Rania Foundation, will offer edX courses translated into Arabic against a license fee, and also plans to “develop its own courses in Arabic taught by leading Arab faculty members and well-known professionals in a variety of fields.”
In Brazil, Veduca (www.veduca.com.br/home/index) was the first MOOC provider in Latin America, and it curates publicly available educational videos from universities like the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard and Columbia Universities, adding subtitles in Portuguese. The company also offered the first Latin America-based MOOC from the University of São Paulo (Chronicle of Higher Education, 05/07/2013).
In Australia Open2Study (www.open2study.com/) has partnerships with eight Australian universities and offers courses on topics such as nutrition, anthropology, and business (Chronicle of Higher Education, 05/07/2013). The University of Melbourne was the first Australian university to sign up to Coursera in 2012. Monash University has joined FutureLearn, but does not intend to offer credits at this stage. The University of New England launched its own free online initiative in which it offers students the option of earning credits by taking a fee-paying exam. Deakin University and La Trobe University launched free MOOCs, with the option to award credit at a fee of US$495 or US$816 respectively. Deakin sees this as an experiment in online learning and new ways of assessment, which also includes “badges” awarded by peers. Download the full paper here.