Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company founded by computer science professors
Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University that offers massive open online
courses. Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses available online,
and offers courses in physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences,
mathematics, business, computer science, and other subjects. Coursera has an official mobile
app for iPhone and Android. As of April 2014, Coursera has 7.1 million users in 641 courses
from 108 institutions.
Business model The contract between Coursera and participating
universities contains a "brainstorming" list of ways to generate revenue, including verified
certification fees, introducing students to potential employers and recruiters, tutoring,
sponsorships and tuition fees. In September 2013 it announced it had earned $1 million
in revenue through verified certificates that authenticate successful course completion.
As of December 2013 the company had raised $85 million in venture capital. John Doerr
suggested that people will pay for "valuable, premium services". Any revenue stream will
be divided, with schools receiving a small percentage of revenue and 20% of gross profits.
In January 2013, Coursera announced that the American Council on Education had approved
five courses for college credit. As the journalist Steve Kolowich noted "whether colleges take
the council's advice, however, is an open question." The courses that were recommended
to degree-granting institutions for college credit are:
Algebra from the University of California, Irvine
Pre-Calculus, from the University of California, Irvine
Introduction to Genetics and Evolution from Duke University
Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach from Duke University
Calculus: Single Variable from the University of Pennsylvania
Coursera will offer proctored exams at the end of these courses through ProctorU, an
online proctoring service that connects proctors and students via webcam. The service will
cost $60–$90. Coursera reduces the cost of courses it offers
by using instant computer-based marking where appropriate, making students grade their peers'
homework in some cases where computer-based marking cannot be used, such as for poetry
composition exercises and employing statistical methods to validate the assessment.
Courses All courses offered by Coursera are "accessible
for free". The website provides courses in a variety of areas, including Humanities,
Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, and Computer Science. Each course
includes short video lectures on different topics and assignments to be submitted, usually
on a weekly basis. In most humanities and social science courses, and other assignments
where an objective standard may not be possible, a peer review system is used.
Coursera courses approximate from six to ten weeks long, with one to two hours of video
lectures a week. These courses provide quizzes, weekly exercises, and sometimes a final project
or exam. Web forums are provided for courses, and some
students also arrange face to face study meet-ups using meetup.com, or online meetups. However,
the Coursera Honor Code prohibits copying answers, therefore the discussion should not
exchange answers but should practice a healthy debate.
Educational Impact Anyone with access to the Internet has the
ability to receive a higher education, while learning at their own pace. Even in local
institutions, which lack elite professors, students can be guided and motivated by resources
provided by Coursera. Partners
Coursera started in 2012 working with Stanford University, Princeton, the University of Michigan,
and the University of Pennsylvania. 12 partners were added in July 2012 followed by 17 more
in September 2012. In February 2013, the company announced another 29 partner universities.
The current total number of partners is 108. In late October 2013, Coursera teamed up with
the US State Department to create learning hubs all over the world. In January 2014,
the State Department told Coursera to block access to its courses from Iran, Sudan and
Cuba. On June 3, 2014 Coursera says it has been
"working closely with governing authorities to navigate licences and permissions" and,
as a result, "Iranian learners will now regain access to the majority of Coursera's courses".
Keystroke biometrics Keystroke dynamics during typing is used to
check the identities of students, at the time of online test submission.
IT infrastructure Coursera runs the nginx web server on the
Linux operating system on the Amazon Web Services platform. Data is stored in Amazon S3, and
site search is handled by CloudSearch that indexes over 4.3 million documents on the
site. Each month Coursera's database servers answer 10 billion SQL queries, and Coursera
serves around 500 TB of traffic per month. Country restrictions
Coursera blocks their courses for users in Cuba, Iran and Sudan as a result of US sanctions
to those countries. In the future some courses may be available for Iranians.
See also
References
External links Official website
Official blog Coursera on Twitter
Cochrane, John H. "The Grumpy Economist: Mooconomics". Johnhcochrane.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2014-02-10.