180 MOOCs to Start the New Year (Is This the Crest of the Wave?)

Once the MOOC “rev­o­lu­tion” got under­way, uni­ver­si­ties, usu­al­ly slow-mov­ing and tight-fist­ed insti­tu­tions, could­n’t run fast enough to put their own MOOCs online. And, right now, we’re see­ing the results. In Jan­u­ary alone, 180 MOOCs from major inter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ties, will get under­way. Below we’ve high­light­ed some of the cours­es that intrigued us most, but you can peruse the com­plete list here and make your own choic­es.

If you haven’t tried a free MOOC, I’d do it soon­er than lat­er. In recent weeks, the whole MOOC project took a hit when a Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia study found what was becom­ing empir­i­cal­ly obvi­ous — that MOOCs gen­er­al­ly have very low par­tic­i­pa­tion and com­ple­tion rates, and what’s more, most of the stu­dents tak­ing the cours­es are “dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly edu­cat­ed, male, [and] wealthy,” and from the Unit­ed States. This study, com­bined with oth­er dis­ap­point­ing exper­i­ments and find­ings, will like­ly make uni­ver­si­ties think twice about sink­ing mon­ey into cre­at­ing MOOCs (they can cost any­where from $15,000 to $50,000 to devel­op). It might take anoth­er 6–12 months to see the shift. But I’d haz­ard a guess that this Jan­u­ary might be the peak of the free MOOC trend. Enjoy them while they last. What­ev­er their short­com­ings, they can be quite infor­ma­tive, and you can’t beat the price.

• Jazz Appre­ci­a­tion (SA) — UT Austin on edX — Jan­u­ary 21 (10 weeks)
• Intro­duc­tion to Com­put­er Sci­ence (CM) – Har­vard on edX – Jan­u­ary 1
• Intro­duc­tion to Genet­ics and Evo­lu­tion (SA) — Duke on Cours­era — Jan­u­ary 4 (10 weeks)
• Intro­duc­tion to Pub­lic Speak­ing (NI) – U. of Wash­ing­ton on edX – Jan­u­ary 7 (10 weeks)
• Shakespeare’s Ham­let: Text, Per­for­mance, and Cul­ture (NI) — Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham on Future­learn — Jan­u­ary 13 (6 weeks)
• Explor­ing Engi­neer­ing (NI) – Brown Uni­ver­si­ty Con­tin­u­ing Ed on Can­vas – Jan­u­ary 13 (2 weeks)
• Prin­ci­ples of Writ­ten Eng­lish (SA) — Berke­ley on edX — Jan­u­ary 16 (5 weeks)
• Moral­i­ties of Every­day Life (SA) — Yale on Cours­era — Jan­u­ary 20 (6 weeks)
• Mobile Health with­out Bor­ders (NI) — Stan­ford on NovoEd —  Jan­u­ary 27 (8 weeks)
• Good Brain, Bad Brain: Basics (NI) — Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham on Future­learn — Jan­u­ary 27 (3 weeks)
• Was Alexan­der Great? The Life, Lead­er­ship, and Lega­cies of History’s Great­est War­rior (SA) — Welles­ley on edX — Jan­u­ary 27 (13 weeks)

See our com­plete list of MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties here, along with our MOOC FAQ.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert Tries to Make Sense of MOOCs with the Head of edX

The Big Prob­lem for MOOCs Visu­al­ized

Google & edX to Cre­ate MOOC.Org: An Open Source Plat­form For Cre­at­ing Your Own MOOC