One of the world’s leading universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has announced its first free course which can be studied and assessed online.
The course, 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics, which will begin in March, is an electronics course that is the first prototype of an online project, known as MITx. It is anticipated to take 10 hours per week, finishing in June.
Despite the current existence of online degree courses, the project represents major progress in the use of technology to deliver higher education. Students worldwide can study for a MIT certificate, without any entrance requirements or cost.
The university has mentioned that it would like MITx to ‘shatter barriers to education’. A spokesman also mentioned that the course is not a ‘watered down’ version of the campus course or ‘any less intense’.
The prototype is dependent on an ‘honour code’ in which students commit to behaving honestly. However, mechanisms to check identity will be implemented.
The provost of the university has commented that they are looking to experiment to discover what can be delivered by online courses and what needs traditional face-to-face interaction. MIT have commented that they can only teach a fraction of those who would like to study at the university, and the course allows them to reach a much larger number of students.
Courses in other subjects such as maths and biology are to be introduced subsequently.
A spokesman for Oxford University commented that Oxford’s own e-learning and online provision is ‘certainly among the most forward-looking in the UK in terms of open educational offerings.’
‘It is worth noting first and foremost that undergraduate courses at Oxford cannot be replicated or replaced by open educational offerings such as iTunes U because at Oxford teaching is focused on the tutorial where one or two students meet a tutor to discuss subjects in depth.’
More than 500,000 lectures are available for free download on the iTunesU Service. Oxford currently has more content on service than any other UK university, and has the number one global chart podcast from the series ‘Building a business.’ Oxford’s iTunesU has more than 3,000 published items and more than 100,000 downloads per week, with some tutors having recorded an entire lecture series. The site also features public lectures, talks at Oxford’s annual alumni weekend, interviews with researchers about their work and interviews with our students about their Oxford experience.
University of Oxford’s Open Spires project has harnessed technology to release hundreds of hours of Oxford lectures online to benefit learners and teachers all over the world. Academics are giving away their content as open resources under a creative commons license. This is one of the largest open education projects in the UK and places Oxford alongside MIT, Yale and Berkeley as leading research institutions who make learning materials available for free.
Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education began offering online courses in January 2004, and there are now 58 short online courses available. Courses are repeated each year, meaning 150 courses are provided per year, on average. The courses have attracted 2500 students so far this year (2011 – 12).
The Department gives careful thought to the subjects in which to develop short online courses, ensuring they fit within a coherent and balanced portfolio which offers students choice and variety within the available subject disciplines. The range of courses currently available is weighted towards the Humanities, in which the Department has an established reputation. The provision of Economics, Mathematics, Natural and Environmental Science, Politics and Psychology courses is being expanded, not only in response to student demand in these areas but as academic staff in the wider University wish to extend their scholarship to the medium of online teaching and learning.
Oxford’s new Certificate in Higher Education is equivalent to one year of full-time undergraduate study at first year level. Students can use the credit that they obtain from online coruses to count towards gaining an award from the University. The course is now accepting applications and will begin in autumn of 2012. There are nine subject areas to choose from : Archaeology, Art, History, Architectural History, History, Italian, Literature, Creative Writing, Philosophy, or Spanish.
