Being one of the most famous universities in the world, Oxford University has joined the league to offer free online courses. Since the university is well known for world class academic excellence, it is following the footsteps of other internationally recognized institutions who initiated the concept of online education.
New York Times has highlighted the boom of online courses and affirmed that year 2012 was the year of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The trend is evident from the increasing likes of free online courses offered by MIT and Harvard. Therefore, one can easily predict that there is enormous future of this budding trend.
Slightly late than others
When compared with other universities of same caliber, Oxford University has been late in taking this initiative. Institutes like Harvard and MIT had offered MOOCs much earlier. Oxford will be collaborating with edX and will kick start these free courses from February 2017. The first free course offered by the university is named as “From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development”. This course is available for anyone who wishes to join.
Dean at Blavatnik School of Government, Professor Ngaire Woods stated that the university intends to improve the governments across the globe through education and research. Hence, this course is vital to achieve this goal. The course will be supervised by Sir Paul Collier of Blavatnik School of Government. Oxford has given an official statement suggesting that this course will highlight the role played by governments in fostering economic growth in every country.
Details of the course
The course is currently open for enrollment. The duration of the course is 6 weeks and each student is required to give 2-3 hours per week. Every student who has enrolled in the course will get access to all the course material including MCQ based tests, and all the resources. One can also get an opportunity to mingle with the peers and the faculty members.
Once the course period ends, the student will not only be able to interact with the peers or faculty members but would still get access to all the course material and resources.
The successful candidates will get a certificate from Oxford and edX after the completion of the course. For details and course enrollment please click on the link here.
