MOOC offerings and development opportunity this fall

By Heather McCabe posted on November 1st, 2013

UBC has four MOOCs currently underway and two more slated to start in the coming year. Useful Genetics Part 1 opened on November 1 and runs for six weeks. Game Theory (offered jointly with Stanford University), Climate Literacy, and Systematic Program Design are currently underway and may still be joined.

These are the second offerings of the courses, which are hosted on the Coursera platform. MOOCs represent an emerging teaching and learning delivery model predicated on providing free and open access to courses to large numbers of students worldwide. The courses are freely open to anyone who has access to the Internet. Both UBC and the instructors who are teaching these courses are also using this emerging online delivery method to drive improvements in student learning and experiment with different pedagogical approaches, both online in the MOOCs space and in the classroom. Most of the instructors who are teaching these MOOCs are also either using or planning to use the videos and other content that they’ve created in their on-campus classes.

These courses will continue to be offered in the coming year, along with Useful Genetics Part 2 and Game Theory II which will begin in January 2014. The Office of the Provost and Vice President Academic also recently announced a call for proposals to develop up to four new MOOCs that will be supported under the Flexible Learning Initiative. Watch this space to hear about upcoming MOOCs from UBC.


Resources:

CBC The National’s Report on UBC’s MOOCs – Video

Coursera Founder and UBC Professors Discuss MOOCs Space

FAQ on UBC’s MOOC Pilot Project