Massive online open courses (MOOCs) expanded even further with Coursea, a California company offering free online courses, adding ten universities and university systems to its lineup, reported USA Today.
On its website Coursea said it has 376 courses and 80 partnering institutions and, according to the New York Times, the 10 new partners could add as many 1.25 million students to the online education company's three-and-a-half million-and-counting enrollees.
The 10 new systems and schools are the State University of New York system, the Tennessee Board of Regents and the University of Tennessee systems, the University of Colorado system, the University of Houston system, the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska, the University of New Mexico, the University System of Georgia and West Virginia University, reported the New York Times.
Some of the MOOCs will be completely online, some will only have an in-class final exam and some will incorporate an online component to a traditional classroom. Teachers will be able to make adjustments to their courses instead of giving them a total makeover.
However, not all Coursea classes can earn college credit at this time, according to the Los Angeles Times. The participating universities simply pay to use the for-profit company's platform.
Daphne Koller, one of two Stanford University professors who founded Coursea, said the goal of the company is to get high school students involved in college courses sooner and to hasten graduation rates.
She said her company is looking to give universities "a set of trajectories and pathways that increase capacity and increase access" for students.
University of New Mexico Provost Chaouki Abdallah told the Los Angeles Times that his school already has about 15 percent of its credit hours in online courses and the partnership with Coursea could increase that by about ten percent.
"I don't know how this is going to end up," he said of the expanding online course selection. "I am looking at it as an experiment."