Professor Barry McGaw, a former director of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris will join the Academic Partnerships as a senior adviser.
Academic Partnerships is an association of public universities in the U.S.
McGaw will provide his expertise and perspective to Academic Partnerships for enhancing their online education programs.
Recently, Academic Partnerships announced the launch of free credit based Massive Online Open Courses degree courses along with its partners. The first set of MOOC2Degrees courses will be launched in spring 2013.
"Today's students are using the best of technology to learn in novel and dynamic ways," McGaw said.
McGaw said that he is excited to collaborate with Academic Partnerships and provide students around the world access to the finest education.
"Professor McGaw's successful track record and pioneering international efforts will add tremendous value to our partner universities and their students in the U.S. and abroad," Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships said.
Through online courses Academic Partnerships aims to award degrees to students who are unable to attend regular college and universities.
The participating universities will convert certain degree programs into MOOC. Each MOOC will have the same academic content that is offered in the universities.
"The free start is just the encouragement many working adults need to enrol in a degree program that will have a big impact on their future success," Best said.
McGaw is also a Fellow at The University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education and Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
Earlier, he was a professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and served as director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute from 2006 to 2008.
