Yesterday, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation announced the final recipients of grants for research and development specific to massive open online courses (MOOCs).
Of the $3 million total in grant money, $550,000 has been dedicated specifically to schools that will develop MOOCs for “gateway courses” (introductory courses that serve as the foundation for a major). These institutions were selected from a Request for Proposals released in September 2012.
We’re excited to announce that of the nine schools selected, five of them will be releasing their courses on the Learning Platform platform. The schools include:
- Duke University to develop an English Composition I MOOC
- Georgia Institute of Technology to develop three MOOCs: Psychology, English Composition I, and Physics
- Mt. San Jacinto College to develop a Developmental Writing MOOC
- University of Washington to develop a Political Science MOOC
As stated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the majority of current MOOC courses “is aimed at upper division content and, for the most part, learners with more advanced academic proficiency,” but the development of introductory courses will enable “a broader range of learners to potentially benefit from MOOCs.”
Our university partners will be working on developing these classes over the next few months.
Aside from funding development of introductory courses on MOOC platforms, the grant money will go to researching and studying the efficacy of online courses, integration into traditional classrooms, and how MOOCs might best be used for the advancement of learning.