One of the highest ranked universities in the world and certainly one of the most famous, Oxford University is going to offer online courses from next year.
Oxford University is going to join a growing number of academic institutions who want more and more students to benefit from what they have to offer.
Better Late than Never
The university is late to the party on offering free online courses, with Harvard and MIT offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) already. Oxford will be partnering up with edX and will be offering free online courses from February. The first freely available class that Oxford will be offering is titled “From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development”.
Professor Ngaire Woods, Dean at Blavatnik School of Government says that the school aims to better the governments around the world through research and education and this course is an important step in this direction.
This course will be headed by Sir Paul Collier of Blavatnik School of Government. According to Oxford’s official statement, this course will examine the vital role that governments play in boosting economic development within a country.
Anyone is welcome to enroll for the course.
The Rise of MOOCs
NY Times declared 2012 to be the year of MOOCs indicating the rising popularity of online courses. As evidenced from the likes of MIT and Harvard introducing free online courses for their students it does indeed seem to be taking root and will become mainstream in the future.
Course Details
The enrollment for the MOOC is open right now. The course itself will last for 6 weeks with 2 to 3 hour per week required from the students.
During this period you will be able to access all the resources for the course, do MCQs etc. You will also be able to interact with your peers or the teaching staff.
After the course time period ends you will no longer be able to interact with others or the teaching staff, however you can still access all the resources.
You will receive a certificate from edX and Oxford once you complete the course. You can enroll for the course from here.
What about recognition in Pakistan? Does HEC approves it ?
No. But they’ll be recognized by companies and academic institutions in the rest of the world.
One who has a regular degrees from our reputed universities has no importance and no one asks him… so what will be the importance of that online degree in the Pakistani market or somewhere else… There are number of regular universities their degrees are still unrecognized by the HEC and PEC…. Quom ko truck ki batti kay peechhay na lagao….. hahahah