One class. One facilitator. 10,000 students. With a massive online open course — known as a MOOC — this could become a new reality for the higher education world.
The University of North Carolina (UNC) has launched its first MOOC, “Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information.” The class is taught by Jeffrey Pomerantz, a UNC professor of information science, through Coursera. He is one of three UNC instructors offering courses through Coursera this semester.
“It’s very different from teaching a classroom-based course,” Pomerantz said. “There’s a lot of prep time that goes into creating a course, whether it’s a classroom-based course or a MOOC, and the preparation is very different for a MOOC.”
This interesting news came from the Daily Tarheel in their article, “Massive open online courses launch at UNC.” This unique opportunity will especially appeal to non-traditional students, of which the numbers are growing every year.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
