Elite universities throwing open their digital doors to the masses

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered its first free online course this spring, Ashwith Rego jumped at the chance to learn from some of the world's leading researchers — without leaving his home in India.

"I never imagined that I would be taught by professors from MIT, let alone for free," said the 24-year-old engineer who works in Bangalore.

From Harvard to Stanford, a growing number of elite universities are throwing open their digital doors to the masses. They're offering their most popular courses online for no charge, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to learn from world-renowned scholars and scientists.

Many colleges have offered Web-based courses for years, but the participation of top-tier research universities marks a major milestone in the expansion of digital learning.

The proliferation of so-called massive open online courses, or MOOCs, has the potential to transform higher education at a time when colleges and universities are grappling with shrinking budgets, rising costs and protests over soaring tuition and student debt.

Supporters say these online courses can lower teaching costs, improve learning online and on campus, and significantly expand access to higher education, which could fuel technological innovation and economic growth.

"It holds the potential for serving many, many hundreds of thousands of students in a way we simply cannot today," said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.

Last month, a dozen major research universities announced they would begin offering courses on the online learning platform Coursera, joining Stanford and Princeton universities and the universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The University of California, Berkeley said it would start making online courses available this fall through edX, a competing Web portal launched in May by Harvard University and MIT with $60 million in funding from the two schools.

"I believe it will ultimately revolutionize education," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

So far students can't earn college credit for the courses, but that hasn't dampened demand.

EdX officials say 154,000 students from more than 160 countries registered for MIT's first online course, "Circuits and Electronics," this past spring. Only about 7,100 students passed the course, but that's still a lot more than can fit in a lecture hall.

More than 120 universities have expressed interest in joining the consortium, said edX President Anant Agarwal, who heads MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

"Our goal is to reinvent education," said Agarwal, who created the first MITx course. "It will dramatically improve the quality, efficiency and scale of learning worldwide and on our campuses."

So far, the new online courses are attracting mostly older workers who want to upgrade their skills and knowledge, but may not have the time or money to attend classes on campus.

The new generation of online courses features interactive technology, open admissions, high-caliber curriculum and the ability to teach tens of thousands of students at once. The universities say the online courses are as rigorous as their campus counterparts.

Some schools, including the University of Washington and University of Helsinki, say they will offer college credit for Coursera courses.

If more schools follow suit, the online teaching could allow more students to attend college and graduate faster, experts say.

Besides potential cost savings, the new generation of online classes can change how students learn on campus by relieving professors of lecturing duties and freeing up more time for research and discussion with students.

"It's going to transform the work of professors," said William Tierney, a higher education expert at the University of Southern California.

But many questions remain. Are the courses rigorous enough to justify college credit? How do schools prevent cheating? Can colleges keep charging students thousands of dollars for courses they can take free online?

Some educators say these cyber courses can't replace the academic community and learning experience of a traditional campus education.

But others warn that MOOCs have the potential to undermine the finances of colleges and universities — much like how free Web content has upended newspapers, magazines and other media industries.

"We're in the middle of a potentially groundbreaking experiment," DeMillo said. "Really big things could come out of it."