Library and Information Services, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Thursday, 17 January 2013

A new buzzword - MOOCs

A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course.  Such courses are free, and not credit-bearing, but they're the latest thing in outreach - a number of universities are beginning to offer them.   You can typically sign up for a short online course, chosen from a course catalogue. 

There's been quite a bit about them in THE (Times Higher Education) in recent weeks - they started in the United States, but some English universities are offering them too.  Lori Watson found the music ones offered through Coursera, so we thought we'd share the olink with you. 

Coursera isn't the only provider - there are others, too.  (Obviously it's easier for universities if they can have an agent handling access to a whole catalogue of courses, and easier for you if you access courses by various universities all at once.)  Thus, the Open University has recently launched Futurelearn.  (Read the THE article here.)

Coursera MOOCs about Music - click here.
Futurelearn - courses still pending.  Click here.

 

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