(2012-03-08) Coursera Online Learning Launch

Stanford University engineering professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, who also ran free online versions of their Stanford courses last fall, have started Cours Era, a company that says it wants to make "the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it." The company currently serves as a platform for eight courses, centering on computer science with some math, economics and linguistics. Five are taught by Stanford professors, two by professors at the University of California at Berkeley and one by a University of Michigan professor. All of the courses are currently listed as free of charge. None will count as credit toward a degree at any of the professors' home universities.

Apr18: Audrey Watters on their launch announcement. Over 1 million students have already signed up for the initial courses that Coursera’s had posted on its website. There have been some delays – legalities over licensing and copyright, according to the word on the street – in getting these up and running, but starting April 23, there’ll be at least 30 new classes offered via Coursera.

Jul'18 update: 12 more universities have joined.