Monash, Trinity and Edinburgh join FutureLearn

The UK’s platform for free online university courses has announced its first international members.

June 17, 2013

FutureLearn, which is looking to offer massive open online courses (Moocs) from the autumn, has added Monash University in Australia and Trinity College Dublin to a list of UK universities that will offer their content for free. 

In addition, the University of Edinburgh, which already offers free courses through the US-based platform Coursera, has also joined FutureLearn.

The three new partners mean that the platform now has 26 institutions ready to offer programmes, although the service has not yet been launched to students.

Patrick Prendergast, Trinity’s provost, said that joining the platform would extend the “global reach” of its courses.

“It will widen participation and provide educational opportunities to prospective students and new audiences. As the first Irish university to join the collaboration we feel especially privileged and look forward to further delivering excellence in education across the globe,” he said.

Monash’s provost Edwina Cornish said: “Our partnership with FutureLearn enhances our endeavours and opens new doors for prospective students seeking an internationally recognised education.”

In May Simon Nelson, chief executive of FutureLearn, revealed that the platform was “looking at an autumn launch” although today’s announcement says the first courses will be put online “later this year”.

A typical FutureLearn Mooc would require between two and six hours of study a week and run for 6 to 10 weeks, he said at the Open and Online Learning conference on 16 May.

david.matthews@tsleducation.com

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Reader's comments (2)

Trinity College, Dublin, is not in the UK but in the Irish Republic (Eire). At a stretch, you might refer to it as being in 'the British Isles', but even here you need to be very careful about sensitivities - many Irish people would not accept that term. The safest bet is to say 'Britain and Ireland'.
ginevradabenci - Have a re-read; they are saying that they are adding these two international universities to the list of solely UK-based institutions that are already there, that doesn't make either of them now UK based, just diversifies the list somewhat so that it is now not a UK based list of universities. I'm surprised you weren't arguing that Monash - Australia is not in the UK.

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