{"193381":{"#nid":"193381","#data":{"type":"news","title":"MOOC Suspended Due to Technical, Quality Issues","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERecently, Georgia Tech acted to suspend one of its free massive open online courses (MOOCs), citing technical and quality issues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe course, \u201cFundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application,\u201d was offered through Coursera, one of the emerging distance education organizations that partners with universities to deliver free, noncredit academic courses on a global scale. More than 40,000 individuals registered for the course, which opened Jan. 28. A few days later, Tech requested that Coursera suspend the class pending further review.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe apologize to those students who have been inconvenienced by this decision, but we are resolute in providing an academic standard of quality that is consistent with Georgia Tech\u2019s reputation,\u201d Professional Education Dean Nelson Baker said. \u201cThis is true regardless of whether the student is paying tuition to receive classroom instruction in Atlanta or freely participating in one of our MOOCs anywhere one can access the Internet.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese are today\u2019s grand experiments in higher education,\u201d he continued. \u201cWith any experiment, sometimes one has to press pause and reset, which is what we are doing. Leaders take risks to try new things, and we are leading.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn signing an agreement with Coursera last July, Georgia Tech was one of the first universities in the nation to offer web-based courses online and create new opportunities for hands-on learning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo date, Tech has successfully launched four courses through Coursera, and another seven \u2014 on topics such as music, mathematics and engineering \u2014 are open for enrollment. Other courses are in early stages of development.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERecently, Georgia Tech acted to suspend one of its free massive open online courses (MOOCs), citing technical and quality issues.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Recently, Georgia Tech acted to suspend one of its free massive open online courses (MOOCs), citing technical and quality issues."}],"uid":"27445","created_gmt":"2013-02-19 13:49:44","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:40","author":"Amelia Pavlik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-02-18T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-02-18T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.coursera.org\/gatech","title":"Georgia Tech on Coursera"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:michael.hagearty@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMichael Hagearty\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}