The course, “Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application,” 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.

“We 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’s reputation,” Professional Education Dean Nelson Baker said. “This 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.”

“These are today’s grand experiments in higher education,” he continued. “With 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.”

In 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.

To date, Tech has successfully launched four courses through Coursera, and another seven — on topics such as music, mathematics and engineering — are open for enrollment. Other courses are in early stages of development.