Universities integrate online classes into educational landscapes through sites such as Coursera
By Hirbohd Hedayat
May 2, 2012 1:30 a.m.
Enrico Mills dropped out of UCLA during his fourth year as a mechanical engineering student to focus on a website he was developing.
But he still wanted to continue his education, even with limited time. This fall, Mills took a course in mechanical learning from Stanford University ““ a year after he left UCLA ““ through an online learning website.
“Even though I left school, I was still interested in learning about topics related to my major,” he said.
Through sites such as the one Mills used, called Coursera, people have been finding ways to continue learning outside of the classroom.
Such sites are also part of an educational landscape that is becoming increasingly digitized ““ and university professors have been looking for ways to experiment. Faculty at Stanford, UC Berkeley and Princeton University have begun teaming up with Coursera to offer courses in a variety of topics such as computer science and sociology, at no cost to students.
UCLA professors are not among those involved, though UCLA officials are examining Coursera, said Jim Davis, vice provost of information technology, in a statement. He added that no formal partnership is in place.
The underlying concept is integrating online formats with course material, and allowing alumni ““ or anybody ““ to access university materials, said Daphne Koller, cofounder of Coursera and professor of computer science at Stanford University.
David Patterson, a professor at UC Berkeley, started teaching courses through Coursera about two years ago by offering an upper division computer science course. Many more students enrolled than he had ever taught at Berkeley, he added.
UC Berkeley is currently experimenting with the platform and how it can be used in the classroom, Patterson said.
Current UCLA students commonly use supplemental online course materials. One popular site, Khan Academy, allows students to view short lectures on subjects varying from calculus to art history.
Song Zheng, a recent UCLA graduate, said Khan Academy helped him with his undergraduate math and science courses.
“It’s as if the notes are written out for me, making it easier to understand the material,” he said.
The educational videos started out as a hobby, said Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy and alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He eventually began receiving letters from people who viewed the videos, which gave him the idea to start the website.
But while Zheng said he appreciates access to the site, he added that online material doesn’t fully replace in-person instruction.
“Although these websites supplement my learning, nothing replaces the individual focus of office hours,” Zheng said.
These websites have raised the question, however, of how online learning will be applied to the humanities and social sciences, said Ramesh Srinivasan, associate professor of information studies at UCLA. Those fields are not as technical as the sciences and require a teaching method that requires more personal discourse between instructors and students, he said.
But Koller said such sites are keeping with current trends. More course materials are online than ever before, she said.
“Coursera will still have to find a way to integrate outside work into the online lecture series, but you will begin to see the college classroom becoming much more interactive with the increase in colleges providing lectures online,” Koller said.
