UW-Madison agrees to offer the free online courses known as MOOCs - Dave Cieslewicz, the Isthmus

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken the plunge into the brave new world of massively available, free online course offerings. The largest provider of open online college courses had been courting the university to join its network of free content providers since at least last summer.According to Jeff Russell, vice provost for Life Long Learning and dean of the Division of Continuing Studies, the UW administration resisted those overtures until last month. That's when interim chancellor David Ward announced that the university would join Coursera, which will now provide hundreds of free online courses from dozens of institutions of higher learning.Coursera is currently offering 325 courses from 62 universities around the world, including such prestigious names as Brown, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Cal Tech. The UW now joins other Big Ten schools, including Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Illinois, Minnesota and Northwestern. Big Ten schools-in-waiting, Rutgers and Maryland, are also members of the Coursera family. http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=39316