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technology Make Way for MOOCs DOES THE EMERGING trend of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have staying power? Or are they just a passing fad? Although answers to those ques- tions are still up for grabs, business educators already are experimenting with MOOCs, to explore the poten- tial that the format represents. In the last two years, a number of open-source, free models of higher education have entered the market. The University of the People, which bills itself as the first tuition-free online university, launched in 2009. This year, Harvard and MIT announced their joint creation of edX, a nonprofit initiative in which the institutions will offer free online courses. In July, the University of California, Berkeley, joined the edX part- nership. In September, Stanford University announced its addition to the market—Class2Go, which will start with 16 free online courses. Coursera has become one of the most prominent MOOC platforms. Founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, computer science professors from Stan- ford University in California, Coursera now offers 119 MOOCs. At least 12 cover business topics. The University of Virginia's Darden School of Busi- ness in Charlottesville recently announced that "Grow to Greatness," a course on the challenges facing private tion to all of its students and faculty to a cookout, where they could meet their classmates and professors. More than 650 students attended, some from out of state. n In September, Udacity, another prominent MOOC provider, made news when Colorado State University's Global Campus—the online arm of the CSU system— became the first U.S.-based university to offer academic credit for a Udacity course. To earn three credits for Udacity's "Introduction to Computer Science: Building a Search Engine," students must produce a "certificate of completion" and pass a proficiency exam, which will be proctored by Pearson VUE, the computer-based testing division of global learning company Pearson. n In September, edX announced its agreement with Pearson VUE to offer learners the option to take a proctored final exam to demonstrate their proficiency in its free online courses. As of August, Coursera had enrolled its one millionth student, and Udacity had enrolled more than 739,000. business, will be offered through Coursera in January 2013. The course will be taught by Edward Hess, pro- fessor of business administration and executive-in-res- idence at Darden's Batten Institute. By mid-July, more than 15,700 already had signed on to take his course. But the fact that tens of thousands of students can enroll in a single course raises questions about how well a professor can convey the material, create a sense of community, and ensure that enrolled students actu- ally complete the work. Free online education provid- ers have taken some steps to address these concerns: n In July, Coursera held its first face-to-face event for students near San Francisco. It extended an open invita- 54 November/December 2012 BizEd Such developments indicate how quickly MOOCs are evolving—and that evolution may be accelerated even further. In September, Google posted a YouTube video announcing its release of Course Builder, an open-source software platform to help educators design online courses. In the video, Google's director of research Peter Norvig explains that in July, the company used the same technology to deliver its online course "Power Searching with Google" to more than 20,000 learners. Soon after the video was released, Norvig noted in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education that Google was discussing the possibilities of the software with edX partners and other educational providers. Still, most educators agree that MOOCs have a long way to go before they're on par with smaller face-to- face and online courses. Even so, the hundreds of thou- sands of learners enrolled in MOOCs indicate how much potential this mode of delivery has to impact the future of business education.