HEC Paris launches open online course

HEC Paris, a leading global business school offering a complete portfolio of management programmes in Qatar, has announced that it has become the first business school in France to launch a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) hosted on the Coursera platform. In light of this, HEC Paris endeavours to boost its academic experience and allow its teaching to go forth, beyond the confines of the campus. The concept of MOOCs – free, universally accessible knowledge – appeals to HEC Paris as a way of expanding its expertise and knowledge and sharing them with a wider, global audience. Following the success of its iTunes U platform (which has totalled over 2mn downloads in just three years), HEC Paris is experimenting with another new model for education in a bid to improve teaching via technology. The courses will be available on Coursera from early 2014 and start with two MOOCs led by HEC Paris professors Alberto Alemanno and Pascal Quiry. The initial two courses will be on the topics of European Law and Corporate Finance, respectively, with one course in English and one in French. Both are being specifically developed for the platform and will take advantage of all the technological potential only MOOCs can offer. This will open up opportunities for students and entrepreneurs across the globe to benefit from the expertise of the HEC faculty.“This partnership with Coursera is another token of our commitment to dynamic teaching and to the sharing of knowledge. Offering these courses at no cost to people in the region and sharing with them our faculty’s expertise is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge for us,” said Professor Laoucine Kerbache, CEO and academic dean of HEC Paris in Qatar.Coursera is an education company that partners with top universities and organisations to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Coursera’s technology enables its partners to teach millions of students. As many as 444 courses are available from 87 prestigious universities.