U Michigan Launches 3 Online Certificate Programs via edX
The University of Michigan will launch three new
online certificate programs that will be available on the edX MOOC platform.
The
programs are in addition to four massive open
online courses (MOOCs) that U Michigan's Office of
Digital Education & Innovation (DEI) announced
in October and launched on edX in April.
This
marks the latest step in DEI's initiative to
launch 100 MOOCs by December and 100 more in 2017.
Michigan
also uses another MOOC platform, Coursera,
to host its online education efforts. The school noted that a major appeal of the edX platform,
however, is its open source nature. edX hosts online
university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide
student
body, including some courses at no charge.
The
three certificate programs, comprising 15 courses, are:
- User
Experience Research XSeries;
- User
Experience Design XSeries; and
- Corporate
Financial Analysis XSeries.
The User
Experience Research program is designed to help students develop research skills
to
explore the growing field of human-computer interaction. The User
Experience
Design program aims to teach the principles of design needed to
create
prototypes that demonstrate human-computer interaction. The
Corporate Financial Analysis program will focus on the quantitative and
analytical aspects of finance.
Michigan
representatives said the goal of the DEI's XSeries courses is to engage
students in
flexible, outcome-based learning that will give them tools they need to
analyze
and use data.
"This
marks another important step in Michigan's long history of innovation
and
experimentation in the academic space," said James Hilton, University of Michigan dean
of
libraries and vice provost for digital education and
innovation.
"These sequences will allow us to deepen our engagement with lifelong
and
global learners while also helping us improve and differentiate our
residential
programs," added Hilton.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.