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Feb. 28, 2013'Six Pretty Good Books' will become a Cornell
MOOCByBill Steele
Four professors have received funding fromGoogle to launch a
Cornell MOOC (Massive OpenOnline Course). Six Pretty Good
Books:Explorations in Social Science (HD 2840) willsoon be offered
online, for free.
Taught by Michael Macy, the Goldwin SmithProfessor of Sociology;
Stephen Ceci, the Helen L.Carr Professor of Human Development;
JeffersonCowie, professor of collective bargaining, law andhistory;
and Jeffrey Hancock, associate professorof communication, the
course is part of theUniversity Courses initiative, a group of
classesthat cross disciplines and departments and are opento
students in any college.
"University Courses are terrific options for CornellMOOCs," said
Laura Brown, vice provost for undergraduate education, "because
they feature cross-disciexploration, a signature educational
opportunity at Cornell."
Six Pretty Good Books explores the social sciences through books
by prominent authors including StevenNicholas Christakis, Robert
Frank, Duncan Watts and Dan Ariely. After reading each book,
students joinamong the instructors and the authors, who come to the
classroom through videoconferencing.
More than 200 MOOCs are now available online, many from
prestigious universities, with a single coursenrolling tens of
thousands of students. The courses are free, but some providers
charge for a certificate ocompletion. The idea originated at
Stanford University, where an online computer science course
enrollestudents worldwide and launched a movement that promoters
speak of as "democratizing education."
Last fall, Provost Kent Fuchs and Joseph Burns, dean of the
faculty, appointed a committee, chaired by Tardos, the Jacob Gould
Schurman Professor of Computer Science, to consider whether Cornell
should o
MOOCs. The committee recommended that Cornell encourage faculty
to develop MOOCs, provide fundMOOC development and create a faculty
committee to select suitable courses, Tardos reported.
"We want faculty to experiment with this new medium of
teaching," she said. "In addition to offering conlot of people,
they also will learn how this online medium works."
The committee also recommended that Cornell join one of the
consortia that distribute MOOCs, such as
Jason Koski/University PhotographyStephen Ceci and Jeff Cowie
lead the course Six PreBooks in this 2011 file photo.
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