Online learning lures 300,000 students to UQx courses

UQx, the University of Queensland’s massive open online course (MOOC) provider, has surpassed UQ’s yearly on-campus enrolment, luring 300,000 new students from around the world.
Two UQx courses, THINK101x The Science of Everyday Thinking (with more than 127,000 students) and WRITE101x English Grammar and Style have had larger enrolments than UQ’s entire on-campus cohort.

UQx Director John Zornig said the global demand for quality learning was growing, as was the diversity of offerings.
“UQx strives to reflect the breadth of UQ as a leading research and teaching university through our catalogue of courses, and we are pleased at the response from the global learner community,” Mr Zornig said.
UQx has released eight MOOCs in the two years since UQ joined the edX consortium.
The largest number of students have hailed from the United States, India and Australia.
“New courses and re-runs of popular courses will ensure that MOOC learners have a choice of engaging UQx courses year round,” Mr Zornig said.
The University of Queensland is a charter member of edX, one of the world’s leading providers of MOOCs.
edX was founded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2012 and offers free online education using cutting-edge technologies, innovative pedagogy and rigorous courses.
UQx is producing exciting new MOOCs, including META101x – Philosophy and Critical Thinking, and IELTSx – IELTS Academic Test Preparation, to be released in November 2015.
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