Open Education 2016

The Darden Graduate School of Business is a leader in providing massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the Coursera Platform. There are 2 specializations, almost a dozen courses, and over a million learners to date. In partnership with the Mbarara University of Science and Technology, we did a pilot providing a free specialization to accepted applicants to the African Scholarship Cohort. Over 100 learners started the specialization, all from sub-Saharan Africa. There were several goals: developing a stronger partnership with Mbarara, increasing learner enrollment in Africa, understanding persistence of African students in specializations, and trying to transform lives through open educational resources (OER). We've learned a lot in this program with 70 active students and it has been an amazing journey. This presentation will review some of our lessons learned, some transformative stories of learners, and a general overview of the program.