HEC Paris to Launch Open Online Courses

HEC Paris has become the first business school in France to launch a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in order to boost its academic experience and allow its teaching to go 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, the school says. Following the success of its iTunes U platform, which has totaled over 2 million downloads in just three years, HEC Paris is experimenting with this new model for education in a bid to improve teaching via technology.

HEC’s courses will be available on the Coursera platform from early 2014 and will 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 MOOCs can offer. This will open up the opportunity for students and entrepreneurs across the globe to benefit from the expertise of the HEC faculty.

Bernard Ramanantsoa, Dean at HEC Paris, says, “This partnership with Coursera offers HEC an opportunity to open up our courses to people who might not usually have access to higher education, whether for practical or economic considerations. Sharing our faculty’s expertise with the general public at no cost is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge!”