◎蔡宜珍
Five prestigious U.S. universities will create free online courses for students worldwide through a new, interactive education platform dubbed Coursera, the founders announced Wednesday.
五所享有盛名的美國大學，將透過一個名為Coursera的全新互動教育平臺，為全世界學生開設免費線上課程，此平臺創辦者週三宣布這項消息。
The two founders, both professors of computer science at Stanford University, also announced that they had received $16 million in financing from two Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
其中，兩位創辦者都是史丹佛大學電腦科學教授，他們宣稱已收到兩間矽谷風險投資公司高達一千六百萬美金的融資。
Coursera will offer more than three dozen college courses in the coming year through its website at coursera.org, on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to neurology, from calculus to contemporary American poetry. The classes are designed and taught by professors at Stanford, Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan.
Coursera未來一年將在coursera.org提供超過三十六所大學課程，主題橫跨希臘神話到神經學、從微積分到當代美國詩作。這些課程是由史丹佛、普林斯頓、加州大學柏克萊分校、賓州大學，以及密西根大學的教授所設計與教授。
Coursera joins a raft of ambitious online projects aimed at making higher education more accessible and affordable. Many of these ventures, however, simply post entire lectures on the web, with no interactive component. Others strive to create brand-new universities from scratch.
許多線上計畫充滿雄心，想讓高等教育更易親近、更易負擔，Coursera也是其中一員。然而，這些計畫中，有許多只是將整個課程放上網路，並沒有添加互動元素，還有些則是爭取從零開始打造全新的大學。
Founders Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng say Coursera will be different because professors from top schools will teach under their university's name and will adapt their most popular courses for the web, embedding assignments and exams into video lectures, answering questions from students on online forums -- even, perhaps, hosting office hours via videoconference.
創辦者達芙尼‧柯勒與安德魯‧Ng表示，Coursera將會與眾不同，因為來自頂尖學府的教授，將頂著他們的大學招牌授課，且為了網路重新調整他們最受歡迎的課程，在講演影片中包含作業與測驗，並回答學生們在線上論壇所提出的問題─甚至或許是透過視訊會議所進行的約談時段。
Students will not get college credit. But Coursera may offer "certificates of completion" or transcripts for a fee. "It will increase our impact on the world," said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania. As online education matures, students may be able to build their own first-rate college education for free through sites like Coursera.
學生雖不會拿到大學學分，但Coursera可以提供「結業證書」或成績報告單。賓州大學校長艾美‧古特曼說：「這將增加我們對這個世界的衝擊。」當線上教育水到渠成，學生也許可以將他們最重要的大學教育，建立在像Coursera這樣的免費網站上。
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