KITCHENER-WATERLOO, ONTARIO — (Marketwired) — 10/08/13 — , the edtech company that created the world-s first truly integrated learning platform, today announces Desire2Learn Open Courses, a next generation Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platform that is seamlessly integrated within its existing learning platform.
Open Courses redefines the existing MOOC model, addressing the primary inhibitors to the long-term viability of MOOCs. Institutions can now define their MOOC the way they want it, maintain copyright on content and data, control the course direction and integrity, award certified credit for MOOC study and import content quickly and easily, all from within their existing Desire2Learn learning platform. Open Courses is also available as a standalone cloud implementation. With both environments, learners benefit from a rich educational experience and earn credits, while enjoying the power and functionality of an integrated learning platform.
“MOOCs are not a new business for Desire2Learn; they-re a natural extension of what we do. The Open Courses platform benefits from the rest of the products that we already created,” said John Baker, president and CEO, Desire2Learn. “Through Open Courses, we-re providing technology-enabled learning environments that can help break down the barriers to accessing the highest quality learning experiences.”
While other MOOC platforms maintain control over the course data and exercise rights over content, including revenue rights, Open Courses enables institutions and organizations to retain full ownership of the content and deploy their own credit mechanisms in MOOCs. It does not require institutions to create additional vendor relationships. “With this new platform, educators maintain control of their content, maintain course integrity and can open up new forms of profitability,” commented Baker.
Open Courses is truly flexible and enables institutions to fulfill educational missions, ranging from outreach and brand extension to pedagogical experimentation and additional course presentation – all using their regular learning platform. Course authors are spared the arduous task of re-importing data/content onto third party platforms – the integration with the Desire2Learn platform avoids this. Open Courses also allows learners to self-register, so that educators can serve audiences and regions that would otherwise not enroll outside of a full program offering.
In the past quarter, numerous institutions have commenced using Open Courses and are seeing great results, including Colorado Community College Systems, Fanshawe College, La Cite College, Montana State University, the University of Wisconsin and dozens of other universities and colleges.
“Desire2Learn Open Courses is a tremendous asset to the success of our MOOC initiatives. The user progress and reporting tools have helped us track student response and personalize the course to fit their learning needs,” said Wendy Wilson, eLearning designer and MOOC coordinator for Fanshawe College.
In August 2013, USG announced that their implementation of Desire2Learn would be utilized to deliver MOOCs. USG schools currently offer more than 160,000 courses in Desire2Learn, receiving more than 34 million hits each day. USG predicts this number will grow to more than 50 million within the next few months as more courses and schools come online.
“A key measure of success for an online learning initiative is its demonstrated ability to help increase student learning and graduation rates,” said Houston Davis, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer for the University System of Georgia. “Working with Desire2Learn, we are using MOOC formats to give our students opportunities to earn additional credits, so they have more options to succeed.”
Desire2Learn Open Courses is now available. To learn more, visit , or contact us at or call 1-888-772-0325.
About Desire2Learn
Desire2Learn is helping to transform the way the world learns. Providing the world-s first truly integrated learning platform to engage and inspire lifelong learners, Desire2Learn helps clients break down barriers to access the highest quality learning experiences, and is recognized for its leadership in accessibility. Desire2Learn is a global leader in online learning solutions and provides an open and extensible platform to over 850 clients and over 10 million learners in , , , and the , including the Fortune 1000. Desire2Learn has personnel in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil and Singapore. For more information or to contact us, visit: .
Desire2Learn and the molecule logo are trademarks of Desire2Learn Incorporated, registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Contacts:
D2L Ltd.
Virginia Jamieson
Director of PR
650-279-8619
Twitter: @Desire2Learn
fama PR
Brian Merrill
617-986-5005
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