Dick Vet joins US online partnership
Equine Nutrition is one of the University of Edinburgh’s six new courses available for online students, which offer a taste of higher education for free.
Students who participate in these free online taster courses at the University of Edinburgh will have access to an array of quality learning materials provided by world class academics who are leaders in their field.
The University’s Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies is the first Vet School to launch a course as part of the programme. The Equine Nutrition course covers many aspects of equine nutrition ranging from anatomy and physiology of the gastrointestinal tract to dietary management of horses and ponies affected with nutrition-related disorders.
One of six available from the University of Edinburgh, the Equine Nutrition course forms part of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which are delivered via the Coursera partnership - a network of leading international universities which offer short undergraduate-level online courses free of charge.
Edinburgh is the first university in the UK to join the Coursera initiative.
Universities associated with Coursera have taught more than 650,000 students from 190 countries. There have been more than 1.5 million course enrolments across 43 courses.
Video
In this short film, the co-founder of Coursera and academic staff from Edinburgh explain how MOOCs will benefit people around the world.
Access to all
There are no entry requirements for students - all courses can be taken by anyone with a computer and internet connection.
The University of Edinburgh will initially offer six courses, each lasting five weeks. The courses will begin in Autumn 2012 and five further courses are offered, in addition to Equine Nutrition:
- Introduction to Astrobiology and the Search for Extra-terrestrial Life
- E-learning and Digital Cultures
- Critical Thinking in Global Challenges
- Artificial Intelligence Planning
- Introduction to Philosophy
Enabling wider access to excellent higher education is part of the core mission of the University of Edinburgh. We are therefore excited to join with our peers in North America in the Coursera consortium to offer Massive Open Online Courses on topics in which we have particular strengths.