France Universite Numerique

As I tweeted earlier this morning, the French Ministry of Education has launched a new national MOOC platform for France, based on the open-source system from EdX. ‘France Universite Numerique’, if you don’t speak French (and can’t guess!), means ‘France Digital University’.

This is in contrast with the UK where for the moment we have the Futurelearn platform, which is limited to 21 institutions from the 1994 and Russell Groups (including Loughborough) and a handful from outside the UK. For other UK institutions contemplating launching MOOCs, this means they have a choice between going it alone, or finding a commercial partner eg one of the US providers.

Initial courses from France Universite Numerique include: Philosophy and lifestyles; Non-linear optics; The First World War explained through archives; Statistics foundation; Introduction to mobile networks.