News > 2013 > Public online courses: EDUlib launches its 2013-2014 program

Public online courses: EDUlib launches its 2013-2014 program

September 19, 2013

Following up on its tremendously successful first year, EDUlib has now launched a new program of free online management courses for the public. In 2013-2014, three courses (in French) will be available by means of this platform: Gestion des conflits, given by Professor Jean Poitras, starting October 28, L’esprit entrepreneurial, directed by Professor Luis Cisneros, offered in winter 2014, and Introduction au marketing (repeat), in spring 2014. Short videos on the EDUlib site present the three courses, and enrolment is now open.

EDUlib is a true virtual campus, modelled after the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) introduced by leading American universities in fall 2011. Since then the popularity of such courses has exploded and millions of participants from all over the globe have signed up for courses with the American platforms Coursera, Udacity and edX.

In October 2012, HEC Montréal launched EDUlib as its entry in this widespread movement, looking to make its own contribution and to position itself in the French-speaking world as a source of free online university-level courses for the public in different management disciplines. The 15,000 enrolments in the first year and the lavish praise from participants, some of whom would not otherwise have had access to university courses, show that the School was right in taking this step.

EDUlib is much more than an innovative platform for delivering courses, as Jean Talbot, the initiator of EDUlib and Director of the Learning and Teaching Innovation Centre at HEC Montréal, explains. “By using IT In this context,” he says, “our professors are playing an important part in rethinking approaches to teaching and learning, where huge changes are coming. In addition, access to top-quality higher education is a social issue, and the technology that lets thousands of students attend the same course gives us an opportunity to reconsider the ways universities can contribute to the community.”

 

EDUlib: Highlights of the first year

-Since it was launched in October 2012, the EDUlib site has been visited nearly 250,000 times by over 71,000 people from 155 countries.

-15,000 students enrolled in the three courses offered in 2012-2013, i.e.:

  • Introduction au marketing (Johanne Brunet and Yannik St-James)
  • Comprendre les états financiers (Louise Martel)
  • Problèmes et politiques économiques (Jacques Raynauld)

-After Quebec and the rest of Canada, most of the participants came from Haiti, France, Algeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Morocco, the United States, Cameroun, Niger and elsewhere (in that order).

-While the majority of participants were from Montreal, others hailed from Port-au-Prince, Quebec City, Laval, Algiers, Dakar, Ouagadougou, Toronto, Abidjan, Ottawa … and some 1,900 other cities.