Michigan State University’s Department of Media and Information will soon be the first at the university to offer online courses through Coursera, an open online education provider.
A Game Design and Development Specialization taught by MSU media and information faculty is set to launch Sept. 15. Accessible to anyone, this online program will include a series of four courses – modified versions of game design and development courses taught in person on MSU’s campus – and end with a final capstone project.
The MSU team – including Brian Winn and Casey O’Donnell, both associate professors in the Department of Media and Information, and David Wheeler, director of Media Sandbox – competed against other institutions for the opportunity to partner with Coursera and was awarded the contract.
“We’re taking part of what we do physically here at MSU with our game design and development minor and turning it into a specialization on the Coursera platform,” Winn said. “It’s not the complete experience of what we do here, because obviously there are certain things you can do when you are together physically that you can’t do online, but it’s borrowing a lot of the things that we’ve built and refined over the last 10 years in our top-rated program.”
These will be the first massive open online course in game design and development offered by Coursera, and the first time MSU has partnered with the company.
“We are thrilled to offer a Game Design and Development Specialization from Michigan State University, a leader in this field,” said Daphne Koller, president and co-founder of Coursera. “This specialization is expected to quickly reach hundreds of thousands of the 14 million registered learners from around the world on Coursera, many of whom would never have had access to MSU’s high quality instruction.”
Winn and O’Donnell are developing the courses. Students from the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab and the Media Sandbox are helping with the project.
The first class will be available Sept. 15. The second on Oct. 15, the third Nov. 15 and the fourth on Dec. 15. The capstone course is expected to launch in January.
The courses will be offered on demand, so students can start them at any time. Students won’t earn college credit, but can receive a certificate for completing the entire specialization.
Anybody can take the courses for free, but to take the capstone and to get the MSU certificate learners will pay a fee.
Coursera has partnered with more than 120 universities and educational institutions to offer hundreds of online courses and specializations in topics ranging from computer science to social psychology and beyond.
For more information, visit the Coursera website.