Koller: ‘Higher Education Is Changing Drastically’

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Daphne Koller, the Rajeev Motwani Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and co-founder of Coursera, talks to Dartmouth Now about the role of online education.

“I think that it’s important for every institution to think about what the value proposition that it provides to its students is, in this day and age, when quality content is about to become free and ubiquitous,” says Koller.

Coursera partners with universities to make classes available online, free of charge, for a wide audience. Working with 62 schools, Coursera has enrolled more than 3 million students in 329 courses, known as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

The “Leading Voices” series started in 2011. The first season, “Leading Voices in Politics and Policy,” brought national political figures, presidential candidates, and policymakers to campus. Last summer’s “Leading Voices in U.S. Foreign Policy” included a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a former Defense Department official, and a retired Navy admiral. The ongoing “Leading Voices in Higher Education,” part of the strategic planning process, has featured visits from prominent writers, university presidents, and other figures in higher education.

Keith Chapman