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Open, free, and for college credit

A small New Jersey college that has made its name with innovative online learning efforts will soon allow students to earn course credit through no-cost open, web-based classes aligned with the school’s educational standards.

open-free-college-credit [1]Officials at Thomas Edison State College [2] (TESC), a Trenton-based school with more than 19,000 undergraduate students, announced Feb. 20 that the college would offer an open course option that will let students earn credit if they’ve passed a pre-approved credit-by-exam program.

The free, open option will include 20 college courses from the Saylor Foundation [3], a nonprofit group that has long advocated for free, technology-based college courses. The foundation has created more than 300 free web-based courses over the past six years.

Michael Williams, dean of the college’s School of Business and Management, said that like many programs at TESC, Saylor’s free online options are designed primary for adult learners returning to school.

Tuition-free university receives accreditation [4]

“This is an interesting option for adult learners who prefer to work independently, enjoy credit-by-exam programs and are interested in prior learning assessment,” Williams said.  “This model offers students a more flexible, efficient way of completing their associates degree that has the potential of saving time and tuition dollars.”

College officials acknowledged the ongoing — and sometimes heated — debate about the validity of free online college classes offered for credit. Making a high-quality option available, they said, could be an important addition to that debate.

“In the past two years, there has been much debate about how open online courses benefit students,” said Marc Singer, vice provost of the college’s Center for the Assessment of Learning. “Our program enables students to take high-quality open courses at no cost and then apply what they learned in those open courses by taking our assessments.”

TESC’s announcement comes just a week after the University of the People, an experimental free online school, received accreditation for classes students have taken over the past few years.

Much of the opposition to massive open online courses (MOOCs) have said they would be fine with a university launching a MOOC initiative, as long as the courses are never offered for credit.

Even MOOC proponents, including the CEO of Udacity [5], have agreed that MOOCs shouldn’t be offered for credit.