Two Top Chinese Universities to Join Coursera

Fudan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University, two top Chinese universities based in Shanghai, reportedly have reached partnership with Coursera, one of the leading MOOC (massive open online courses) platforms. What courses the two would upload onto the platform wasn’t disclosed (in Chinese).

Also in the past week Coursera announced it had raised $43 million in Series B. Coursera has accelerated its expansion outside the U.S., working on translation, developing partnerships with local institutions, etc.

In May of this year, Peking University and Tsinghua University, another two top Chinese Universities based in Beijing, joined edX, another major MOOC platform founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

Some Chinese Universities like Shanghai Jiaotong University have been making online courses and offer them to students in areas where fewer educational resources are available. Platforms like Coursera or edX for hosting those videos and educational materials, however, are not in place in China. In the past couple of years, Chinese people started trying to build online education platforms tailored to China market.