The UAB offers new Coursera platform massive online courses

The UAB has expanded its offer of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) in Coursera, a highly prestigious virtual education platform created in 2011 which already has over 8.3 million users and offers 686 courses in 110 universities around the world, selected from the best of each country.

On 30 June, with almost 13,350 students registered, the UAB began one of its new courses: “Cultural Representations of Sexuality”. During the four weeks the course is offered, Meri Torras, Aina Pérez, Noemí Acedo, lecturers from the Department of Spanish Studies, and Teresa López, lecturer from the Department Spanish Literature, will teach students how to interpret the inscription and materialisation of discourses related to sexuality and gender in different cultural media and productions (cinema, television, literature, photography, etc.). The course is offered in Spanish and requires students to dedicate four to six hours per week. The course includes the collaboration of Mayte Cantero, Anna Orta and Michelle Gamma.

On 6 October, Joan Subirats and Quim Brugué, professors in Political Science, Jaume Blasco, Margarita León, Marc Parés and Ismael Blanco, members of IGOP, and Raquel Gallego, lecturer from the Department of Political Science and Public Law, will begin the first edition of the course in “Democracy and Public Decisions. Introduction to the Analysis of Public Policies". In this case, the duration of the course is of eight weeks (from six to eight hours per week) in which students will study - also in Spanish - the characteristics which make something become publicly known and of public interest.

In addition, the UAB organises new editions of two courses which became very popular in 2013: the “Pre-Calculus” course, offered by Jaume Pujol and Mercè Villanueva, lecturers from the Department of Information and Communications Engineering, which will begin on 17 September  and the course in ”Egyptology”, offered by Josep Cervelló and José Llull, lecturers of the Department of Antiquity and Middle Age Studies, beginning on 3 October.

All courses are free and provide students with online material such as information documents, study sheets and self-evaluations, as well as other tools which foster interaction and contact among those registered to the course.