University of People - First Free, Peer-to-Peer Online College
Posted by admin on March 16th, 2009
Next month, the first tuition-free, peer-to-peer college opens its doors to new enrollees. The University of the People plans to offer two bachelor degree programs: a BA in Business Administration and a BSc in Computer Science.
Instead of traditional textbooks, students will rely on OpenCourseWare material provided for free by other universities. Instead of working directly with teachers, students will complete assignments working as peer groups. There will be nominal fees for admissions and testing. But, students won’t be charged for tuition.
A recent news release from the University of the People explains:
“University of People will be able to effectively function on a limited budget without sacrificing quality of education by using collaborative and open-source eLearning. UoP will embrace peer-to-peer teaching to make the best use of a student body from around the world. Within online study communities, students will share resources, exchange ideas, discuss weekly topics, submit assignments and take exams. The curriculum will be supported by respected scholars. A community of educators, comprised of active and retired professors, librarians, master level students and other professionals, will participate and oversee the assessment process.”
Enrollment is limited to 300 students for the first semester, beginning this September. Although the school is not currently accredited, administrators plan to seek accreditation after the required wait time.
Provided by About.com
Tags: online degrees, online learning, peer to peer learning
This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Colleges and Universities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:44 am
this university of people is a very inovation and helpful organisation to spread education all over the world. I request the authority to waive examination processing fee for the poor studient. The examination charge i.e. from $10 - $100 is too high for a poor studient in India to bear.
Hope the benevolent services which the university is providing will continue and extand by waiving examination fees also.