Math professor Robert Ghrist’s Coursera class may soon offer credits to his virtual students.
The course, Calculus: Single Variable, is being recommended for credit by the American Council on Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service, a service that offers non-traditional students college credit.
“ACE credit recommendations will allow us to reward students for all the hard work that they are already doing,” Ghrist said in a press release. “These students are working as hard as they can to learn this difficult material, while we are working as hard as we can to teach it, so, in the end, everyone will benefit.”
Ghrist’s class on Coursera is currently underway, having started on Jan. 7.
The course consists of almost 60 animated lectures online and “plenty of homework problems” according to the Coursera page. Grading for the online course is based off of 5 quizzes spread throughout the length of the course and a final exam at the end.
Penn students, however, will not be able to receive direct credit at Penn for this course. However, those who complete the Coursera course may place out of intro-level math courses through tests given by the department.
Verification measures are currently being planned by Coursera so that any issues of academic integrity, which has been an issue in the past, can be addressed.
These measures will include online remote proctoring, which will let a student with a webcam take a proctored test. Other measures are being explored by Coursera.
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