Pleased with the success of its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which debuted on Coursera in January 2014, HEC Paris plans to release a second series of online courses in 2015, the school announced yesterday. These new MOOCs will address topics related to organizations, social entrepreneurship an technology-based startups.
HEC Paris Dean Bernard Ramanantsoa views the school’s partnership with Coursera as an opportunity to open its courses to students who might not otherwise have access to higher education due to practical or economic constraints. “Sharing our faculty’s expertise with the general public at no cost is a truly exciting and meaningful challenge,” he said in a statement.
The school’s first new MOOC will be available on Coursera beginning on January 13, 2015. Entitled “Time to Reorganize” and taught by Professor Rodolphe Durand, the course will examine ways organizations and individuals interact that benefit or impede social evolution.
The second MOOC, available on February 24, 2015, is dedicated to social entrepreneurship and aims to inspire and aid entrepreneurs seeking to make a difference in society. It was developed by professors of the HEC Society and Organizations Center and HEC’s Social Business/Enterprise and Poverty Chair, in partnership with the “Ticket for Change” project, a initiative to raise awareness of social entrepreneurship and encourage young people to take part.
The third HEC Paris MOOC scheduled to debut on Coursera will teach participating students how to set up a technology-based start-up. This course, co-developed by HEC Paris Affiliate Professor Etienne Krieger and Romain Beaume from École Polytechnique engineering school, will begin on April 1, 2015. Drawing on input from 20 experts in the fields of strategy, technology, commercial development, HR and finance, the course will help students identify and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities in science and technology. This course will also be offered as a SPOC (Small Private Open Course) to master’s students from HEC Paris and École Polytechnique, in combination with field projects.
