FutureLearn

Last updated

FutureLearn
Type of site
 Online education
Available inEnglish, French, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese
Owner Global University Systems
Key peopleIan Howell (June 2023) [1] (Managing Director)
Jo Johnson (Chair of the Board) [2]
URL www.futurelearn.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
Users 17 million (September 2021) [3]
LaunchedDecember 2012;11 years ago (2012-12)
Current statusActive

FutureLearn is a British digital education platform founded in December 2012. The company was acquired by Global University Systems in December 2022 and previously jointly owned by The Open University and SEEK Ltd. [4] It is a massive open online course (MOOC), microcredential and degree learning platform.

Contents

As of November 2023, it included over 260 UK and international partners, including industry and government partners and 20 million total registered learners. [5]

History

FutureLearn was launched with 12 university partners, seeking those who "consistently rank at the top end of the…league tables". [6] The 12 founding partners are: The Open University, University of Birmingham, University of Bristol, Cardiff University, University of East Anglia, University of Exeter, King's College London, Lancaster University, University of Leeds, University of Southampton, St Andrews University, and University of Warwick. [7]

The launch was described as a move to 'fight back' and provide a space for UK institutions to engage in the MOOC space. [8] [9]

In 2016, FutureLearn became the first platform for students to earn credits towards a degree from a top UK university from their tablets and smartphones. [10]

In April 2019, FutureLearn announced that SEEK Ltd would invest £50 million in the company. In return, SEEK would receive a 50% stake in the company. [4]

In December 2022, Global University Systems, which owns and operates several private for-profit colleges and universities, acquired FutureLearn, and Jo Johnson became chair of the board of the company. [2]

Courses

FutureLearn's courses span a broad range of topics. The first course opened on 14 October 2013. [11] The first courses to be made available included "Web science: how the web is changing the world" (University of Southampton), "Introduction to ecosystems" (The Open University), "Improving your image: dental photography in practice" (University of Birmingham), "Causes of war" (King's College London), "The discovery of the Higgs boson" (University of Edinburgh), "Discover dentistry" (University of Sheffield), "Muslims in Britain: changes and challenges" (Cardiff University), "Begin programming: build your first mobile game" (University of Reading) and "England in the time of King Richard III" (University of Leicester). The first course to launch was "The secret power of brands", conducted by professor Robert Jones of the University of East Anglia.

As of January 2024, FutureLearn now has an expansive course portfolio stemming across the full spectrum, with a focus on business, teaching, healthcare and IT courses, including "Innovative Leadership: Developing Curiosity", conducted by Dr. Diane Hamilton. [12]

Social impact

Afghanistan

In December 2022, following Taliban restrictions on education in Afghanistan, FutureLearn offered free access to the online education platform for women and girls in the country.[ citation needed ]

Jo Johnson, Chairman of FutureLearn, said: "For girls and women who can access the internet and afford the time, this could be a lifeline. While this is of course no silver bullet – poor connectivity, poverty and language barriers mean many women may not be able to access the material – it can nonetheless play a valuable part in enabling women in Afghanistan to assert their inalienable human right to education."

As of December 2023, there were over 33,000 enrolments on the scheme from learners in Afghanistan, 14,000 of which came from learners that had previously never accessed the platform.

Ukraine

On 27 March 2023, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FutureLearn announced that staff and students at Ukrainian universities would be able to enrol for free on FutureLearn courses.

UNESCO Learning Cities

On 20 September 2023, at an official side event of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) and FutureLearn announced a partnership to accelerate Education for Sustainable Development in UNESCO learning cities. In a landmark campaign, FutureLearn, a member of the Global University Systems’ network of institutions, will provide free access to online courses on sustainable development issues for 100,000 lifelong learners in UNESCO learning cities across the globe.

‘The challenges our planet faces can only be effectively addressed when each and every one of us possesses the knowledge and skills essential for driving personal and societal transformation required to change course. Education for Sustainable Development is key to this endeavour,’ underlined Mr Raul Valdes Cotera, Chief Programme Coordinator a.i. at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, in his video message to the side event. ‘I am therefore excited that, through our collaboration with Global University Systems and FutureLearn, 100,000 learners from UNESCO learning cities across the globe will acquire the essential skills to champion sustainable development,’ he continued.

Related Research Articles

Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adult education</span> Any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling

Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. It can mean any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling, encompassing basic literacy to personal fulfillment as a lifelong learner, and to ensure the fulfillment of an individual.

Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of learning for either personal or professional reasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open educational resources</span> Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute under some licenses. These are designed to reduce accessibility barriers by implementing best practices in teaching and to be adapted for local unique contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open education</span> Educational movement

Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open education broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems and is typically offered through online and distance education. The qualifier "open" refers to the elimination of barriers that can preclude both opportunities and recognition for participation in institution-based learning. One aspect of openness or "opening up" education is the development and adoption of open educational resources in support of open educational practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D2L</span> Global software company

D2L is a Canada-based global software company with offices in Australia, Brazil, Europe, India, Singapore, and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massive open online course</span> Education service on the web

A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Udemy</span> American online learning platform

Udemy, Inc. is an education technology company, founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. It is based in San Francisco, California, United States, with hubs in Denver, Colorado; Dublin, Ireland; Austin, Texas; Melbourne, Australia; İstanbul, Turkey, and Gurgaon, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison (company)</span> Irish online education platform

ALISON is an Irish online education platform for higher education that provides certificate courses and accredited diploma courses. It was founded on 21 April 2007 in Galway, Ireland, by Irish social entrepreneur Mike Feerick.

iversity Berlin-based online education platform

Iversity is a Berlin-based online education platform. Since October 2013, iversity has specialised in providing online courses and lectures in higher education, specifically MOOCs. Courses are free and open for anyone to enroll and participate. Many of them are conducted in English or German, but also in other languages. iversity cooperates with individual professors as well as different European universities. Some of the courses were winners of the MOOC Production Fellowship held in early 2013. iversity.org officially launched the MOOC platform online in October 2013 and as of February 2015 has a user base of 600,000 online learners, enrolled in 63 courses offered by 41 partner universities. iversity is the only MOOC platform offering courses with ECTS-integration. iversity has branch offices in Bernau bei Berlin, Germany and Berlin.

Global citizenship education (GCED) is a form of civic learning that involves students' active participation in projects that address global issues of a social, political, economic, or environmental nature. The two main elements of GCE are 'global consciousness'; the moral or ethical aspect of global issues, and 'global competencies', or skills meant to enable learners to participate in changing and developing the world. The promotion of GCE was a response by governments and NGOs to the emergence of supranational institution, regional economic blocs, and the development of information and communications technologies. These have all resulted in the emergence of a more globally oriented and collaborative approach to education. GCE addresses themes such as peace and human rights, intercultural understanding, citizenship education, respect for diversity and tolerance, and inclusiveness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edraak</span> MOCC website in Arabic language

Edraak is a non-profit massive open online course (MOOC) portal established by Queen Rania al Abdallah of Jordan for the promotion of knowledge in the Arab world. It is considered the first non-profit and pan-Arab online educational platform that offers courses for free to learners worldwide. The MOOC platform operates in partnership with the Harvard-Stanford-MIT consortium called edX and is headquartered in Amman.

In higher education a microdegree, also microcredentials and microcourse, is a qualification focused upon a specified professional or career discipline and typically comprises one or more sources of accelerated educational experiences. Microdegrees are a single manifestation of Competency Based Education (CBE) which seeks to tie credentialing to specific skills sets. Micro-credentials may be completed on-site, online or in a blended format.

The Incheon declaration is a declaration on education adopted at the World Education Forum in Incheon, South Korea on 15 May 2015. It is the logical continuation of the Education For All (EFA) movement and the Millennium Development Goals on Education, and many of its goals were based on a review of progress made since the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online learning in higher education</span> Development in distance education that began in the mid-1980s

Online learning involves courses offered by primary institutions that are 100% virtual. Online learning, or virtual classes offered over the internet, is contrasted with traditional courses taken in a brick-and-mortar school building. It is a development in distance education that expanded in the 1990s with the spread of the commercial Internet and the World Wide Web. The learner experience is typically asynchronous but may also incorporate synchronous elements. The vast majority of institutions utilize a learning management system for the administration of online courses. As theories of distance education evolve, digital technologies to support learning and pedagogy continue to transform as well.

Language MOOCs are web-based online courses freely accessible for a limited period of time, created for those interested in developing their skills in a foreign language. As Sokolik (2014) states, enrolment is large, free and not restricted to students by age or geographic location. They have to follow the format of a course, i.e., include a syllabus and schedule and offer the guidance of one or several instructors. The MOOCs are not so new, since courses with such characteristics had been available online for quite a lot of time before Dave Cormier coined the term 'MOOC' in 2008. Furthermore, MOOCs are generally regarded as the natural evolution of OERs, which are freely accessible materials used in Education for teaching, learning and assessment.

Online credentials for learning are digital credentials that are offered in place of traditional paper credentials for a skill or educational achievement. They are directly linked to the accelerated development of internet communication technologies, the development of digital badges, electronic passports and massive open online courses (MOOCs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change education</span> Education that aims to address and develop effective responses to climate change

Climate change education (CCE) is education that aims to address and develop effective responses to climate change. It helps learners understand the causes and consequences of climate change, prepares them to live with the impacts of climate change and empowers learners to take appropriate actions to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Climate change and climate change education are global challenges that can be anchored in the curriculum in order to provide local learning and widen up mindset shifts on how climate change can be mitigated. In such as case CCE is more than climate change literacy but understanding ways of dealing with climate

Open Educational Practices in Australia refers to the development, implementation and use of Open educational resources (OER), open access, open learning design, open policies, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to open up education in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable Development Goal 4</span> 4th of 17 Sustainable Development Goals to achieve quality education for all

Sustainable Development Goal 4 is about quality education and is among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in September 2015. The full title of SDG 4 is "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all".

References

  1. ↑ "FUTURELEARN APPOINTS IAN HOWELL AS MANAGING DIRECTOR" . Retrieved 14 June 2023.
  2. 1 2 "FutureLearn sold to GUS, Jo Johnson to chair". The PIE News. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
  3. ↑ "Mary Queen of Scots: New Glasgow University course into doomed monarch" . Retrieved 25 November 2021.
  4. 1 2 "Investors bet big on the companies formerly known as MOOC providers". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  5. ↑ "FutureLearn partners page". futurelearn.com. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  6. ↑ Parr, Chris (20 December 2012). "Futurelearn picks league table stars for debut line-up | General". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Marszal, Andrew (14 December 2012). "UK universities to launch free degree-style online courses". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  8. ↑ Claire Shaw (20 December 2012). "FutureLearn is UK's chance to 'fight back', says OU vice-chancellor | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  9. ↑ Parry, Marc (13 December 2012). "Leading British Universities Join New MOOC Venture - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education". Chronicle.com. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  10. ↑ Moules, Jonathan (26 May 2016). "FutureLearn to enable study on Moocs to count towards a degree". Financial Times. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  11. ↑ Parr, Chris (19 February 2013). "PM hails new arrivals to Futurelearn". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  12. ↑ https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/developing-curiosity
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.