We are pleased to have recently announced that we have begun working with the American Council on Education (ACE) to initiate a credit-equivalence evaluation of a select few of the courses offered on Coursera.
This new third party evaluation, conducted through ACE’s College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT®), has the potential to make these select courses completed on Coursera eligible for college transfer credit at institutions choosing to accept the ACE recommendations.
ACE CREDIT® is a recognized authority in assessing non-traditional education experiences and helping students gain credit for courses and exams taken outside traditional degree programs. ACE CREDIT®’s review process enlists a team of academic faculty to assess courses and exams for the purpose of making college credit recommendations. These recommendations are generally accepted by more than 2,000 colleges and universities in the US, opening the possibility for students enrolled at one of these institutions to transfer credit into their degree programs. The decision to accept ACE CREDIT recommendations is fully subject to the policies of the school and degree program a student wishes to apply it towards.
Here’s how it will work:
The ACE CREDIT® evaluation process for selected courses will begin in the coming months. Students wishing to receive ACE CREDIT® recommendations for an eligible future Coursera course will be able to do so by successfully completing the course, undergoing an identity-verified proctored exam, and paying a modest fee.
We plan to use online remote proctoring technologies to both verify a student’s identity and help students formally validate their learning and achievement on Coursera courses. This technology will give students the option to take a proctored assessment using a webcam at their convenience from anywhere in the world, at any time, thus helping to overcome geographical or economic barriers and making these valuable recommendations available to a broad population of students.
“It’s exciting to consider the possibilities that will come from allowing our students to receive transferable college credit toward a degree,” said Andrew Ng, Coursera co-founder. “We created Coursera to help students overcome major barriers to traditional education access, and providing credit-bearing college courses is a huge milestone toward that goal.”
“In recent years, the rising cost of higher education has had a devastating impact on students, many of whom struggle and often fail to complete their degrees,” added Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller. “We hope that by providing top-quality courses that have the potential of academic credit, we can allow more students to enter college with some credit already accrued, and exit college on time, on budget and with a complete degree in hand.”
Are you interested in receiving updates on ACE CREDIT® for courses on Coursera? Please enter your email address in the form below to receive news and updates. To learn even more visit help.coursera.org for answers to frequently asked questions.