Emergence of innovative courses

Early cMOOCs such as CCK08 and ds106 used innovative pedagogy, with distributed learning materials rather than a video-lecture format, and a focus on education and learning, and digital storytelling respectivelyFollowing the 2011 launch of three stanford xMOOCs, including Introduction Into AI, launched by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig a number of other innovative courses have emerged. As of May 2014, more than 900 MOOCs are offered by US universities and colleges. As of February 2013 dozens of universities had affiliated with MOOCs, including many international institutions. In addition, some organisations operate their own MOOCs – including Google's Power Search.A range of courses have emerged; "There was a real question of whether this would work for humanities and social science", said Ng. However, psychology and philosophy courses are among Coursera's most popular. Student feedback and completion rates suggest that they are as successful as math and science courses  even though the corresponding completion rates are lower.In January 2012, University of Helsinki launched a Finnish MOOC in programming. The MOOC is used as a way to offer high-schools the opportunity to provide programming courses for their students, even if no local premises or faculty that can organize such courses exist. The course has been offered recurringly, and the top-performing students are admitted to a BSc and MSc program in Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. At a meeting on E-Learning and MOOCs, Jaakko Kurhila, Head of studies for University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science, claimed that to date, there has been over 8000 participants in their MOOCs altogether.On 18 June 2012, Ali Lemus from Galileo University launched the first Latin American MOOC titled "Desarrollando Aplicaciones para iPhone y iPad" This MOOC is a Spanish remix of Stanford University's popular "CS 193P iPhone Application Development" and had 5,380 students enrolled. The technology used to host the MOOC was the Galileo Educational System platform (GES) which is based on the .LRN project."Gender Through Comic Books" was a course taught by Ball State University's Christina Blanch on Instructure's Canvas Network, a MOOC platform launched in November 2012. The course used examples from comic books to teach academic concepts about gender and perceptions.In November 2012, the University of Miami launched its first high school MOOC as part of Global Academy, its online high school. The course became available for high school students preparing for the SAT Subject Test in biology.During the Spring 2013 semester, Cathy Davidson and Dan Ariely taught the "Surprise Endings: Social Science and Literature" a SPOC course taught in-person at Duke University and also as a MOOC, with students from Duke running the online discussions.In the UK of summer 2013, Physiopedia ran their first MOOC regarding Professional Ethics in collaboration with University of the Western Cape in South Africa. This was followed by a second course in 2014, Physiotherapy Management of Spinal Cord Injuries, which was accredited by the World Confederation of Physical Therapy and attracted approximately 4000 participants with a 40% completion rate. Physiopedia is the first provider of physiotherapy/physical therapy MOOCs, accessible to participants worldwide.In March 2013, Coursolve piloted a crowdsourced business strategy course for 100 organizations with the University of Virginia. A data science MOOC began in May 2013.In May 2013 Coursera announced free e-books for some courses in partnership with Chegg, an online textbook-rental company. Students would use Chegg's e-reader, which limits copying and printing and could use the book only while enrolled in the class.In June 2013, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill launched Skynet University, which offers MOOCs on introductory astronomy. Participants gain access to the university's global network of robotic telescopes, including those in the Chilean Andes and Australia.In July 2013 the University of Tasmania launched Understanding Dementia, the world's first Dementia MOOC. With one of the world's highest completion rates (39%), the course was recognized in the journal Nature.Startup Veduca launched the first MOOCs in Brazil, in partnership with the University of São Paulo in June 2013. The first two courses were Basic Physics, taught by Vanderlei Salvador Bagnato, and Probability and Statistics, taught by Melvin Cymbalista and André Leme Fleury. In the first two weeks following the launch at Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, more than 10,000 students enrolled.Startup Wedubox (Finalist at MassChallenge 2013) launched the first MOOC in finance and third MOOC in Latam, the MOOC was created by Jorge Borrero (MBA Universidad de la Sabana) with the title "WACC and the cost of capital" it reached 2.500 students in Dec 2013 only 2 months after the launch.In the fall 2014 Georgia Institute of Technology launched the first MOOD (massive online open degree) (Master's degree) in computer science for $7000 by partnering with Udacity and AT&T.In September 2014, the high street retailer, Marks & Spencer partnered up with University of Leeds to construct an MOOC business course "which will use case studies from the Company Archive alongside research from the University to show how innovation and people are key to business success. The course will be offered by the UK based MOOC platform, FutureLearn.On 16 March 2015, the University of Cape Town launched its first MOOC, Medicine and the Arts on the UK-led platform, Futurelearn.In July 2015, OpenClassrooms, jointly with IESA Multimedia, launches first MOOC-based Bachelor degree in multimedia project management, recognized by French state.The Pacific Open Learning Health Net, set up by the WHO in 2003, developed an online learning platform in 2004-5 for continuing development of health professionals. Courses were originally delivered by Moodle, but were looking more like other MOOCs by 2012.x