Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Here's How You Can Take a U. of C. Law School Class for Free

By Sam Cholke | July 2, 2015 5:39am
Internet Giants: Randal Picker class trailer
View Full Caption
University of Chicago Law School

HYDE PARK — The University of Chicago Law School is now offering at least one class for free.

The Law School is jumping into the world of massive open online courses with a free seven-week course on the laws governing Internet giants like Google and Apple.

“We’re going to talk about Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, net neutrality, video, music and more,” said professor Randal Picker in the introduction to the course.

Picker, a law school professor and a fellow at the university’s Computation Institute, will teach about anti-trust and copyright issues in the university’s first self-paced course offered online through Coursera.

The course will be available starting July 13.

The university has dabbled in online courses since 2013 while other institutions like Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have dove in headlong offering hundreds of courses online for free.

Like those other institutions, the University of Chicago’s courses may convey knowledge but they don’t come with course credit.

It’s unclear why the university has not increased the number of course offerings more aggressively. When the initiative was launched in 2013, the university billed it as a way to better promote its intellectual strengths and said that expansion would be dictated by faculty interest.

The university now has five courses available online for free, after first partnering with Coursera with courses on modeling climate change and a two-part course on asset pricing.

A course in critical issues in education is also offered through edX, a Coursera competitor founded by MIT and Harvard.

Those initial courses and a class on “the neurobiology of everyday life” were more traditional with specified start and end dates. The new courses are more free-form, allowing students to start at any time and progress through the class at their own pace.

The new course taught by Picker for U. of C. alumni will offer special access to videos and extra discussions with Picker.

View the class listing on Coursera here.

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: