By Chung Hyun-chae
More universities will allow students to earn credits from taking lectures from the country's massive open online courses (K-MOOC) this year.
The Ministry of Education said Wednesday that it is working out a plan to encourage universities to recognize credits for K-MOOC lectures.
Ewha Womans University has already begun to provide credits for students since March if they take any of the four lectures that the university produced last year for K-MOOC.
Four other universities will soon join Ewha.
They are Kyung Hee and Seoul National universities, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
The five universities are among 10 which have taken part in K-MOOC which was begun last October by the National Institute for Lifelong Education under the initiative of the education ministry. Now, 27 lectures are available.
From September, Kyung Hee will recognize credits earned from two online lectures it created last year.
Seoul National, POSTECH and KAIST will jointly produce five lectures that will appear on the K-MOOC website (www.kmooc.kr) also from September.
The ministry plans to increase the number of the lectures to more than 100 to provide more diverse educational content, while doubling the number of participating universities to 20.
"We have devised the plan to boost participation in K-MOOC," said Jang Mi-ran, director of the ministry's university finance division.
She said the ministry will select 10 more universities to participate in the K-MOOC service. "We also plan to encourage companies to give preferential treatment in recruitment to those who took some K-MOOC lectures, which they believe are related to their industries."
As of February, 66,000 people had registered for the K-MOOC lectures.
According to a recent survey conducted by the ministry among 2,691 people who took K-MOOC lectures, 81.1 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with the lectures.
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