As colleges and universities around the world suspend in-person classes for the semester and move online, a number of institutions and platforms have made classes—including several on Buddhism—available free to the public. While part of the reasoning for the effort has been to share professionally created and edited classes among higher education colleagues, the change provides an opportunity for those outside of the education system to enjoy an academic introduction to a number of disciplines

Speaking of the effort to assist colleges and universities in need of high quality courses, Leah Belsky, chief enterprise officer at Coursera, said: “The majority of institutions in the world do not have the digital infrastructure to suddenly flip the switch and have people learn online.” (Education Dive)

In addition to offering a number of courses to the public, Coursera will be opening their entire catalogue of more than 3,800 courses to all colleges and universities affected by the coronavirus. Those institutions will need to sign up with Coursera to provide access to their students. Duke University, which has a campus in the city of Kunshan, China, has already been using the service for several weeks.

While instructors around the world are scrambling to create effective courses online, several have already been made with collaborations between Ivy League professors and leading online education platforms. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, said his company’s program would also help institutions around the world teach remotely. “Together, our network of universities at edX are harnessing the existing community that we’ve already formed.” (Education Dive)