Your Online Ivy: Coursera

For decades, the door to America’s top-tier universities has beenclosing, and today your chances of being admitted to theseprestigious institutions is slimmer than ever. This year, theacceptance rate at four of the eight Ivy League Schools hitrecord lows. Stanford professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Nglaunched Coursera earlier this year to fling that door wide open.They created a platform that provides the framework and hostingservices for massively open online courses, or MOOCs, to bring,via the Web, an elite education to the public for free. Atlaunch, when there were only three institutions on board, italmost seemed crazy. But universities see Coursera as anopportunity to experiment online learning and alternativeteaching techniques. In the beginning, the Coursera team had togo out and actively seek partnerships with America’s eliteinstitutions.