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Semester Online, an innovative for-credit, online-learning consortium that includes Boston College, has achieved an international dimension with the addition of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and the University of Melbourne (Australia).
The two institutions, which will each offer an online course beginning in the spring 2014 semester, join BC, Brandeis University, Emory University, Northwestern University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, and Washington University in St. Louis — all regarded as leading teaching and research universities — in Semester Online, the first education consortium to offer for-credit online courses to academically qualified undergraduate students.
In partnership with 2U, the nation’s preeminent online education provider, Semester Online courses feature live class sessions with esteemed professors, self-paced course materials, and a strong social network that allows students to collaborate and establish personal relationships with peers online and with the host institution’s teaching staff.
The program is available to students who are currently enrolled in a four-year, regionally accredited institution and are in good academic standing. Consortium students’ costs for participating in Semester Online are paid through their tuition; students from non-consortium institutions pay a fee for each course. Enrollment for Semester Online courses is capped, with individual sections limited to no more than approximately 20 students.
Courses currently offered by BC through Semester Online are How to Rule the World, by Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies Robert Bartlett, and Vietnam: America’s War at Home and Abroad, by Associate Professor of History Seth Jacobs.
For more information, see www.semesteronline.org.