BRIEFLY: EDUCATION U.K. Seeks Wikipedia's Help to Post Research Online FROM NEWS REPORTS Published: May 6, 2012 FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE+ EMAIL SHARE PRINT REPRINTS U.K. seeks Wikipedia help to post research online Related On Education, What Would You Do as the British Prime Minister? (May 7, 2012) News, data and conversation about education in New York. Join us on Facebook » Follow us on Twitter » The British government has asked Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, to help it make taxpayer-funded academic research more widely available online. Currently, most research is published in academic journals that are expensive to gain access to. The government asked Mr. Wales to help develop ways of storing and distributing publicly funded research data and articles online, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said. — (AP) Harvard and M.I.T. create online-course partnership Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX , to offer free online courses from both universities. Harvard’s involvement follows M.I.T.’s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project to be known as MITx . Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, about 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. EdX courses will offer a certificate but will carry no credit. Harvard and M.I.T. are not the only elite universities planning to offer an array of massively open online courses, or MOOCs, as they are known. Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan recently announced their partnership with a new for-profit company, Coursera, with $16 million in venture capital. EdX, which is expected to offer its first five courses this autumn, will be overseen by a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts, governed equally by the two universities, each of which has committed $30 million to the project. — TAMAR LEWIN Japanese universities asked to increase study abroad The Japanese Education Ministry is encouraging universities to increase the number of students studying abroad. The ministry said last month that it would fund 40 Japanese universities to start study-abroad programs. The selected schools will receive ¥120 million to ¥260 million, or $1.4 million to $3.1 million, per year for five years. Universities will be chosen based on their plans to promote overseas study, implement English classes, hire foreign teachers and establish credit transfers with foreign universities. This project is the latest bid by Japan to reverse the decrease in Japanese students studying abroad per year. This figure has dropped from its peak of 82,945 in 2004 to 59,923 in 2009, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. — REBECCA APPEL Tutoring company is sued and accused of false billing U.S. prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Princeton Review, accusing the test-preparation company of fraudulently claiming reimbursement for tutoring services that they said it never delivered to hundreds of underprivileged New York City children. In the suit, brought against the company and a former supervisor, Ana Azocar, the government said the company submitted false claims between 2006 and 2010 for tutoring services under a government-financed program. A spokeswoman for Princeton Review, Denise DesChenes, said that Ms. Azocar no longer worked for the company and that the management was “working closely with the U.S. attorney’s office to resolve this matter expeditiously.” — JENNIFER PRESTON A version of this article appeared in print on May 7, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.

REPORTS

Published: May 6, 2012

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U.K. seeks Wikipedia help to post research online

The British government has asked Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, to help it make taxpayer-funded academic research more widely available online.

Currently, most research is published in academic journals that are expensive to gain access to.

The government asked Mr. Wales to help develop ways of storing and distributing publicly funded research data and articles online, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said. — (AP)

Harvard and M.I.T. create online-course partnership

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX , to offer free online courses from both universities.

Harvard’s involvement follows M.I.T.’s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project to be known as MITx . Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, about 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. EdX courses will offer a certificate but will carry no credit.

Harvard and M.I.T. are not the only elite universities planning to offer an array of massively open online courses, or MOOCs, as they are known. Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan recently announced their partnership with a new for-profit company, Coursera, with $16 million in venture capital.

EdX, which is expected to offer its first five courses this autumn, will be overseen by a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts, governed equally by the two universities, each of which has committed $30 million to the project. — TAMAR LEWIN

Japanese universities asked to increase study abroad

The Japanese Education Ministry is encouraging universities to increase the number of students studying abroad.

The ministry said last month that it would fund 40 Japanese universities to start study-abroad programs. The selected schools will receive ¥120 million to ¥260 million, or $1.4 million to $3.1 million, per year for five years. Universities will be chosen based on their plans to promote overseas study, implement English classes, hire foreign teachers and establish credit transfers with foreign universities.

This project is the latest bid by Japan to reverse the decrease in Japanese students studying abroad per year. This figure has dropped from its peak of 82,945 in 2004 to 59,923 in 2009, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. — REBECCA APPEL

Tutoring company is sued and accused of false billing

U.S. prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Princeton Review, accusing the test-preparation company of fraudulently claiming reimbursement for tutoring services that they said it never delivered to hundreds of underprivileged New York City children.

In the suit, brought against the company and a former supervisor, Ana Azocar, the government said the company submitted false claims between 2006 and 2010 for tutoring services under a government-financed program.

A spokeswoman for Princeton Review, Denise DesChenes, said that Ms. Azocar no longer worked for the company and that the management was “working closely with the U.S. attorney’s office to resolve this matter expeditiously.” — JENNIFER PRESTO
N

A version of this article appeared in print on May 7, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.