MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/09/13 -- Coursera today announced that students will be offered the opportunity to earn Verified Certificates for select massive open online courses (MOOCs) hosted on the company's learning platform, for a small fee. This new option, called Signature Track, is available on a course-by-course basis and aims to verify the identity of the students doing the work. Though it does not include credit toward a degree program, Signature Track provides students with a more meaningful certificate that proves their success in a rigorous online university course.

Initially, Coursera will pilot Signature Tracks for five courses, including UCSF's Nutrition for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, UCSF's Clinical Problem Solving, Duke's Introduction to Genetics and Evolution, Georgia Tech's Computational Investing, Part I, and Illinois' Microeconomics Principles. Eventually, Coursera plans to offer Signature Track for a large majority of its courses. Free access to Coursera's online courses will remain available to all students, allowing Coursera to continue to work toward its core mission of making high-quality education available to everyone.

"When we started offering our courses on Coursera, we aimed to extend the reach of our university's intellectual strengths beyond our own halls, to a global classroom," said Peter Lange, Provost of Duke University. "Now, we hope that these credentials, while they will not contribute directly toward a degree, will afford students around the world, of all ages, backgrounds and resources, an opportunity to have a legitimate credential for their work in order to advance their career or fulfill themselves personally."

Students will have up to two or three weeks from the eligible course's start date to decide if they want to participate in its Signature Track. After deciding to participate, students will create a Signature Profile by first taking two photographs with their webcam: one of themselves and another of an acceptable photo ID document. Next, students will create a biometric profile of their unique typing patterns by typing a short phrase. When a student submits work in the course, they authenticate their identity by typing the same short phrase, which is then matched to their recorded samples.

Upon successful completion of their course, students will receive a Verified Certificate issued by both the participating university and Coursera. Students will then be able to electronically share their detailed course performance, in a verified format, with anyone they designate via their personal Course Records page on Coursera.

The initial price for joining Signature Track will vary depending on the course and generally range from $30 to $100. Coursera will also offer students who cannot afford the fee the opportunity to register for financial assistance.

"Offering verified certification for our courses will open up many new and valuable opportunities for students," said Joseph Castro, Vice Chancellor of University of California, San Francisco. "And charging a small fee for these certificates gives our university the ability to cover the cost of free course offerings, ensuring that we're able to continue providing high-quality content to students around the world."

"We created Signature Track to allow students to verify their identity and show that they did the work, and thus provide a more valuable credential, without detracting from the experience of our free courses," said Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng. "For students that would benefit from Signature Track but cannot afford it, we felt that offering financial aid is important, to further our mission of making education available to everyone," added co-founder Daphne Koller.

This announcement follows Coursera's agreement with the American Council on Education (ACE) to evaluate credit equivalency of a subset of courses on the platform. Along with the opportunity to pursue ACE CREDIT recommendations, Signature Track will expand students' ability to receive recognition for their online coursework.

About Coursera
Coursera is on a mission to change the world by educating millions of people by offering classes from top universities and professors online for free. Coursera's comprehensive education platform combines mastery-based learning principles with video lectures, interactive content and a global community of peers, offering students from around the world a unique online learning experience. Coursera is working with top-tier universities to provide courses across a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, literature, history and computer science, among others. Coursera is backed by leading venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates. For more information, visit Coursera.org.

UC Disclaimer
The information stated above was prepared by Coursera and reflects solely the opinion of the corporation. Nothing in this statement shall be construed to imply any support or endorsement of Coursera, or any of its products, by The Regents of the University of California, its officers, agents and employees.

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