News【Trends】Businesses and Universities Offer New MOOC Programs "Professional Certificate Programs"

In "Trends," we will present various topics related to the current form of education that uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Since 2012, the first year of MOOC use, the number of courses and enrolled students have dramatically increased. Against this backdrop, some organizations have recently begun to develop series of MOOCs in specific fields, in addition to offering single topic MOOCs online as independent courses.

"Professional Certificate Programs" are designed for students to acquire specialized knowledge and skills essential for a specific vocational area. Universities, businesses, and other organizations offer these programs via the MOOC platform edX. Professional Certificate Programs are similar to MicroMasters programs* in that they allow students to acquire knowledge in a specific vocational area by taking MOOCs. Program providers include businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government-affiliated agencies, such as Microsoft, the World Wide Web Consortium, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), while the ones of MicroMasters are basically higher education institutions. Characteristically, Professional Certificate Programs are designed for students to improve their careers in a shorter time period than required by MicroMasters programs. If you are interested in an outline of these programs and their predicted impacts, please refer to the article（"Professional Certificate Programs: Delivering real job impact and critical skills you need to stand out", dated April 25, 2017 and published on the edX website.

Program Examples

• "Data Science," Harvard University

• "Corporate Finance," Columbia University

• "Microsoft Professional Program in Artificial Intelligence," Microsoft

• "Front-End Web Developer," World Wide Web Consortium

* MicroMasters programs: Programs consisting of a set of MOOCs offered, similarly to the Professional Certificate Programs, by edX. For an overview, click here.

- Click here to read previous "Trends" articles.