More MOOCs from Stanford

Stanford University has launched NovoEd, a re-branding of its Venture Lab MOOC Platform, with an undisclosed sum raised from a consortium of venture firms backing the deal.

NovoEd raised the initial seed backing from Costanoa Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kapor Capital, Learn Capital, Maveron, Ulu Ventures, and additional angel investors.

Beginning next week, the platform will offer seven Stanford courses for free to the general public, with a further 10 courses for Stanford students only. The courses will offer courses on a range of topics, including creativity, entrepreneurship and medicine, and is actively looking to partner with other universities.

As Venture Lab, the firm has already attracted 170k students from 150 countries within a year.

NovoEd looks to separate itself from other MOOC platforms by offering greater focus on student collaboration and team-based learning, with the goal being to break down large classes attracted on similar platforms into smaller groups.

NovoEd chief executive Amin Saberi said: “Instead of putting the spotlight on the professors and pretending that they know all the answers, we put the spotlight on the students and help them unleash their own power. In this transition from brick and mortar to online learning, you shouldn’t strip away the social, the experiential or the collaborative aspect of learning.”

NovoEd is the fourth MOOC platform to see Stanford involvement in some way. Udacity and Coursera, launched last year, were both started by Stanford professors. In addition, Class2Go, an open-source MOOC platform created at Stanford, has merged with Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology’s EdX.