The most requested and free online courses of UNAM

Currently, online learning is professionalised and diversified around the world. There are many free and paid platforms to specialize in almost any field. Coursera is one of the most used free platforms in Latin America and several universities from several countries have joined provide specialized content.

One of them is the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which has developed five of the most popular online open air courses in Spanish in 2018.; In addition, this research house has 76 options allowing everyone to access knowledge and culture in a simple and free way.

Those who had more students enrolled last year were: How to Do a Thesis ?, Personal Finance, Accounting Non-Accountants, Learn and Introduction to Data Science, available in this league.

More than 60% of the beneficiaries of these online courses open to all (MOOC) are Mexican, the rest being users from 194 countries.; some connect from places as far away or unknown as the island of Mayotte in North Africa.

Thus, UNAM is consolidating its work to broaden knowledge and culture, said Francisco Cervantes Pérez, coordinator of the Coordination of Open Distance and Distance Education (CUAED).

In the first quarter of this year 2019, he said, he should reach the figure of two million people who took one of the MOOCs of the National University since their debut in 2013.

"He has worked with academic entities from different areas of knowledge to have a varied offer in an open, free and accessible system. Over the past year, topics related to training and updating professionals, such as the Diploma in Artificial Intelligence, have been consolidated., attributed to the UNAM through D & # 39; a contest attended by members of other universities present in Coursera ".

The University has the capacity to develop between 25 and 30 MOOC per year; For the first quarter of 2019, nine additional courses will be launched. But his success is not so much in the quantity, but in the quality and talent of the academics, who develop the content and make up much of the institution's richness, pointed out the manager.

In the generation of courses converge academic talents: the creativity of a team of young media and production experts is combined with the academic experience, to achieve a quality product.

UNAM offers a broad academic offer in distance mode. "With the Open University System and Distance Education (SUAyED), it helps reduce inequalities in access to culture, art and education, and that educational provision transcends campus boundaries, "he said.

Cervantes said that on the Coursera platform, where about two thousand courses are offered, 151 higher education institutions participate, and only seven offer in Spanish:

The Catholic University of Chile (Pontificia), the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​the IE Business School and the Higher School of Business Administration and Management of the University of 39, Spain, the Australian University of Argentina, the University of Los Andes of Colombia, the UNAM and the Tecnológico de Monterrey. "One of the goals for 2019 is to promote collaboration among academics from these institutions."

With the MOOCs, UNAM strives to provide the whole population with access to knowledge and education, not only with formal education courses, but through extension and continuing education, Cervantes concluded.