HSE Enters Top 10 Universities by Number of Online Courses on Coursera

As of today, HSE offers 46 courses on Coursera, an international online education platform, and one third of them are English-taught. This means that HSE is one of the Top 10 universities by the number of online courses offered on that platform.

‘The number of Russian students has been increasing by at least 50% annually over the last two years, and the number of registrations for courses has doubled. We owe these results to our Russian partners, especially to our most active ones, such as HSE’, said Inessa Roman-Pogorzhelskaya, regional manager at Coursera, ‘I would particularly like to emphasize not just the quantity, but the quality of their work. Rankings and student feedback lead us to the unequivocal conclusion that HSE courses are high quality, subject to high demand and also that students find them interesting. Working with HSE is an honor, and we are keen to share any tools and expertise needed to offer new courses to students in Russia and worldwide’.

The Higher School of Economics first made its courses available via Coursera in 2014. Over the following three years 850,000 students registered for the university’s online courses. In terms of the number of subscribers, HSE is ranked 28^th out of 147 global universities on Coursera.

‘Online courses that are open to the general public seriously expand the educational field. Their appearance was a real breakthrough in terms of the availability of high-quality education’, said Yaroslav Kuzminov, HSE Rector. ‘We are willing to attract the best teachers to HSE, and making sure as many students learn from them as possible is part of our educational mission. MOOCs help to successfully accomplish this mission. As for more down-to-earth issues, online courses can considerably decrease the costs universities incur in offering additional courses to a growing number of students – especially when there is a shortage of strong teachers’.

For HSE, offering courses on Coursera is not only part of its social mission to open up access to high-quality basic courses in economics, sociology, and administration for everyone interested. It also increases the international recognition of Russian education and helps promote the HSE as a brand. Expanding the list of courses offered by Russian universities on the world’s largest online education platform will also have a positive impact on the prestige of Russian education in general. High-quality courses from Russia are in demand by students all over the world, which, in the end of the day, positively influences the country’s image. For example, HSE courses have been selected by 142,000 students from Europe, 118,000 from the USA, and 30,000 from Ukraine.

‘It’s brings a real sense of satisfaction and honor to be the only Russian university in the top 10 global educational brands that have the most courses on the platform’, said Evgenia Kulik, HSE Director for eLearning, ‘And especially to be among such renowned universities as Pennsylvania State University, Peking University, and Duke University. Developing online projects is one of our university’s strategic goals, and we aim to be a serious player on the online education market – not only in Russia, but globally’.

The Coursera international education platform allows anyone to learn from the world’s best professors without leaving home. It makes online courses by the leading and most innovative global universities available to anyone, anywhere. In 2016, the number of registered users on Coursera stood at over 22 million people. The platform offers courses by 147 universities, including leading institutions according to global rankings, such as Stanford, Princeton, and University of London. Russia is represented by seven universities: St. Petersburg State University, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, MEPhI, Novosibirsk State University, Tomsk State University, MIPT, and HSE.