The first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the French national platform France Université Numérique (FUN) have been launched earlier this month. Participants can now take French language MOOCs in a variety of fields, such as interactive digital media technology, the evolution of philosophy, or basic statistics. The courses are offered by leading French universities such as Sciences Po Paris, Université Pantéon-Assas, École Polytechnique ParisTech and many more.

Following the launch of the FUN platform in October last year (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, October 2013), the  French Minister for Higher Education and Research Geneviève Fioraso has announced further EUR 8 million spending for the government agenda on information technology and higher education, which originally foresaw a budget of EUR 12 million. The additional budgetary support will be provided for a fund and infrastructure measures at universities in order to allow the creation of future MOOCs.

Since the launch of the FUN platform, more than 88 000 people have registered and already signed up for the recently started or still upcoming online courses. Further MOOCs as well as new participants will join the platform in the course of the year.

In the meantime, Austria is launching its very first MOOCs platform – iMOOx. Supported by the federal state of Styria, the University of Graz and the Technical University of Graz are starting their first MOOCs at the beginning of March.

French Ministry of Higher Education and Research - Press release (in French)

France Université Numérique - Press release (in French)

iMoox (in German)