Under the platform of MOOCs (edX), The University of Adelaide plans to offer four free courses on the internet in the upcoming year. edX is a not-for-profit organization founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts ­Institute of Technology.

While Adelaide is taking steps to join hands with edX as partner, the University of Sydney is left over as Australia’s sole elite Group of Eight University to have missed to provide free online education courses. Previously, the Australian National University and the University of Queensland have also become partners in edX.

On the different story, the University of Melbourne, the University of NSW and the University of WA are members of Coursera, which is a ­for-profit company founded by two Stanford University computing science professors.

Monash University also belongs to FutureLearn, a British MOOC provider owned by the Open University.

Speaking on the same, University of Adelaide deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Pascale Quester said that the university aims to deliver free courses to all worldwide by being in partner with edX.

As per the announcement in 2012 strategic plan, the university aims to shift its learning focus from huge groups of discussion to narrow down.

Addressing on the same plan, Professor Quester said, “We can also start offering some of those MOOCs to alumni groups, we can starting hitting some of the professional groups where they could be a building block for their professional –qualifications.”

The University of ­Melbourne, was the first Australian ­institution to join the movement of MOOC which has by now passed the highest enrolling percentage with more than 500,000 students in its free online courses.

While the number of students is from the age group of 20 to 29, 60 per cent of MOOC students are male.

Student’s intake such courses with great enthusiasm where their reach is spread to different continents. Noting the figures it shows that, the largest is the US, with 27 per cent of Melbourne’s MOOC students, second being India (7 per cent) and Britain (5 per cent). While from China it was 4 per cent of the total.

For detailed information go through websites of University of Adelaide or edX.