Mason Professors Dr. Tyler Cowen and Dr. Alex Tabarrok, both economists and co-authors of the Marginal Revolution blog, have announced their plans to launch their very own Marginal Revolution University (MRU) on Oct. 1.
MRU will not only benefit Mason Economics students, but anyone with access to a computer. Internet users across the globe who are willing to learn about economics will have the opportunity to become an MRU user.
As Cowen said in an email interview, “MRU will expand quality, access, and affordability to economics education. It will aid the Mason brand and make it more global. It will show Mason to be a hotbed of innovators, as it truly is.”
Cowen and Tabarrok have carefully engineered an eight point curricular plan for MRU, which can be seen to the right.
What makes MRU unique is that it is merely a learning module that can be used to create a MOOC. MRU will be simple and user friendly, therefore accessible for everyone around the world.
Accessibility is key to this project for success, and social media is playing a huge role, especially in this day and age. Not only will MRU be completely free, but extra material will be provided to those who are interested: the low bandwidth will make the module accessible on mobile devices for students or users on the go, with absolutely no advertisements.
Users will be able to keep up with class via Twitter or Facebook. Exams and quizzes will be offered to challenge users, and Cowen and Tabarrok have stated that video lectures will be subtitled in major languages.
Work is not exactly necessary but users will be encouraged to submit content. On Sept. 5, Cowen and Tabarrok wrote on their blog, “We think education should be better, cheaper, and easier to access. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and create a new online education platform toward those ends. We have decided to do more to communicate our personal vision of economics to you and to the broader world.”
As a student, this is the perfect opportunity for free education, something that should never be passed up. Join today and learn about the first course Tabarrok has pre-prepared on Development Economics and find out why “some countries are rich and some countries are poor.”
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