Peer 2 Peer University Launches

I first wrote about (P2PU) back in 2008. It has taken them longer than originally planned to actually launch the project, but they are now ready and offering offering enrollment for the first courses.

Peer 2 Peer University is an “online community of open study groups for short university-level courses”. They use the Internet, social applications, open educational resources (OER) with structured courses. The hope is to offer high quality courses at low or no cost. The model is similar to OpenLearn’s LabSpace allowing users to remix and reuse Open University (OU) course materials. P2PU will be using for the pilot a pbworks site but may transition to another platform. (OU uses a combination of Moodle and Drupal as its platform.)

These first courses are free but P2PU plans to have a pricing model including a fee for sign-up after the pilot.They also plan to seek accreditation for coursework.

The pilot "semester" has registration through August 26 and the courses will start on September 9. The semester is 6 weeks.

These classes are small groups chaired by a volunteer who organizes and disseminates the syllabus, study materials and schedule.

The courses being offered are: Introduction to Concepts in Behavioral Economics and Decision Making--Copyright for Educators--Introduction to Cyberpunk Literature--Land Restoration and Afforestation--Open Creative Nonfiction - Take Away Narratives--Poker and strategic thinking

P2PU is currently run by volunteers and is supported by the Hewlett Foundation and the Shuttleworth Foundation for basic start-up costs and receives administrative and legal support from the University of California at Irvine.