The agreement will see Manchester offer four courses free online: water supply and sanitation policy in developing countries; global health and humanitarianism; an introduction to population health; and our Earth: its climate, history and processes. Dates have yet to be confirmed.

The North-West institution was one of 13 universities to join Coursera today, taking the platform¡¯s total number of partners to 97. Other new members include the Netherlands¡¯ Eindhoven Institute of Technology, Russia¡¯s Saint Petersburg State University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.

¡°We are proud to welcome to the Coursera partnership this group of outstanding institutions from 11 different countries, demonstrating the ever-growing global impact of this movement,¡± said Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera.

¡°Through these partnerships, we are particularly delighted to expand also the breadth of languages in which courses are delivered, thereby offering yet more students the opportunity to benefit from a high-quality education.¡±

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The UK¡¯s first Mooc platform FutureLearn began teaching last week.

The University of Manchester is not currently one of its partner institutions. However, Richard Reece, associate vice-president for teaching, learning and students at Manchester said it ¡°wasn¡¯t simply a toss up between FutureLearn and Coursera, nor have we ruled out having Moocs on more than one platform in the future¡±.

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¡°We wanted the courses to reach the widest possible audience,¡± he added.

chris.parr@tsleducation.com