The Georgia Tech Research Corporation received the grant and will work with the Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), the College of Sciences, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts to develop the innovative online learning courses.

Rich DeMillo, director of C21U observes that these “awards address one of higher education’s most pressing problems: bending the cost curve and improving learning outcomes for introductory courses. The Georgia Tech courses being funded by these grants all represent innovation in pedagogy, teaching and technology. If we are successful, courses like these will be a shift in both quality and cost for the vast majority of American college students.”

Professor Rebecca Burnett and Assistant Professor Karen Head in the School of Literature, Media and Communication will lead First-Year Composition 2.0.

Earlier this year, Georgia Tech announced a partnership with Coursera to offer online courses. Currently, registration is open for eight courses led by Georgia Tech professors. The courses have a combined enrollment of more than 140,000 students. The first class, Computational Investing, Part 1, began in October.