Brazil's Fundação Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) has partnered with UC Irvine Extension, the continuing education arm of the University of California, Irvine, to offer free online course in Portuguese. Through the partnership, FGV – a nonprofit higher education institution and the largest provider of online education in Brazil – has created online courses as part of the UC Irvine Extension's OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative.
The two new courses, available at no cost online at http://ocw.uci.edu/courses/, are "Ethics in Portuguese" and "Training and Human Resources Development."
"The sharing of free, high-quality courses between two higher education institutions with international reach will benefit students all over the world. Exemplifying the power of the OCW initiative, this partnership enables learners, no matter whom or where they are, to gain access to University-level courses," says Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., dean of Continuing Education at University of California, Irvine.
"Also, since most educational material is shared from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern, this partnership provides us the opportunity to showcase high quality educational content produced in the vibrant countries of South America. The collaboration between UC Irvine Extension and FGV represents one of the first times that an international institution has created content for utilization by the United States – making it an early example of both cultural significance and educational pioneering."
Through the partnership, FGV has shared its successful MBA course, "Ethics in Portuguese," and has also adapted UC Irvine Extension's course, "Training and Human Resources Development." The UC Irvine course has been localized by adding concepts and cases that reflect the business and cultural environment of Brazil.
The University of California, Irvine was the first University of California campus – and West Coast University – to join the OCW Consortium. Open Educational Resources (OER) showcase the University's high quality education and makes courses and course materials free for everyone in the world.
UC Irvine's OCW is a large-scale, Web-based resource that houses educational assets that are discoverable, searchable, modifiable and free and easily available. Through the OCW Movement, UC Irvine provides university-quality courses and learning assets to populations of self learners that are underserved and in many cases, unable to participate in formal education at a university.
UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, it is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 27,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of US$ 3.3 billion.
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Website: http://ocw.uci.edu/courses
For more information, contact Larry Cooperman at ljcooper@uci.edu.
