New England Cable News Interviewed Wellesley's Ravi Ravishanker and the CEO of EdX on Its Show 'CEO Corner'

With Wellesley's first online course kicking off on September 25, New England Cable News invited Ravi Ravishanker, chief information officer and associate dean of WellesleyX, to discuss the future of higher education in the massive open online course (MOOC) landscape. Ravishanker joined Peter Howe, host of NECN's CEO Corner, and Anant Agarwal, MIT professor and founder of edX, in a conversation about the potential of online courses to advance learning on campus and far beyond.

Ravishanker spoke of the College's plan to approach the online learning space as a "grand experiment," while also acknowledging the College's vision of reaching countless women worldwide. "Our goal is to educate women. We want to give access to Wellesley courses worldwide," he said. Women and men around the globe can register for Wellesley's MOOCs, needing only Internet access.

As the first liberal arts college to join edX, Wellesley will tackle questions that could help shape the future of higher education, such as how to bring the in-class discussion-based experience to an online learning platform. "This particular method hasn't fully been exploited yet, and this is the kind of experiment that we're looking at," said Ravishanker.