MOOCs for Credit

From the Chronicle for Higher Education this morning, an American university offering credit for a MOOC course:

In order to earn the three transfer credits toward their bachelor’s degrees at Colorado State, students will need a “certificate of accomplishment” from Udacity showing they passed the course. Then they have to pass a proctored examination offered by Udacity through a secure testing center. The exam, administered by the Pearson VUE testing group, will cost $89.

The university at the heart of this is Colorado State’s Global Campus, an entirely online institution which the article notes is a spin-off from CSU and holds a separate accreditation.  The president of CSU Global Campus, Becky Takeda-Tinker, cited affordability and accessibility as key reasons for considering the MOOC offering.  David Evans, the instructor for the Intro to Computer Science course via Udacity, notes such acceptance is “…recognizing that students really can learn well in online courses that are structured in the right way and have the rigor traditional universities expect.”