Coursera’s MOOCs go to work: What MasterCard is learning — from forbes.com by George Anders

Excerpt:

An intriguing strategy tweak is taking shape at Coursera, the pioneer of massively open online courses, or MOOCs. While Coursera still opens its (virtual) doors wide to anyone who wants to take a free course for the fun of it, the company also is welcoming big firms such as MasterCard, BNY Mellon, AT&T and Shell, as they seek new content for employee training and development.

At MasterCard, two Coursera offerings have attracted a following, says Charles Silvestro, the payments company’s vice president for global talent development. One is a course on web applications that’s been offered to 2,500 employees; the other is a behavioral economics class taught by Duke professor Dan Ariely that’s been offered to 300 marketers.