Google has launched Course Builder, a tool that lets educators create and share course materials online.
The software lets course creators create activities and assessments and includes basic forum functionality and sign-up pages for students to register.
Google has also created extensive documentation on course creation and implementation.
According to the announcement, several universities around the world, including Stanford University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, have expressed interest in using the software to create some of their online courses.
The courses use Google’s App engine, which means significant usage will incur usage fees. Google’s Power Searching course, which was accessed by roughly 150,000 visitors, would have cost about $20 a day to host on App Engine. According to the company, a course with up to 300 students should run free of charge on the platform.
Google calls the project “an experimental early step in the world of online education” and explains that the project came about when the company’s research arm created a large online course called Power Searching with Google.
The company decided that packaging the technology for general use could benefit a larger audience of educators.
The cross-platform application is written in Python using the Django framework and runs on Google’s App Engine platform. Created courses are also deployed as applications for App Engine.
The Apache 2.0 licensed source code for Course Builder is available from the project’sGoogle Code site. Along with the source code, Google is providing documentation and discussion forums to help interested parties get started developing courses with the tool.
Watch the introduction video here:
Visit the course Builder site here
