Udacity : accessible, affordable, engaging, and effective higher education

Udacity is a for-profit educational organization founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky offering massive open online courses (MOOCs). According to Thrun, the origin of the name Udacity comes from the company's desire to be "audacious for you, the student".

Udacity is the outgrowth of free computer science classes offered in 2011 through Stanford University. As of 23 February 2014, Udacity has 9 full courses and 24 free courseware. Thrun has stated he hopes half a million students will enroll, after an enrollment of 160,000 students in the predecessor course at Stanford, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, and 90,000 students had enrolled in the initial two classes as of March 2012. Udacity was announced at the 2012 Digital Life Design conference. Udacity is funded by venture capital firm, Charles River Ventures, and $300,000 of Thrun's personal money. In October 2012 the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led the investment of another $15 million in Udacity. In November 2013, Thrun announced in a Fast Company article that Udacity had a "lousy product" and that the service was pivoting to focus more on vocational courses for professionals.

Website: www.udacity.com

Coursera: empowers people to improve their lives...

Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University. Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other areas. On December 17, 2013, Coursera introduced its official mobile app for iPhone.

Business model:
The contract between Coursera and participating universities contains a "brainstorming" list of ways to generate revenue, including certification fees, introducing students to potential employers and recruiters (with student consent), tutoring, sponsorships and tuition fees. In September 2013 it announced it had earned $1 million in revenue through verified certificates that authenticate successful course completion. As of December 2013 the company had raised $85 million in venture capital. John Doerr suggested that people will pay for "valuable, premium services". Any revenue stream will be divided, with schools receiving a small percentage of revenue and 20% of gross profits.

In January 2013, Coursera announced that the American Council on Education had approved five courses for college credit. As the journalist Steve Kolowich noted "whether colleges take the council's advice, however, is an open question." The courses that were recommended to degree-granting institutions for college credit are:

1. Algebra from the University of California, Irvine
2. Pre-Calculus, from the University of California, Irvine
3. Introduction to Genetics and Evolution from Duke University
4. Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach from Duke University
5. Calculus: Single Variable from the University of Pennsylvania

Coursera will offer proctored exams at the end of these courses through ProctorU, an online proctoring service that connects proctors and students via webcam. The service will cost $60–$90.

Coursera reduces the cost of courses it offers by using instant computer-based marking where appropriate, making students grade their peers' homework in some cases where computer-based marking cannot be used, such as for poetry composition exercises and employing statistical methods to validate the assessment.

Courses:

The website provides free online courses including Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and others. Each course includes short video lectures on different topics and assignments to be submitted, usually on a weekly basis. In most humanities and social science courses, and other assignments where an objective standard may not be possible, a peer review system is used.

Web forums are provided for courses, and some students also arrange face to face study meet-ups using meetup.com, or online meetups. However, the Coursera Honor Code prohibits copying answers, therefore the discussion should not exchange answers but should practice a healthy debate.

Website:  www.coursera.org

Khan Academy : A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is to provide 'a free world-class education for anyone anywhere'. The website features thousands of educational resources, including a personalized learning dashboard, over 100,000 exercise problems, and over 4000+ micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, general chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science. All resources are available for free to anyone around the world. Khan Academy reaches about 10,000,000 students per month and has delivered over 300,000,000 lessons.

Website: www.khanacademy.org