openHPI: Five More Free Online Courses on IT to be Offered Next Year

POTSDAM, Germany, November 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Anyone wishing to keep up with the current university knowledge on information technology will again have the opportunity in 2014 with the five free online courses to be offered by Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). The topics of the new courses for 2014 are: Concepts in Parallel Computing, Networking via the Internet Protocol TCP/IP, Semantic Web Technologies, In-Memory Data Management and Introduction to Internet Security. Each of the six-week Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) will be launched by HPI on its interactive learning platform, openHPI, on February 3, March 31, May 26, September 1, and October 27, respectively.

"Owing to the international success of the program, the Hasso Plattner Institute will be further expanding its interactive learning platform openHPI.de," HPI director Prof. Christoph Meinel announced that the underlying system is currently being prepared for the rapidly increasing user numbers. "We will additionally be making new functions available and integrating social networks such as Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn to make the interaction in our openHPI discussion forum easier," said Meinel.

According to Meinel, user activity on the online platform will be further supported and rewarded through the addition of gaming elements ("gamification"). Learners who participate in the community can receive different awards and compare their progress to that of other participants. Besides that, users can earn an expert status through active involvement in discussion forums and thereby give more weight to their statements in the forum. A further area of concentration focuses on improving content display on mobile devices.

Please find the full length press release on: http://bit.ly/1hCtkIa

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SOURCE HPI Hasso-Plattner-Institut