HEC Montréal, the independent business school arm affiliate of the Université de Montréal is launching its new EDUlib program, a platform offering free online university-level courses in french to the general public. The courses are in different management disciplines.
While HEC Montréal’s MBA program is available in both english and french, it appears that the EDUlib program is offered solely in french (although we’re still waiting on confirmation about that). Still, the initiative seems like a great budget-friendly option for french speaking Canadian entrepreneurs, particularly living in Montreal, who want to brush up on their business skills.
The three courses being offered are Conflict Management (Gestion des conflits), The Entrepreneurial Spirit (L’esprit entrepreneurial) and Introduction to Marketing (Introduction au marketing). Short videos on the EDUlib site give more details about the courses, and enrolment is now open.
The EDUlib courses were all designed specifically for the web and are “taught” by HEC Montréal professors. Courses are taken from home but participants are encouraged to share their comments or post questions on a discussion forum, and take regular tests. If they pass, they will receive a certification that they have successfully completed the course requirements. Students in the six-week courses do not receive any university credits or diploma, however.
“For the second straight year HEC Montréal is delighted to be sharing our expertise and research work through the EDUlib site, with the entire world,” said EDUlib’s Jean Talbot. “This platform, unique in Quebec, allows us to offer everyone access to top-quality management courses. We can now consider EDUlib one of the services that [HEC] provides for the community, just as it has always made its vast library holdings available to the public.”
EDUlib is an initiative of HEC Montreal which ultimately aims to make available the largest number of university-educated, high quality courses in the field of management. The courses are based on those offered at HEC Montreal and taught by the same teachers. The course format and frequency changes, but EDUlib is emphasizing that the quality of education offered remains unchanged.