Elsevier provides textbooks for five edX MOOCs

Elsevier will provide edX with science and technology book content for up to five massive open online courses (MOOC).

The publisher will provide textbook content for free online as part of the course materials and will offer a discount to purchase the print or electronic version of the text to those enrolled in the MOOC.

This announcement follows the pilot of Elsevier textbook content as part of one edX MOOC, Circuits and Electronics taught by Anant Agarwal, edX president and author of the Elsevier book Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits.

'We are very pleased to be using textbooks from Elsevier, a publisher with a long history of producing first-class content,' said Agarwal. 'As a result of this arrangement, students taking courses from our 29 institutions of higher education will be able to access free high-quality textbooks within the course itself.'

As part of the agreement, edX will provide Elsevier with anonymised usage data that will offer insights into how students are using and accessing the content.