The Ministry of Education has announced "the results of the selection of Korean online courses 2018."

K-MOOC(Korean Massive Open Online Course-a service intended to attend excellent courses for free in higher and vocational education) has started providing its quality courses and two-way learning management in October 2015. As a result, people's interests are growing in those courses, so that currently (end May 2018) around 279,000 people are enrolled and 581,000 course registrations are recorded.

* Number of memberships (cumulative): ('15) 35,000 → ('16) 115,000 → ('17) 228,000 → ('18.May) 279,000

* Number of course registrations (cumulative): ('15) 56,000 → ('16) 182,000 → ('17) 445,000 → ('18.May) 581,000

To provide excellent K-MOOC courses to various types of learners, the Ministry of Education has changed registration methods from individual courses to package courses.

In this year's selection of courses, a total of 71 courses from 41 institutions have competed and an evaluating committee consisting of MOOC specialists, specialists of teaching methods and in academic majors have evaluated through on paper and face-to-face interviews, the capacity of institutions(45 points) and the quality of courses (55 points).

As a result, a total of 23 courses, among them 11 vocational education courses and 6 basic Korean Studies etc, have been selected.

This year, courses that are designed for physical therapists, mental health social workers, movie costumes designers, etc. have been selected for the first time.

And for sales people, courses like "Foreign Languages for Sales Courses" in Chinese, Japanese, English and practical courses like "Business Negotiations" are also offered.

Basic major courses like "History of Mathematics", "Introduction to Microbiology", "Major Cultures of the World and the Role of Interpretation and Translation" are offered, and in Korean Studies the course "City Humanities of Global City Seoul" that teaches Seoul's various aspects like politics, economics, social sciences and culture has been selected.

The newly selected courses are expected to provide various practical courses to foreigners who are interested in Korea, university students who need to acquire basic knowledge, people who are preparing for employment, and incumbent workers.

K-MOOC is offering a total of 500 courses, of which 180 have been newly added this year, and 23 selected in May 2018.

Applications for the 20 package courses about the 4th Industrial Revolution will be received until 22nd June, and the final selected courses will be announced in July.

Individual courses will be produced in July and be offered in the second semester of 2018.

Registrations for K-MOOC courses can be made on its website at www.kmooc.kr, and everyone can register for free.

* unofficial translation