The not-for-profit company, founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now has universities on board. The latest recruits to the “xConsortium” include its first Asian-based institutions, along with universities from the US, Australia, Germany and Belgium.

In addition, Stockholm’s Karolinska Institutet has become the first university in Sweden to offer Moocs. “This means that we have put ourselves way ahead of the field as we meet the future’s demand for quality academic courses,” said dean of higher education Jan-Olov Höög. “It makes us an important actor on the global educational arena…and puts it in good company.”

Nabil Zary, a docent at Karolinska who is co-ordinating its partnership with edX, added: “Being able to offer courses online not only lifts our overseas profile, but also importantly motivates the development of new courses.

“We’ve been wanting to share our knowledge and make our courses more widely available for a long time, and now at last we’ve found the means to do it. This is just the beginning.”

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Anant Agarwal, president of edX, said the expansion meant edX was “moving forward with our mission to reimagine education”.

“These schools, with their unique faculties and student bodies, will help us conduct collaborative research on best practices which improve education online and on campus,” he added.

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The company said it was not only focusing on the production of free online courses, but was also aiming to build an “open-source educational platform and a network of the world’s top universities to improve education both online and on campus”. Currently, more than 900,000 students have registered with edX.

chris.parr@tsleducation.com