Springer offers special prices for MOOCs

Organisers of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can negotiate special rates for Springer print and ebooks. Students who have registered for a free online course can order these books through a special URL. Additional types of content, for example journal articles, can also be provided for use as course material at a reduced rate.

Francesca Bonadei, executive editor for mathematics at Springer, said: 'As an innovative epublisher, Springer is constantly working to improve and expand its services in terms of delivering quality academic content.

'By providing this offer for the increasingly popular online course format, which is open to an unlimited number of students, we are actively supporting all those who make MOOCs possible, including universities, academic institutions, scientific societies, students and last but not least our authors.'

Once the organiser – as a rule, a university – has negotiated the usage conditions, Springer provides it with an access-controlled URL that leads to the selected book. For the duration of the MOOC, all registered students can purchase the book at a discount. MOOC instructors can request course material specially tailored to their students.  Furthermore, Springer authors can publish a new edition or an adapted version of their own books that meet the specific requirements of their courses.