Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals to offer Web development courses via Coursera

Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals, the division of the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering that administers online and part-time graduate programs, is launching a new series of online courses in Web development through Coursera, the world's largest open online education provider.

The five-course series, along with its associated capstone project, is titled Ruby on Rails Web Development and will be available to anyone with Internet access. Categorized as a specialization by Coursera, the course series begins Sept. 15 and culminates in the final capstone project in which students gain hands-on experience in how to develop and build their own Web applications using Ruby on Rails, SQL, NoSQL, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery.

Instructors from Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals, who are practicing engineers and developers, helped create and will teach the courses and the capstone project.

"Employment in the Web development field is expected to grow and become increasingly competitive, so it's important for developers to acquire training that sets them apart," said Associate Dean Dexter G. Smith, who oversees Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals. "We're proud to offer these top-quality Johns Hopkins courses to developers around the world who may not have had access to them otherwise."

The courses in the Ruby on Rails Web Development specialization include Ruby on Rails: An Introduction (Instructor: Kalman Hazins); Rails with Active Record and Action Pack (Instructor: Kalman Hazins); Ruby on Rails Web Services and Integration (Instructor: Kiran Chittargi); HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for Web Developers (Instructor: Yaakov Chaikin); and Single Page Web Applications with AngularJS (Instructor: Yaakov Chaikin). The final capstone project, which will be led by Jim Stafford, will give students the opportunity to develop their own "photo tourist" Web applications.

To earn a specialization certificate, students must complete all five courses by earning certificates that confirm the student's identity, and they must also complete the capstone project. Students can take the courses for free, but these students will not be eligible to enroll in the capstone project, and they cannot earn course certificates or the specialization certificate. Coursera, which has more than 15 million registered learners worldwide, offers financial aid to students who demonstrate economic need.

Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals has offered credit-bearing online courses to its students since 2001. Currently, 12 of its part-time master's degree and certificate programs in engineering and applied sciences can be completed entirely online.