And there are worries about the quality of trainee teachers, whose courses are also inspected by the Office for Standards in Education in England (Ofsted), headed by Mr Woodhead.

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Even the three institutions whose instructors teach those online courses Duke University, University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Irvine so far don't plan to award credit to students who complete the massive open online courses, known as MOOCs.

WSJ: Big MOOC Coursera Moves Closer to Academic Acceptance

They say that the Europeans, traditionally shorter-hitting and used to courses that punish golfers whose shots wander, tried to slow the Americans down with narrow fairways and deep rough.

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