Nearly 80,000 people worldwide will be able to take part in the University of Wisconsin’s new online course program starting today as the university launches its four pilot massive open online courses.

Four MOOC classes will be offered through the university and taught by UW professors, a UW statement said.

John Hawks, a UW anthropology professor, said he will be leading a MOOC that covers human evolution beginning seven million years ago, which will consider where human species may be going in the future.

Hawks said he decided to do a course because his work as an anthropologist lends itself to outreach. He keeps an online blog and has given numerous public lectures in the past, he said.

A MOOC is an opportunity to help spread education about evolution to the public, not just people within Wisconsin, but around the world, Hawks said.

No one will receive credit for being enrolled in a MOOC until research is done to compare how enrolled students from around the world perform compared to the classroom students at UW who are being taught the same material, Hawks said.

Although UW students will not receive credit for participating in MOOCs, the university will continue work on the business and assessment plan for MOOCs so in the future, students could potentially receive credit, UW Provost Paul DeLuca said.

From the beginning, the professors decided if they were going to take students out of the classroom, they had to be given unique experiences to make up for the online format, Hawks said.

He said he feels that they have done this successfully with the current courses.

“The format of our course takes students virtually into the field,” Hawks said. “For the last eight months, I’ve been traveling to archaeological sites filming field footage and interviewing experts. This is not a class where you listen to the professor tell stories secondhand, you get to hear about work that’s actually happening now from the people who are doing it.”

With many international participants from countries including Brazil, India and Spain, Hawks said it will be a challenge to teach to some students that are not native English speakers. These students will have a much different experience with the material, he said.

DeLuca said MOOCs will benefit UW because they will bring a new attitude towards learning and instruction. What UW learns from these courses and their teaching processes will be taken and applied to current in-person programs on campus, he said.

DeLuca added by developing MOOCs, faculty have learned a lot about different instructional environments and now have the knowledge to work through this process more efficiently.

“The knowledge gained from this process is quite extraordinary, and quite frankly it shows the world the depth and breadth of our institutional capabilities and the kind of faculty and instruction we provide,” DeLuca said.