Still, the University of the People, a Pasadena-based venture envisioned as the first global, online, peer-to-peer university, will be a real institution of higher education, complete with students, teaching and learning, its founder says.And Shai Reshef, the Israeli entrepreneur behind the idea, said the response has been overwhelming since news of his in-the-works university spread last month. Hundreds of students from all over the world have e-mailed wanting to apply, and hundreds of professors want to volunteer -- and admissions won't even open until April."We're unable to answer all these people," Reshef said in a recent interview, throwing his hands apart to indicate the explosion of interest.
For now, the nonprofit University of the People is sharing office space with Cramster, an online study community that Reshef also heads. In fact, it was through Reshef's work with Cramster, in which students and others work together to solve math and science problems, that he decided the peer-to-peer model might also work for online college classes.Through Cramster "I learned how powerful social networking can be for learning," he said. "It was like a great revelation for me and I said, 'Wow, we can use it for academic study.' "A Tel Aviv resident who commutes about once a month to his Pasadena office, Reshef said his latest venture involves using open source technology, free course material from such universities as MIT and the lure of social networking to offer college degrees to people who might not otherwise have access to them.Students who apply are likely to be those who cannot afford university tuition, whether they are in Africa, South America or Los Angeles, he said.Reshef has two decades of experience in international education. Starting in 1989, he served as chairman of Kidum, a for-profit educational services company in Israel that he later sold to Kaplan, the test preparation and education company.From 2001 to 2004, Reshef lived in the Netherlands and chaired KIT eLearning, the online partner of the University of Liverpool. He said his experience there taught him how powerful online learning can be and how well it can simulate a traditional university setting, but also showed him that it remained too expensive for many students.
