The online education market got another player on Wednesday when Cornell University’s online learning group, eCornell, and Fortune announced the launch of an online business education program.
The program titled “Mastering 21st Century Business Strategy” consists of six courses, each of which takes five to seven hours to complete. Participants who complete all six classes, which will cover topics like strategic positioning in markets and mergers and acquisitions strategy, will receive a certificate in business strategy from Cornell. Professor Justin Johnson of Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management designed the program, which will feature videos from several Fortune journalists. The program aims to provide students with course curricula that draws on the Fortune’s editorial resources, its access to business leaders, and its decades of business journalism.
The online learning venture is a first for Fortune‘s publisher Time Inc., but it follows other media companies into the education business space. Earlier this month, The New York Times launched nytEducation with courses aimed at high school students, and in July, Teen Vogue and Parsons School of Design at The New School introduced an online fashion education program.
Cornell and Fortune‘s new program is also in line with current trends in the online education market that have seen companies like Coursera, an online education provider, veer into the job training space. There’s been a lot of developments in the industry lately. In August, Coursera closed $49.5 million in new funding; in June, online education marketplace Udemy raised a $65 million round. In April, LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com, an online learning website, for $1.5 billion, and online class platform Udacity and Google (GOOG) announced a partnership to teach skills like Android development in May. Registration for Cornell and Fortune’s program opens Wednesday, and tuition for the program is $3,600.
