The Great Courses

The Great Courses is a series of college-level audio and video courses produced and distributed by The Teaching Company in conjunction with college professors.

In 2015, The Teaching Company introduced The Great Courses Plus, a subscription service offering unlimited video streaming of The Great Courses library

The Great Courses (TGC) is a series of college-level audio and video courses produced and distributed by The Teaching Company (TTC), a Chantilly, Virginia company, via mobile, tablet, connected TV and OTT apps,^[1][2][3][4] CD, DVD, or MP3 and MPEG-4 download formats, and streaming media.^[5]

The series differ from most online learning platforms in that they are produced for enrichment purposes only and offered without schedules, homework, exams, or certificates. Many of the courses deal with quite narrow topics such as The History of Christianity in the Reformation Era, and Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Background

The company was founded in 1990 by Thomas M. Rollins, former Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.^[6] Rollins had been inspired by a 10-hour videotaped lecture series he watched while at Harvard Law School, and began recruiting top professors and experts based almost entirely on customer feedback.^[7] As of 2016, the company offers over 600 courses ranging in length from six lectures to over ninety lectures in several subject categories: business, economics, fine arts, music, ancient and medieval history, modern history, literature and English language, philosophy and intellectual history, religion, science, mathematics, social sciences, professional development and better living. This latter category includes a range of topics such as health & wellness, food & wine, photography, drawing, travel, parenting, chess, mindfulness, tai chi, and yoga.^[8] In 2015, the company began offering its video courses as part of an unlimited subscription streaming service called The Great Courses Plus.^[9][10] In 2016, the company introduced a subscription channel on Amazon Video.^[11]

Most series are developed for adult lifelong learners; there is also a series for high school students. Courses are not verbatim recordings of college lectures, but rather are developed by The Teaching Company in conjunction with the professor to fit the chosen medium. Professors must first pass auditions that are screened by The Great Courses' customers.^[12] Video versions of courses include graphics and green screen effects. Courses also include supplemental "guidebooks" prepared by the professor with outlines of the individual lectures, recommended reading lists, general bibliographies, and questions to consider. Full printed transcripts are also available.^[8]

In 2012, the company produced the first of several cooking courses in partnership with The Culinary Institute of America, and announced an expansion of that partnership in 2013.^[13] In 2014, the company announced a partnership with The National Geographic Society to jointly produce courses on photography and expedition travel,^[14] and a ten-year partnership with The Smithsonian to produce new courses on History, Science, Travel and the Arts.^[15] In 2016, the company announced a partnership with Mayo Clinic to jointly produce courses about health and wellness.^[16]

Courses are available for online video and audio streaming or may be accessed in many formats including CD, DVD, audio and video downloads, digital streaming, and verbatim transcript books.^[8] The company also offers more than 400 audio versions of The Great Courses to Audible.com subscribers.^[17] and has made its first video titles available to Netflix subscribers.^[18]

On October 2, 2006, the company was acquired by Brentwood Associates, a private equity investment firm.^[7][19]

Partial list of notable instructors

Patrick Allitt Stephen Alvarez Dorsey Armstrong Kenneth R. Bartlett Arthur T. Benjamin Jonah Berger Ira Block Bob Brier Edward B. Burger Sean M. Carroll Phillip Cary Thomas Childers David Christian Eric H. Cline Jodi Cobb William R. Cook Anne Curzan Philip Daileader Dennis Dalton Daniel Drezner William Dunham Malcolm David Eckel Sylvia Earle Bart D. Ehrman John Esposito Brian M. Fagan J. Rufus Fears Alexei Filippenko Jane Friedman Sylvester James Gates Steven L. Goldman Anthony A. Goodman Robert Greenberg Annie Griffiths

Mimi Guarneri Allen C. Guelzo Richard J. Haier James Hall Ken Hammond Kenneth W. Harl Robert Hazen Craig Heller Kathleen Higgins James Hynes Peter H. Irons Luke Timothy Johnson Ed Kashi Douglas Kellner Eileen Kennedy-Moore Alan Charles Kors Richard Kurin Edward Larson Mark Leary Seth Lerer Amy-Jill Levine Allan Lichtman Jodi Magness Clancy Martin John McWhorter John Medina Michael Melford Andrew B. Newberg Ashton Nichols Steven Novella Sherwin B. Nuland Joseph Nye Robert A. Oden Mark Ravina

Richard Restak Daniel N. Robinson Rick Roderick Jeffrey Rosen David B. Ruderman Robert Sapolsky Joel Sartore Benjamin Schumacher John Searle Jeremy Shearmur Michael Shermer Tom Shippey Seth Shostak Ronald K. Siegel Jeremy Silman Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan Robert C. Solomon Michael Starbird Jonathan Steinberg Steven Strogatz Timothy Taylor David Thorburn Neil deGrasse Tyson Elizabeth Vandiver Indre Viskontas Irwin Weil Arnold Weinstein Gary K. Wolfe Richard Wolfson Michael E. Wysession Michael Yamashita David Zarefsky

Footnotes

1. The Great Courses app for iPad on iTunes, Apple, July 30, 2013, retrieved 2013-07-31
2. The Great Courses app for iPhone on iTunes, Apple, December 30, 2013, retrieved 2013-12-30
3. The Great Courses app on Google Play, Google, July 31, 2013, retrieved 2013-07-31
4. The Great Courses Plus app for Roku, Roku, December 3, 2015, retrieved 2015-12-03
5. . "CrunchBase: The Teaching Company". TechCrunch. 2008-03-12. Retrieved 2013-07-31.
6. Bales, Kate (February 16, 1994). "Ivy League Courses for Price of a Video". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 14, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
7. Max, Sarah (July 29, 2013). "If Its Customers Love a Business, This Equity Firm Does, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-07-31.
8. The Great Courses website, The Teaching Company, January 16, 2016, retrieved 2016-01-16
9. Martell, Nevin (September 3, 2015). "Before YouTube and online classes, there were the Great Courses". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
10. The Great Courses Plus website, The Teaching Company, December 3, 2015, retrieved 2015-12-03
11. "Ready, Set, STREAM: The Great Courses Streaming Subscription Now Available on Amazon Video" (Press release). Business Wire. 2016-08-18. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
12. Przybysp, John (November 15, 2014). "UNLV professor finds new voice in Great Courses". The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2015-01-17.
13. "The Great Courses Launches Comprehensive Cooking Curriculum in Partnership with The Culinary Institute of America" (Press release). Business Wire. 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
14. "National Geographic and The Great Courses Create Content and Distribution Partnership" (Press release). Business Wire. 2014-01-21. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
15. "The Smithsonian and The Great Courses Partner for New Series of Lectures Spanning History, Science, Travel and the Arts" (Press release). Smithsonian. 2014-05-05. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
16. "National Geographic and The Great Courses Create Content and Distribution Partnership" (Press release). Business Wire. 2016-05-03. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
17. "Audible Establishes Partnership with The Great Courses from The Teaching Company" (Press release). Business Wire. 2013-07-09. Retrieved 2013-07-31.
18. "The Great Courses Launches 'The Inexplicable Universe' with Neil deGrasse Tyson on Netflix" (Press release). Business Wire. 2014-04-17. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
19. "Brentwood Associates Acquires The Teaching Company L.P." (Press release). Business Wire. 2006-10-02. Retrieved 2013-07-31.

References

• Linda Mathews (1996-03-31). "Adult Education; No Tests and You Can Hit Rewind". New York Times.
• Kate Bales (1994-02-16). "Ivy League Courses for the Price of a Video". New York Times.
• Kendra Nordin (2003-01-28). "From the college lecture hall to your headphones". Christian Science Monitor.
• Heather Mac Donald (2011-06-21). "Great Courses, Great Profits". City Journal (New York).
• Sarah Max (2013-07-29). "If Its Customers Love a Business, This Equity Firm Does, Too". New York Times.
• Andrew Ross Sorkin (2014-09-05). "So Bill Gates Has This Idea for a History Class...". New York Times.
• Nevin Martell (2015-09-03). "Before YouTube and online classes, there were The Great Courses". Washington Post.

External links

• The Great Courses
• The Great Courses UK