MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 7, 2013) - Coursera, a leading massive open online course (MOOC) platform, today announced a partnership with NetEase, one of the largest Chinese internet companies and a major distributor of open online education content, to extend Coursera's offerings to NetEase's wide-reaching audience in China. This partnership commences with the launch of Coursera Zone, a Chinese-language web portal, as well as a video hosting agreement that makes Coursera's video lectures much more accessible to users in China. This announcement signifies Coursera's latest initiative to improve global access to education, particularly in non-English speaking countries.

Coursera Zone will significantly benefit Chinese students by providing a range of Chinese-language resources and services that help students in China navigate the Coursera platform. Coursera Zone's offerings include Chinese-language course synopses, student testimonials, FAQs and discussion forums that cater to the specific needs and interests of Chinese students. Beyond providing more Chinese language resources on Coursera Zone, NetEase will store video files from selected courses on locally hosted servers, significantly improving video quality for Chinese users.

"Ensuring the accessibility of quality educational content, regardless of a person's location or native language, is at the core of our mission," said Coursera Co-Founder and Co-CEO Andrew Ng. "With its wide-reaching technology platform and Chinese market expertise, NetEase will be an invaluable partner for us as we work to launch initiatives like Coursera Zone that open up Coursera to the millions of people living in China."

"As a leading internet company, NetEase has been known for its openness and commitment to exploring the field of online education," said NetEase Founder and CEO Ding Lei. "By working with Coursera, we hope to enhance the learning experience for Chinese-speaking students, and to introduce even more top online courses to Chinese users."

In addition to launching Coursera Zone with NetEase, Coursera is working with several other partners, in China and internationally, to reach the hundreds of millions of potential Chinese users who can benefit from access to Coursera's platform. University partners such as Peking University and National Taiwan University are expanding Coursera's Chinese-language course offerings. Additionally, Coursera has recently partnered with Chinese social networking site Guokr and volunteer translator community Yeeyan to begin translating Coursera courses into Chinese.