Online learning giant Coursera has just become a little larger.

Lisa Fingeroot of The Tennessean reports that the state hopes the move will create more college graduates.

A pilot program beginning this fall at many Tennessee universities and colleges will give students and faculty a chance to A pilot program beginning this fall at many Tennessee universities and colleges will give students and faculty a chance to use learning technology created by one of the nation’s leading providers, and may help Tennessee gain more college graduates.

Schools in the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Board of Regents systems will partner with Coursera, a provider of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, and use the company’s technology and format with the schools’ educational material developed by their faculty.

If the experiment works as well as officials anticipate, online classes could help Tennessee increase the number of residents with college education, said TBR Chancellor John Morgan.

Currently, fewer than 35 percent of adult Tennesseans have postsecondary degrees, Morgan said. But Gov. Bill Haslam hopes to increase that number to 55 percent within the next 10 years.

In the pilot program, some new online classes will be created, some existing ones will be made better, and the technology will enable the schools to offer campus-based blended learning classes, officials from both systems said Wednesday in separate conference calls with the media.

None of the Tennessee schools will offer MOOCs, which are traditionally, but not always, free and open to anyone.