Dozens of public universities plan to offer an introductory online course free and for credit to anyone worldwide, The New York Times says. The schools hope that those who pass the course will pay tuition to complete a degree program. The universities — including Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Arkansas system — will choose which of their existing online courses to convert to a massive open online course, or MOOC. Free online courses have proliferated over the past year, but those courses, so far, generally do not award course credits.