More than 20 of the UKs top universities will be offering short online learning courses through Future Learn, in a bid to enter the global market of Moocs – massive open online courses.

Students will be able to follow courses on mobile phones and computers for free as part of the programme run by the Open University.

The launch of FutureLearn will see 21 UK universities, plus Trinity College Dublin and Monash University in Australia, offering courses that are taught and assessed on the internet.

Universities minister David Willetts said: "The launch of this great education platform, with a strong British cultural identity and with so many key partners from Britain and around the world is a very important moment in the development of eduction."

The British Library, British Museum and British Council will make material available to students through the 20 short courses which will be available. Eight will be starting this year.

Moocs are already popular in the US where there are a number of established hubs, such as Coursera, which offers online courses from top Ivy Leagues including Yale, Columbia and Brown.

FutureLearn chief executive Simon Nelson said that in 24 hours, since the site had been opened up to those who pre-registered, there were around 20,000 registered learners from 158 countries.

Although students will not get a certificate, universities are hoping that many people will be attracted by the chance to follow university-level courses without any travel or cost and at a time that suits them.

FutureLearn will see the UK taking a much bigger step into the rapidly expanding online university market – with claims that higher education is now facing its own online revolution.

Moocs have already had a major impact in the US, launching last year and spearheaded by alliances of top institutions, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

Coursera, set up by Stanford academics in California and backed by venture capital, has signed up more than four million students in its first 18 months for courses provided by more than 80 universities.

These projects have revealed a high level of demand for courses, but also exposed the difficulty in retaining students, with very high levels of drop-out rates.

These US online courses have begun to develop ways of giving students formal credits, such as students paying to take invigilated exams.

Among the Mooc pioneers has been the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which set up the edX online platform with Harvard.

On Tuesday, MIT announced a series of new online courses which will have an identity verification system using webcams and with plans for certification for courses.

But there have also been questions asked about the long-term financial viability of online university courses.

FUTURELEARN UNIVERSITIES

University of Bath
University of Birmingham
University of Bristol
Cardiff University
University of East Anglia
The University of Edinburgh
University of Exeter
University of Glasgow
King’s College London
Lancaster University
University of Leeds
University of Leicester
Loughborough University
Monash University
The University of Nottingham
The Open University
Queen’s University, Belfast
University of Reading
The University of Sheffield
University of Southampton
University of Strathclyde
Trinity College Dublin
The University of Warwick