A new online platform called Professor Direct enables professors to determine how much to charge for their online courses, as well as how much time they want to devote to services like office hours, online tutorials, and responding to students’ e-mails. Professor Direct is is run by StraighterLine, a company that offers online, self-paced introductory courses . Unlike massive open online courses, or MOOCs, StraighterLine’s courses are not free, but tuition is lower than what traditional colleges typically charge–and a handful of colleges accept StraighterLine courses for transfer credit.