EdX, the virtual learning initiative launched by Harvard and MIT last May, announced Wednesday that it will offer courses in the humanities and social sciences for the first time this coming spring.

The rapidly growing online educational venture released its Spring 2013 course schedule, which will feature six new courses. These include three from HarvardX, Harvard’s subset of the edX platform: “Justice,” taught by government professor Michael J. Sandel; “The Ancient Greek Hero” with Greek literature professor Gregory Nagy; and “Human Health and Global Environmental Change” from Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment and Harvard Medical School professor Aaron Bernstein.

"I'm delighted to have my Justice course on edX, where students everywhere will be able to engage in a global dialogue about the big moral and civic questions of our time," Sandel said in a press release.

“Copyright,” an experimental course to be taught by Harvard Law School professor William W. Fisher, III, will test the effectiveness of integrating teaching materials and technologies on the edX website. The course will look into extant copyright law and the debates surrounding its reform.

These courses from HarvardX will be joined by two courses in statistics, quantum mechanics, and computation from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MITx course entitled “The Challenges of Global Poverty.”

In addition, edX will continue to provide some of the courses offered during the platforms inaugural fall semester, including “Introduction to Computer Science and Programming,” “Introduction to Solid State Chemistry,” “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence,” “Software as a Service I,” “Software as a Service II,” and “Foundations of Computer Graphics.”

Registration for edX’s spring offerings opened online on Wednesday.

“EdX is both revolutionizing and democratizing education,” said edX President Anant Agarwal in the press release. “In just eight months we’ve attracted more than half a million unique users from around the world to our learning portal. Now, with these spring courses we are entering a new era—and are poised to touch millions of lives with the best courses from the best faculty at the best institutions in the world.”

—Staff writer Amna H. Hashmi can be reached at amnahashmi@college.harvard.edu.

—Check theCrimson.com for updates.