His department has not accepted industry financing for such courses for decades, he said.
We don't rank universities for their postgraduate provision, or provide an overall league table for such courses.
In the UK, the four recognised validation bodies for such courses are: College of Teachers, Trinity College, Cambridge/RSA and any UK university.
At present, drug and device makers provide about half of the financing for such courses so that doctors can often take them without charge.
But, he said, it is unlikely the seminary will become better in its Islamic theological disciplines until there is more demand for such courses.
The same is true for the lavish venture-capital financing for start-ups that designed online courses for colleges or put the technology for such courses in place, for a high fee.
While the financing in question amounts to as much as $1 million a year at Michigan, commercial payments for industry speakers and courses nationwide come to about $1 billion, nearly half the total expenditure for such courses.
Proponents of industry support for such courses point to a few studies in which the majority of doctors who attended the programs reported that they perceived the events to be free of commercial bias.
Despite high enrollments, about half the students who sign up for such courses, whether at Udacity or other providers, fall away at the beginning, never even looking at the first assignment.
As millions of students have flocked to free "massive open online courses," or MOOCs, in recent months, higher education experts have focused on two big questions: whether universities will begin to offer credit for such courses, and what might be done to prevent cheating.
