Author: IBL News

We’re using the BadgeOne #openbadges server in #numericalmooc and 33 people claimed a badge in the first week https://t.co/4yjert8nwg #EDU15 — Lorena Barba (@LorenaABarba) October 28, 2015

earned my first badge for #numericalmooc with Python, take the online course at https://t.co/EYCFk7jzKc #opensource pic.twitter.com/XxLNPcFkqa — Gavin Wiggins (@wigging) October 28, 2015

The George Washington University (GW) and Mondragon University (Spain) are the first two higher-ed organizations on Open edX that have awarded eligible students with open digital badges. These two universities have used the fully open-source solution BadgeOne.com, developed by IBL with edX’s support.

In the case of GW, Professor Lorena Barba pioneered the use of badges on her self-hosted Open edX courses. A year ago, she launched a pilot for her “Practical Numerical Methods with Python” course. In October 2015, she adopted a solution that involved not only an XBlock but also an open-source server solution.

Mondragon University’s micro-credentials –see below– have been issued on a course in Spanish titled “Hacking ético”, that has attracted 5,800 in only two months.

EdX’s engineers have started to perform architectural improvements on the Open edX platform. “We are heading towards a more modular system, where we will have smaller, focused applications that work together”, explained Ned Batchelder, edX architect, during the 2015 Conference. [Watch his talk in the video below].

“We are looking to breaking Open edX into smaller pieces, as separated repositories and applications, so they can be tested and deployed independently. Most notably we are splitting the LMS and the CMS, so, for example, you will have one studio that feeds four LMSs”, added. 

“We are also very interested in extension points: APIs, XBlocks, OLXs.” This will allow to increase the surface area of application without having to change the inside.

Dogwood, which is the name of the release that will be coming out at the end of this year, will include a new theming system that allows to keep the look-and-feel as users upgrade the system. It will also include Otto, a separated deployable e-commerce application, as well as an upgrade into Django 1.8 (now, Open edX is using Django 1.4).

In addition to these areas, edX’s and Open edX’s engineering team is pushing toward accessibility, in order to lead this area within online education. There is also a working group exploring “adaptive learning”.

The next version, called Eucalyptus, is scheduled for March 2016.

Progress on features as well as the next challenges are shown in the official Feature Roadmap web page.

“Anyone doing online education should be thinking about using Open edX”, said Ned Batchelder.

These are Open edX’s Top 10 features released in the last year, according to Beth Porter, Vice President of Product at edX.

• Teams & Profiles
  Enable learners to discover and participate in small group collaboration with others in a larger course.

• Notes
  Allow learners to annotate in courses for easy reference and retention.

• Bookmarks
  Allow learners to easily refer back to content that is interesting and relevant to their learning.

• Cohorts
  Instructors can create cohorts of similar people to target content and discussions.

• Android & iPhone apps
  View course video (and soon text and assessments) from native mobile apps.

• Content Libraries & Randomized Content Blocks
  Display problems out of a library randomly to learners to discourage cheating.

• Insights Video Analytics
  View per-video learner data to help course teams understand how students are learning.

• Third-party Auth
  Enable register & sign in with Facebook, Google and/or on-campus systems to reach more learners.

• LTI tool provider
  Embed edX course content into campus LMSs or other LTI-compatible systems for efficient content reuse and grade transfer.

• Hinting & Feedback 
  Provide enhanced feedback to learners when attempting assessments.

Watch on top the video presentation recorded at the Open edX 2015 Conference.

More videos at youtube.com/iblstudios.

What is the impact of edX? See the slide above captured during the Open edX Conference, celebrated last week at Wellesley College.

Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX –a 140 people non-profit organization growing by 20 percent each year– opened the event by highlighting edX’s goal of reaching one billion students in the next 10 years, as well as other objectives such as improving on-campus education and advancing research in online learning. [Watch the whole talk below].

In terms of Open edX, there are 146 sites in multiple languages and 1840 courses. One of the latest ones is the Russian National Online Platform, with 50 courses.

Innovation on the platform is also remarkable. Top organizations have contributed with valuable software. This information came out of the conference:

• Stanford University: Adaptive hinting, eCommerce, OLI integration
• Google: Single-Sign-On, Instant Hangouts
• Berkeley: Forums 2.0
• MIT: Equations, many types of problems, SPOC/CCX, SGA XBlock
• Harvard: Annotation, edX – Canvas – BlackBoard integration
• Tsinghua: International support
• Edraak: Right-to-left
• University of Queensland: LTI
• McKinsey Academy: Polling XBlock

In addition, the community has contributed over 50 XBlocks and software expansions.

The Second Open edX Conference attracted over 250 developers and educational leaders this week in Wellesley College, near Boston. Participants and organizers agreed that the event was a remarkable success –all the goals were not only achieved, but also exceeded.

The Open edX Twitter feed reflected attendants’ excitement and satisfaction as well.

This playlist of YouTube videos includes all the conferences and talks. This page contains all the power point presentations.

IBL Open edX TV – 24 x 7 uninterrupted video stream (Beta) –
Featuring top presentations at the Open edX 2015 Conference

For any student preparing for the AP exams this is a big deal:

Seven AP (Advanced Placement) – certified courses are available now on the edx.org portal for free.

• AP Calculus
• AP Biology
• AP Spanish
• AP Physics
• AP Macroeconomics
• AP French
• AP Environmental Science

In addition, there another forty courses for high schoolers or anyone interested in learning!

IBL Studios Education (IBL)  has launched a YouTube channel with the most extensive collection of Open edX-related videos, http://youtube.com/iblstudios/

This channel comprises several playlists, which includes videos from the Open edX meetups, first Open edX Conference, tutorials, talks, edX and Open edX courses’ introductory videos and other materials.

The content curation process has taken place throughout the last year.

IBL is committed to keeping the channel updated.

MIT has started to talk to other universities regarding its new online credential called “MicroMaster’s“, according to MIT News.

The first universities that will choose to adopt this concept might be members of the edX consortium that are already producing courses on edX.org.

MIT anticipates that several other universities will use the MicroMaster’s as a new unit of currency in higher education in the future.

MicroMaster’s credentials will be convertible to course credit of existing master’s programs. Anyone who successfully masters the online material and receives a high grade –higher than the existing XSeries certificate– on a demanding, proctored exam will earn the credential.

In addition, MIT expects that this new credential will be valued by companies, and will foster career advancement for its holders.

Supply Chain Management (SCM), taught on edX.org, will be the first MicroMaster’s course to be offered –in February, 2016.

Welcome to the “try before you buy” model in higher education. In other words, you first try the course through a low-cost series of edX MOOCs and then apply.

MIT has decided to disrupt itself, according to its president Rafael Reif, and stay in the vanguard of innovation (“I’d rather we disrupt ourselves than be disrupted by somebody else”, he recently said).

The first pilot of this blended model will be launched in February 2016. It will be related to the one year Supply Chain Management (SCM) program, which allows to earn a Master’s of Engineering in Logistics degree.

Learners who complete the open series of SCM edX MOOCs –see the introductory video above– will receive a new credential called an MITx MicroMaster’s and will have chances of being accepted to the full master’s program, spending a single semester on campus and paying half of the $65,000 tuition.  If they are admitted, their MicroMaster’s will count toward a semester’s worth of MIT credit.

This residential program enrolls 36 to 40 students every year. This blended experiment can triple the annual output of master’s degrees in that field. It seems that MIT won’t lose money –on the contrary.

And, if the pilot goes well, MIT will expand this model to other programs.

MIT’s idea comes as universities and digital entrepreneurs are racing to integrate MOOCs into higher education.

• Earlier this year, edX and Arizona State University launched Global Freshman Academy: students enroll in MOOCs, complete them and pay the university to receive credit.

• The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created its iMBA program. Students complete much of their curriculum before deciding whether or not to apply to the university’s College of Business and pursue the full MBA degree.

• George Tech is already underway with its own MOOC-powered degree program.

> FAQs on MIT’s new path to master’s degree

“Open sourcing the edX platform was the best idea we’ve ever had”, Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, said last week during the “Learning with MOOCs II” gathering at Columbia University in New York.

During his talk, as part of the “Mooc Platform: The Year Ahead”, Mr. Agarwal disclosed the launch of the “RDX or Research Data Exchange” initiative, which will allows edX partners to share all the data generated on the platform.

He also highlighted the improvement of the “group learning” feature on edX: learners will be able to invite each other and form groups for social learning.

Cohorts and social learning for teams are specially interesting for the corporate world, he said.

Open edX: 1,800 courses and 150 sites

Answering questions from the audience, Anant Agarwal stated that “the future of learning is blended”. On the other hand, he referred to the number of edX courses: “there are 1,800 courses on Open edX platforms and 700 at edx.org“. “Also, there are close to 150 Open edX sites“.

“The eco-system of partners