More than 60 students enrolled in the HarvardX’s CS50 edX course have been accused of academic dishonesty after they took answers to problem sets and apparently cheated, according to The Crimson.
Some course staffers of Computer Science 50 (CS50) said that the course’s recent expansion and the online availability of the answer key likely played a role.
CS50 enrollees can post and view problem set code online on at least two different question-and-answer forums. Students in the course can also upload problem set answers to file-sharing websites like GitHub.
CS50 course staff operate a publicly accessible forum on Reddit where students can post code and ask questions. Posted code remains public, though the Reddit forum guidelines urge users to use their best judgment.
EdX is celebrating this month of May its 5th anniversary as an educational portal. Next month of June it will be its 4th anniversary as an open source project and community.
“Through our mission to improve lives by increasing access to high quality education around the world, we have grown the edX global community to more than 11 million from every country in the world,”wrote Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX.
The edX platform has shockingly changed the course navigation to feature a full-page outline that lists all sections and subsections at once. EdX justified the decision saying that it provides “a more immersive experience with the course content”.
“Learners can select any subsection name to go to that subsection, or just select Resume Course to go to the last page they viewed. When learners view videos, text, and other course content (which now extends all the way across the page), a “breadcrumb” trail shows them the section, subsection, and unit they’re currently in. They can also return to the outline easily by selecting Outline at the top of the page”, edX explained.
Today’s Open edX instances enjoy the classic old navigation, more clear and intuitive – and without a gigantic blank space on the right. And it will be this way until the new Open edX release, scheduled for July. The new navigation is only displayed on courses hosted at edx.org.
New Navigation
Classic, Old Navigation (courses.modernstates.org platform)
The 6 to 9 hour, free Ethics of Memory course, scheduled for July 11, will allow to learn “how our personal and collective memories evolve over time, and why memory and memorializing matter”.
The 6 to 9 hour, free Artful Medicine: Art’s Power to Enrich Patient Care course, scheduled for July 18, will examine how the medical community harnesses the power of art and empathy to improve patient care.
Y Combinator, one of the leading Silicon Valley seed accelerators, has released a free, 10-week long MOOC called ‘Startup School’, intended for entrepreneurs who are actively pursuing to start their own company.
Main goals of the initiative are to “encourage and inspire people to consider starting a company as a way to positively impact the world; teach people about how to start a startup, and equip them with the resources and tools to help prepare them now and in the future; and build a community of entrepreneurs who can encourage and teach each other.”
Lectures are taught by top entrepreneurs and industry leaders. The videos are part of a series of guest lectures at Stanford University.
There are no exams, and the only requirement to pass the class is to submit your weekly company updates and attend your group office hours. There is a minimum commitment of 3 hours a week: one hour of lecture, one hour of class office hours and one hour of group office hours. For spectators it’s two hours per week (lectures and class office hours).
Week 1: How and Why to Start A Startup
By Sam Altman (YC), Dustin Moskovitz (Asana)
Week 1: Startup Mechanics
By Kirsty Nathoo (YC)
Week 2: How to Get Ideas and How to Measure
By Stewart Butterfield (Slack) and Adam D’Angelo (Quora)
Week 2: Office hours with Yuri Sagalov (Amium)
Week 3: How to Build a Great Product I
By Emmett Shear (Twitch) Steve Huffman (Reddit), Michael Seibel (YC)
Week 3: How to Build a Great Product II
By Aaron Levie (Box)
Week 4: How to Build a Great Product III
By Tracy Young (PlanGrid), Jason Lemkin (SaaStr), Harry Zhang (Lob), Solomon Hykes (Docker)
Week 4: How to Build a Great Product IV
By Jan Koum (WhatsApp)
Week 5: How to Get Users and Grow
By Alex Schultz (Facebook)
Week 5: Office hours with Adora Cheung (YC)
Week 6: How to Invent the Future I
By Alan Kay
Week 6: How to Invent the Future II
By Alan Kay
Week 7: How to Execute
By Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)
Week 7: TBD
Week 8: How to Build a Good Culture
By Dalton Caldwell (YC), Patrick Collison (Stripe)
Week 8: Diversity + Inclusion at Early Stage Startups
By Kat Manalac (YC)
Week 9: How to Build and Manage Teams
By Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)
Week 9: Office hours with Kevin Hale
Week 10: How to Raise Money, and How to Succeed Long-Term
By Ali Rowghani (YC) Jess Lee (Sequoia), Aaron Harris (YC)
Week 10: Closing thoughts
By Ron Conway (SV Angel)
So far a large amount of technical materials about edX architecture and engineering were not indexed by search engines and were only accessible by registered users.
“Our intention is to continue making as much wiki content as we can default to open access. (…) We are also in the process of deprecating the edx-platform GitHub wiki, and so over the next few months that content will be migrating into the new development wiki,” explained Andy Armstrong, edX UI architect.One of the most promising new spaces is the Open edX Answers, where solutions to questions from the Open edX community will be provided.
Appsembler, Somerville, Massachussets – based Open edX provider, has created a platform called Tahoe, intended to allow non-expert users to automatically create their own instances.
“Build your Open edX course today. With Appsembler’s all-in-one, easy-to-use platform, it’s easier than ever to build and deliver your online learning content. No coding or IT required,” states the product description on YouTube.
No official announcement and release has been made yet.
Below is the video with the description of the product.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) –the organization that makes the standard for HTML, CSS and web apps– has attracted 400,000 students in two years with its two signature courses on edX, HTML5 and CSS.
“The success of the W3Cx training programs underscores W3C’s commitment to creating high quality courses that specifically help Web developers to acquire or increase their skills,” said Dr. Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO on APP Developer Magazine.
To mark its second anniversary year on edX, W3C will launch on 30 May its introductory-level course in JavaScript. This five-week long course, created in collaboration with University Cote d’Azur, will be run by acclaimed Professor Michal Buffa, who was nominated as one of the edX Prize best teachers in 2016. It is free to take, with a $99 verified certificate.
Additionally, W3C is launching a “Front-End Web Developer” Professional Certificate on edX, which consists of a suite of five W3Cx courses: JavaScript, HTML5 & CSS Fundamentals, CSS Basics, HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices, and HTML5 Apps and Games: Advanced Techniques.
In the video below, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the WWW and director of W3C, makes a pitch about the mentioned courses.
