IBL News

Category: Top News

  • edX’s Tax Returns Form Shows an Increase in Directors’ Salaries

    edX’s Tax Returns Form Shows an Increase in Directors’ Salaries

    edX’s recently implanted paywall continues to be controversial. This time, because of the compensation of some directors.

    Elearning Inside news service took a look at edX’s expenses, publicly available, and “wondered how necessary these measures may be”, given that some officers and directors “went from a volunteer position to making six figures”. “edX has also been spending more and more on their less-essential employees as well,” writes the magazine.

    In 2017, the total expenses at edX were $57,073,054, with a loss of $2,980,397, signaling an improvement from the prior year ($46,072,385 and $3,264,279, respectively). This data corresponds to edX’s tax returns for the fiscal year ending June 2017.

    In terms of salaries, six officers who belong to the Board of Directors but are not involved in the day-to-day operations at edX, made over $700,000 in salary, when in the previous year they hadn’t received any compensation, according to data displayed by ProPublica.

    Professor Lorena Barba, a well-known advocate of open education, criticized those salaries on her Twitter account: “I wonder if all the universities partnering with and contributing content realize they are feeding $700k-salaries for MIT and Harvard Provosts and Vice-Presidents, who just sit on the Board”. 

  • Top 2018 HarvardX Courses: CS, Data Science, Buddhism, Pyramids and Architecture

    Top 2018 HarvardX Courses: CS, Data Science, Buddhism, Pyramids and Architecture

    Computer science, data science, architecture, and religion were the trending subjects on HarvardX’s courses (which function similarly to edX but focus solely on the Harvard community).

    “People want technological skills today,” said Bharat Anand, vice provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University. The rest of the most popular online courses, he added, “reflect the intrinsic interest and curiosity about the world we live in.”

    This is the top 2018 HarvardX courses’ list, according to the institution, and published by The Boston Globe:

    • CS50 Computer Science courses. Since its creation in 2012, this collection has over one million users. Two modules, understanding technology and computer science for business professionals, were added this year.

    • Data Science. Courses taught by Prof. Rafael Irizarry in R, visualization, probability, inference and modeling, productivity, wrangling, linear regression, machine learning.

    • Buddhism through its scriptures. A four-week course about the beliefs and practices of Buddhists, including teaching from their scriptures.

    • Pyramids of Giza: ancient Egyptian art and archaeology. An 8-week course to explore the archaeology, history, art, and hieroglyphs surrounding the famous Egyptian Pyramids at Giza, and how new technology is unlocking their secrets.

    • The architectural imagination. A 10-week course that analyzes the designs of historic buildings around the globe to assess the social impact of architecture.

    Overall, HarvardX offers over 100 free online courses.

     

     

     

     

  • MOOC-Based Degrees: +10K Learners and $80M in Revenues

    MOOC-Based Degrees: +10K Learners and $80M in Revenues

    More than 10,000 students have enrolled in over 45 MOOC-based degrees on Coursera, edX, and Udacity, with combined potential revenue of more than $80 million, according to the Class-Central founder and expert on MOOCs, Dhawal Shah.

    Most of the income has been generated by two universities and three degrees: the Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science (Georgia Tech with Udacity), the Online Master of Science in Analytics (Georgia Tech with edX), and the iMBA (the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Coursera).

    “It is the second wave of MOOC hype,” says Mr. Shah. “I remain hopeful that these new business models will act as a safeguard of free content, ensuring its continued availability for those who need it, regardless of their ability to pay. However, one thing is abundantly clear: free users are no longer a focus, despite the fact that that was the stated reason so many traditional universities started exploring MOOCs in the first place.”

    Resources:

    • EdSurge: Year of MOOC-based Degrees: A Review of MOOC Stats and Trends in 2018

    • Class Central on MOOC-based Degrees: List | Distinctive Features | Second Wave of MOOC Hype

    • IBL News: MOOCs Are Dead, Welcome MOOC-Based Degrees

     

    MOOC-Based Degrees:

  • XuetangX, China’s Open edX Platform, Reaches 16M Learners

    XuetangX, China’s Open edX Platform, Reaches 16M Learners

    XuetangX, China’s first MOOC-platform, has reached 16 million users –sources told IBL News. The exact number is 16.3 million learners. Last year XuetangX, which is based on the Open edX codebase, reported an audience of 14 million.

    This number puts this platform in the third position, right after Coursera (37 million) and edX.org (18 million).

    Founded in October 2013 by Tsinghua University, XuetangX has over 1900 quality courses from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, MIT, Stanford University, Berkeley and other first-class universities, covering 13 subjects.

    Additionally, XuetangX hosts innovative initiatives, such as:

    • AI Xuetang, a personalized learning platform for K-12 education. It works as a channel, research exchange, and application of the Ministry of Education’s Online Research Center.It includes online assessments, micro-degrees, and question banks. “It helps local primary schools to complete continuous innovation inside and outside the classroom, and give children the best learning experience,” explains the organization.

     

    • AP courses at Moocap.org.cn and XuetangX, with over 300 high school members, and over 400,000 enrolled learners. Intended for middle school students, there are 10 free, four-week courses, mostly covering STEM subjects (Calculus, Linear Algebra, Probability Theory, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and others). Their credit is accepted by many universities and colleges, including Tsinghua University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Renmin University of China and Central China Normal University.

     

    • Micro-Degrees. Jointly developed by XuetangX and Chinese universities. Main courses are IBA, AI, IoT, Network security, Big Data, Accounting, UI design, Radio and Television Editor, Internet Education, Internet Finance, and Cross-Border e-commerce.

     

    • Rain Classroom, an app designed to be used in a blended learning model, with 7 million users. This free tool allows students to interact with their teachers in class and out of class using their smartphones.

     

    • XuetangX Cloud, a teaching platform to use on campus, and connected to Rain Classroom.

     

    • AI virtual teacher Xiaomu. “As soon as students start a course, Xiaomu predicts where they each have problems and answers their questions in the form of text, pictures, videos, etc. Students can always ask him more until they fully understand the concept. In talking to Xiaomu, they avoid occupying the teacher’s time.” (…) “When users are watching videos, Xiaomu actively asks students related knowledge questions to help them learn how to deal with error-prone and confusing content.” (…) “He will constantly monitor students’ progress and provide advice and encouragement at different stages. Even after a user finishes a course, Xiaomu will design and recommend other courses according to the user’s preferences in order to help individual students to learn effectively.”

     

    • SIELE Test, a system that allows to electronically certify the degree of mastery of the Spanish language.

     

    • News about XuetangX in English

  • edX Will Invest Another $1.8M in Fostering Digital Bachelors’ Degrees

    edX Will Invest Another $1.8M in Fostering Digital Bachelors’ Degrees

    Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, decided to channel the funding received with Yidan Prize of $1.8 million to “reimagine undergraduate online education” and foster stackable credentials in this area.

    That amount corresponds to 50% of the prize, which was granted at an award ceremony in Hong Kong, last December 10. Half of the $3.9M was in the form of a cash prize to the laureate (Mr. Agarwal), while the other was a project fund.

    “In the next three to five years, we want to utilize the proceeds to truly reimagine the undergraduate degree. We want to see anybody anywhere in the world to get undergraduate plus education,” said Anant Agarwal during a conversation with Professor Larry Hedges, laureated also with the Yidan Prize, and Tom Blackwell, CEO at EM. [In the picture; also, see the video below].

    Early this year, the edX organization started to analyze the viability of launching customizable digital bachelors’ degrees, as IBL News reported.

    These credentials, registered with the name of “MicroBachelors”, could be priced at $10,000.

    The MicroBachelors project, which started with a grant of $700,000 from the Lumina Foundation, mirrors MicroMasters’ successful initiative. The idea follows Anant Agarwal’s view of “education as a Lego.”

    However, edX won’t be the first MOOC platform to launch a Bachelor’s degree. Coursera scored this achievement by releasing the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of London earlier this year.

  • Newsletter about Open edX | December 2018: HarvardX, MIT, edX.org, Anant Agarwal…

    Newsletter about Open edX | December 2018: HarvardX, MIT, edX.org, Anant Agarwal…

    [ Newsletter format  |  Click here to subscribe ]

    DECEMBER 2018 – NEWSLETTER #12  |  More stories at IBL News

     

    OPEN EDX

    • MIT’s Private Open edX Platform Used by 99% of Students on Campus

    • Harvard University Enhances its DART Tool to Reuse edX Content on Campus

    • EdCast Open edX Provider Raises $33.6 Million


    EDX.ORG

    • EdX Begins to Charge for Access to Graded Assessments

    • Anant Agarwal and Larry Hedge Each Receive $1.8M in a Prize Set by a Chinese Philanthropist


    COURSES & PROGRAMS

    • Insights on Georgia Tech’s Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity on edX.org

    • A How-To Course on edX About Amazon SageMaker and Machine Learning

    • edX MicroMasters Program Wins Employability Award


    TRENDS

    • MOOCs Are Dead, Welcome MOOC-Based Degrees

    • Reinventing the College Degree: A Future with Modular Credentials

    • O’Reilly Media Won’t Organize the 2019 JupyterCon Event


    2019 UPCOMING EVENTS

    • Education Calendar  –  JAN  |  FEB  |  MARCH  |  APRIL

    This newsletter about Open edX is a monthly report compiled by the IBL News staff, in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company that builds AI analytics-driven, revenue-oriented learning ecosystems, and courses with Open edX. 

    Read the latest IBL Newsletter on Learning Innovation  |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters

    IBL News is not affiliated to edX

    edX, Open edX and the corresponding logos are registered trademarks of edX Inc. All Rights Reserved

  • Learning Innovation | December 2018: OPM, MOOC, Coursera, edX, Udacity, Datacamp…

    Learning Innovation | December 2018: OPM, MOOC, Coursera, edX, Udacity, Datacamp…

    [ Newsletter format  |  Click here to subscribe ]

    DECEMBER 2018  –  NEWSLETTER #18 ON LEARNING INNOVATION

    OPM

    • The OPM market, which stands at $2.3 billion, can grow 12 % by 2020, said Eduventures.

    • Grand Canyon Education picked up 17 partner institutions after acquiring Orbis Education Services for $362 million.

    • “The next-generation model for MOOCs in higher education is to become a form of OPM providers, including the near-term focus on master’s degrees,” wrote expert Phil Hill, from e-Literate.

    AI

    • Artificial intelligence in U.S. education will grow by 47.5% from 2017-2021. An expert takes a peek into examples of how AI is used in education.

    • AI developed by Chinese companies will rock our world, and reshape teaching, said Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, best-selling author, and former Google’s China chief.

    MOOCS

    • MOOCs should be understood as just as digital content rather than college educational experiences, writes Amy Ahearn, manager at +Acumen.

    • MOOC top platforms grew their businesses by over 20% in 2018

    • A 22-story tower in Beijing named the “MOOC Times Building” houses government supported incubator for edtech companies. It includes two tricked-out production studios to film and edit video for courses.

    COURSES

    • Google has created an IT Support Professional Certificate program, designed to train anyone without any prior training or degree a Support Specialist in 8 to 12 months.

    • Coursera added 675 courses, doubled down on the number of degrees, launched the first Bachelor’s degree, and reached 37 million learners in 2018.

    INITIATIVES

    • Coursera launched a forum space for its global community of learners to ask questions and help each other out.

    • EdSurge is redefining its mission on writing, research and events, after closing a $2.5 million fundraise and signing with new partners in China (JMD and TAL Education)

    INVESTMENT

    • DataCamp, a New York-based provider of online data science and analytics courses that claims 3.3 million users, raised another $25 million.

    • Kahoot, an Oslo-based developer of a digital quiz tool popular with teachers, received investment support from Disney, and brought its valuation until $374 million.

    • India’s Byju raised $540 million to expand globally with English classes.

    2019 UPCOMING EVENTS

    • Education Calendar by IBL News

    This newsletter about learning innovation is a monthly report compiled by the IBL News journalist staff, in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company that builds data-driven learning ecosystems and courses with Open edX. If you enjoy what you read please consider forwarding it to spread the word. Click here to subscribe. 

    Archive:
    IBL Newsletter #17 – November 2018
    IBL Newsletter #16 – October 2018
    IBL Newsletter #15 – September 2018

  • A How To Course on edX About Amazon SageMaker and Machine Learning

    A How To Course on edX About Amazon SageMaker and Machine Learning

    AWS has just launched an intermediate-level course on edX.org about how to use Amazon SageMaker to simplify the integration of Machine Learning into your applications.

    Built by AWS experts, Amazon SageMaker: Simplifying Machine Learning Application Development is intended for application developers with no data science expertise who are upskilling in machine learning and AI.

    The course is part of the AWS Developer Professional Series.

    Machine Learning engineer is the #1 emerging job, with an annual growth of 10%, beating data scientists, sales development and customer success managers.  

    TechRepublic is ranking machine learning as the top Artificial Intelligence skill. Meanwhile, Gartner said that AI is expected to create 2.3 million jobs by 2020, replacing the 1.8 millions it will eliminate.

     

  • Coursera, edX, Udacity Grew Their Businesses By Over 20% in 2018

    Coursera, edX, Udacity Grew Their Businesses By Over 20% in 2018

    Top MOOC platforms significantly increased their revenues in 2018, after adding new paid models and experiencing an increase in users.

    According to Forbes, Coursera’s revenuefor 2018 is $140, up from $100 million in 2017.  Udacity’s revenue will grow by 25 % to $90 million, and edX will be at around $60 million — a smaller increase.

    In terms of users, Coursera leads with 37 million, followed by edX (18 million), XuetangX (14 million), Udacity (10 million) and FutureLearn (8.7 million).

    Class-Central estimated that 900 universities launched 2000 new courses to the list this year. [See the graphic above] The total number of online degreesis 47, up from around 15 in 2017.

    One of the most successful cases has been Coursera for Business, which grew300% and increased its portfolio to over 1,500 customers globally.

  • EdCast Open edX Provider Raises $33.6 Million

    EdCast Open edX Provider Raises $33.6 Million

    EdCast, a learning platform whose corporate LMS is powered with Open edX technology, announced last week that it closed an additional $33.6 million of funding.

    “Investors include Softbank, REV Venture Partners, The London Fund, Crescent Enterprises,  and Mistletoe, among others, with participation from previous investors, including SSGA, Stanford University, and Cervin Ventures,” said EdCast in a press release.

    This Mountain View-based educational provider also claimed that “it has surpassed two million paid users across hundreds of enterprise and public-sector customers, including HPE, Dell EMC, Schneider Electric, ANZ Bank, Jefferson Health, Mars, Anglo American, PVH, Genpact, ICICI Securities, India’s NASSCOM and the World Economic Forum.”


    [In the picture above: Karl Mehta, CEO at EdCast]