Nine of the world’s top 10 universities –according to the ranking of Times Higher Education– use the Open edX pedagogy and technology and publish courses at edX.org.
Among the top 10, we find edX partners (Oxford, Caltech, MIT, Harvard University, Princeton University, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, University of Chicago, and University of Pennsylvania ) and one university (Stanford) who has its own independent instance, https://lagunita.stanford.edu/.
The Fourth LWMOOC Conference, to be held October 8-10 at The University of Texas at Austin, has established as a theme “Developing and Advancing Careers with MOOCs”
“Though initial visions of MOOCs as free learning resources for the masses have not yet been the reality, millions of learners around the world are using MOOCs to support professional development and career advancement,” have noted the organizers of the conference.
“This activity represents an important shift from the top-down model of university degrees to a learner-generated, micro-credentialing “bottom-up” model.”
EdX has released a new version of its app for Android and iOS, 2.10, with video-enhanced features (after all edX’s app is mostly a video companion tool). This app is available for both edX.org and Open edX independent sites’ learners.
The main two new features empower learners to access all course videos in one place as well as delete downloaded clips (with a left swipe in iOS or a long press in Android).
Upcoming versions of the mobile app will have tablet support, and will automatically open in Spanish mode if a learner’s mobile phone is set to use Spanish.
Another interesting improvement at edX.org courses refers to learner profiles. Now they include the date a student joined edX and links to social media accounts. Soon, any certificate earned will be visible on their profiles.
edX’s MicroMasters successful initiative celebrates this September its first anniversary with the extension of the program to 39 subjects from 24 international universities. The University of California, Berkeley is the latest university partner to join the MicroMasters. Its first course will be Marketing Analytics, and it is scheduled for October 3.
“MicroMasters programs –which are free to try– help to bridge the knowledge gap between higher education and the workplace by offering deep knowledge and credentials in the most in-demand fields, with a pathway to credit in an on-campus program,” explained Anant Agarwarl, CEO at edX.
Top employers, including IBM, GE, Hootsuite, Boeing, Bloomberg, Walmart, Adobe, Ford, PwC and others are endorsing MicroMasters programs.
France University Numerique (FUN), the French national MOOC platform with over a million students and 300 courses, has reached an agreement with edX.org to share course content and strengthen its partnership.
FUN learners will easily access the catalog of courses in English and Spanish offered by edX.org, while edX’s students access FUN’s classes. Initially, edX has made available seven courses: three from MIT, three from Harvard and one from Microsoft (see them above).
Created in June 2013, FUN was the first national platform using Open edX. Since then, hundreds of international initiatives have been launched. Today the Open edX universe is being used by more than 300 sites, which host over 4,300 courses in 32 languages.
edX released this week the final version of Ginkgo (Ginkgo.1), the latest Open edX version of the platform. Here is the official announcement, along with docs and release notes. In the guide, there is a new section with details on how to migrate existing data from Ficus.4 to a Ginkgo installation.
Ginkgo –the seventh Open edX release– includes changes to the course navigation, video player, proctored exams, accessibility, emails and problems.
On the LMS (student view):
On Studio (course author tool):
An MIT professor of Economics, Jonathan Gruber, wants to help everyone to learn basic economics, and for this purpose he has created a course for years: Introductory AP Microeconomics, which has been released on August 15 on edX.org.
“Economics principles explain so much of what drives our everyday life: how people decide which goods to buy and how to spend their time; how firms set prices and hire workers, and whether the outcomes of markets are fair and efficient.”(…) “Economics is a way of seeing the world that’s useful, but it’s also beautiful and surprising and cool. I truly believe our world would be better if everyone took this course. And I know that you’ll have a great time if you take it,” says Professor Gruber.
This free, self-paced, 12 week MOOC combines short videos on economics principles with fun applications in order to provide a level of economics knowledge that is sufficient to pass the Advance Placement (AP) College Board exam.
MITx will be launching 30 MOOCs at edx.org this fall. These MOOCs, which allow learners to get an MITx certificate as a credential, will feature the same content as on-campus courses.
Among the courses, there are two MicroMasters: Supply Chain Analytics (Sept 13), and Microeconomics (Sept 26), as well as the following:
“In many ways, you can think of edX as an Uber for education. Uber are universities and institutional partners who create content in our platform as well as 12 million learners growing rapidly who take that learning”, said Anant Agarwal, Founder and CEO of edX, during the a webinar about disruption in education titled “Micro to Massive: How Enterprises are Using Microlearning & MOOCs to Revolutionize Corporate Training” and hosted by EdCast (watch it below, along with Mr. Agarwal’s presentation slides).
Another interesting new idea Anant Agarwal mentioned is this: “We will launch very soon at edX a professional certificate on soft skills. Soft skills are the new big thing for corporations, with subjects such as teamwork, communications, critical thinking and so on.” (…) “edX is serving as a bridge between the university and the corporate world; there is a huge demand for continuing education. (…) “In that sense, many corporations are using edX for Business“.
The edX organization has announced this week that Joel Barciauskas, Open Source Engineering Manager, will be leaving edX on August 29th.
“As the manager of the Open edX team, Joel has championed many community-centered initiatives and improvements here within edX. Joel [in the picture] organized the last two Open edX conferences: 2016 at Stanford in Palo Alto, California, and 2017 at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Spain. His energy and enthusiasm for the Open edX mission has been a huge asset, and we are going to miss him,” explained Ned Batchelder, a veteran edX engineer.
“We are actively looking for someone who will continue Joel’s work, focusing exclusively on making the diverse and ever-growing Open edX community better,” he added. The job application was posted here.
The reasons for the departure of Joel Barciauskas have not been disclosed.