Jono Bacon, Director of Community at GitHub, speaker and author, will be the Keynote Speaker at the 2016 Open edX Conference, scheduled for June 14-17 at Stanford University. Jono Bacon is one of the top worldwide experts in community management. He has led communities at Canonical and XPRIZE and is the author of the critically-acclaimed The Art of Community. 

See his talk “The Future of Community” from OSCON 11 below.

Udacity’s corporate-oriented strategy, based on its vision of bridging the gap between real-world skills, education and employment using MOOCs, has proven to be effective. Now it has 4 million registered users and 11,000 paying students. Its nanodegree program shows a completion rate of 60%, while the academic courses on Coursera or edX.org have only 2%.

Online students increasingly look to MOOCs to build job-specific skills that can boost their careers. And the three major providers –Coursera, edX and Udacity– are shifting to business models wherein students have options to pay for credentials, verified certificates (at $30 to $150, and that might come with course credit) and multi-course specializations or course series, in some cases enabling them access to additional instructor feedback, supplemental materials, readings and assessments and other services.

“In the beginning, the return to universities came in generally marketing and publicity and giving examples of quality lectures, and showcasing certain faculty members who work for certain departments to prospective students,” Ray Schroeder, an expert from the University of Illinois – Springfield, says on a U.S. News Report article.

Now MOOCs offer a less expensive alternative for students, compared to paying for credit-bearing courses offered by colleges or universities in degree programs.

EdX engineering team has recently added new features to the Open edX platform such an updated ORA assignments functionality, Checkout page (as part of the E-commerce package), optional fields on the About page and search capability.

Another interesting new feature on the latest version of the Open edX platform is the CourseTalk widget, which is used to post ratings and reviews on the course’s About page.

https://youtu.be/UD60mEOIZng?t=1h11m1s

The fourth Open edX Meetup in New York, titled “Engaging Content, Successful Marketing”, has been rated with five stars on meetup.com. The event, which was sold out and had 40+ waitlisted, was praised by attendants. “Excellent meet up – great format and very informative,” said Mukesh.

Presenters from Columbia University, Knewton, Fordham University, McKinsey and Free Learning Channel X shared their insights through 10-minute talks and a final round table.

– Michael Cennamo, Columbia University

– Kristen Weeks, Knewton

– William Fenton, Fordham University

– Christina Powers, McKinsey Academy

– Derrick Lewis, Free Learning Channel X

Watch the video above. Presentations and more elaborated videos of the talks will be posted throughout the coming weeks in an edX-format course.

> Pictures of the event.

> Past third meetup’s talks on iblcampus and download them through our app.

MIT has just released a report worth reading titled “Online Education: A Catalyst for Higher Education Reforms” that considers how advances in learning science and online technology might shape its future.

The report was presented in a forum on April 1 at the National Academy of Sciences in DC.

This analysis, that covers edX, stresses the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, integration between online and traditional learning, a skilled workforce specializing in digital learning design, and high-level institutional and organizational change.

• The report suggests viewing online capabilities as a scaffold and support rather than a replacement for in-person interactions between teachers and students.

• Online learning environments can be used to space learning across longer time periods and improve retention; provide learning opportunities remotely and through games or other media; and give teachers valuable data on students’ areas of challenge and success.

• We need to think of online learning as something that enables us to provide richer experiences toward differentiated or personalized instruction.

• We believe that there is a new category of professionals emerging from all this. We use the term ‘learning engineer.’ These “learning engineers” would have expertise in a discipline as well as in learning science and educational technologies, and would integrate knowledge across fields to design and optimize learning experiences.

• It’s important that this cadre of professionals get recognized as a valuable profession and provided with opportunities for advancement. Without people like this, we’re not going to make a transformation in education.

“We hope that this work will help to give our point of view on how university professors, policy makers, and government officials can think about technology and online education in the context of education at large,” says Sanjay Sarma, professor of mechanical engineering and dean of digital learning.

• Read William Fenton’s article on PC Mag
• The story on MIT News 

By Michael Amigot / IBL 

More than 150,000 learners from 200 countries and territories have taken the “IELTS Academic Test Preparation” course, released by the University of Queensland (UQx) on November 2015 on edX.org.

This free, self-paced course, covering the four skills tested by IELTS –listening, speaking, reading and writing– is intended to prepare learners for this English language test. It provides around 80 hours of interactive practice materials, and each section includes engaging video and audio presentation that covers key test-taking skills, strategies and techniques.

UQx Director John Zornig explained that this course has provided new opportunities particularly for students without access to face-to-face learning. The largest percentage of enrollments is from India, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam, Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia.

In a letter to Congress that requested information about the role of MIT endowment, MIT President Rafael Reif –in the picture above– offers detailed answers and highlights that “our mission charges us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on great challenges, for the betterment of humankind”, and “as we strive to serve the nation and the world, our endowment is crucial fuel.”

In this context, Rafael Reif refers to the edX initiative in these terms:

“In May 2012, we collaborated with Harvard University to launch an online learning destination and MOOC provider called edX. As the only leading MOOC provider that is both nonprofit and open source, edX serves as a platform on which dozens of global universities host their MOOCs. To date, edX has delivered nearly 900 courses to seven million unique users, and counts among its partners more than 90 leading global universities, nonprofits and institutions — including Princeton University, the Smithsonian, Harvey Mudd College and Amnesty International.”

Additionally, MIT president mentions the MITx open source educational tool, as well as the OpenCourseWare (OCW) website, that offers, free of charge, all MIT course content, including videos, syllabi, simulations, lecture notes and exams –2,260 courses with 175 million learners in total.

EdX’s financial aid program which allows disadvantaged students to receive a 90-percent on verified course certificates “is not sustainable”, Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, has said to The Harvard Crimson.

“Right now we are funding it out of donor dollars. Our hope is that we get philanthropic contributions to help with our financial program,” he added.

While course enrollment is free, each verified certificate costs $50 to $100. Since December, students have the option of applying for financial assistance by submitting an application that is evaluated “holistically” by an edX support team. In the application, users must report an annual household income and write short essays about their financial situations, learning goals, and career aspirations.

“We just started the program four months ago and have been getting several hundred applications a week.”

As MIT celebrates its first 100 years in Cambridge and prepares for the future, a symposium is analyzing what comes next. Addressing the challenge of online education, Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, said that “it is senseless to think that what you learn for four years at age 18 will help you keep pace for the rest of your life”.