IBL News

Category: Top News

  • The "edX Idea": Higher Education Credentials for Everyone

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    Beyond a consortium, educational portal and open source platform, edX is a powerful concept structured into a community of learners, educators, technologists and entrepreneurs.

    Dr. Joshua Kim, Director of Digital Learning Initiatives at Dartmouth University, has expressed this thought in an article written for “Inside the Higher Ed”.

    “A meaningful higher education credential should be available to every person in the world rather than the small minority”, says Joshua Kim.

    In other words, “edX is an idea”. And there is nothing in this world as powerful as an idea.

    You might think that Coursera, Udacity or another powerful start-up can also develop this goal.

    Well, so far no one except edX has formulated the goal of reaching one billion learners in ten years. The edX consortium has a key advantage over Coursera: it is a non-profit organization and its software is fully open source.

    And a third one: the willingness to partner with the software and instructional design community. Beth Porter, VP of Product at edX, said during the “Open edX Universities Symposium” that “the goal (of the one billion learners) cannot be achieved without the help of the open source community”.

    Joshua Kim highlights that “higher education credentials need not be scarce”.

    • “EdX is not really a consortium. (Although it is a consortium). EdX is not really an open platform. (Although it is an open platform). EdX is not really a website and a global aggregator of lifelong learners. (Although it is both those things).”
    • “What in our world has transitioned from scarcity to abundance? (Or near abundance?). Light. Clean water. Food. Books. Bandwidth. Music. News. Processing Power. Storage. Information. (…) Some people (including me) think that energy will make the transition from scarcity to abundance in our lifetimes.”
    • “The idea of edX is that a higher education credential is a right for everybody, not a privilege of the few. (…) What I find amazing is that the members of the edX Consortium seem to think that it can be done.”
    • “A move to end the global scarcity in higher education credentialing will require a non-linear advance. (…) “The answer will only be found by experimentation and action (rather than talking and defending the status quo).”

     

     

  • The Global Forum Event Attracted All of the Key Players of edX

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    “There has never been a more exciting time in higher education”    , said Georgetown University’s Provost Robert M. Groves during the opening remarks at the edX Global Forum (DC, December 8 – 10). “Together we are shaking the future of higher ed”, added.

    Addressing an audience of over 400 selected attendees from all over the world, Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, stated: “You are changing the world”. During this two-day program of discussions, talks and networking activities had an stellar intervention from Megan Smith, CTO of the United States. She highlighted the importance of open education in this transitional time that education is facing. “It reminds me of the music industry’s transition”.

    Attendees –a mix of edX partners, learners, professors, researchers and technologists– noticed the success of the edX project. Every university, organization and corporation who plays a key role in the edX universe attended this conference. Discussion topics ranged from the future of credentials, blended education and skill gaps to the importance of the humanities and liberal arts. In total, 75 speakers, 60 of whom were edX partners.

    Anant Agarwal announced the incorporation of 27 edX new partners as well as the edX prize to recognize the most engaging teacher.

    New edX members join us from around the world and include: RWTH Aachen University, Smith College, Princeton University, Teachers College Columbia University, The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, University of Pennsylvania, Galileo Universidad, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, Waseda University.

    edX Global Forum 2016 will take place in Paris.

    [Additional reading: edX’s Blog: edX Global Forum 2015 wrap-up]

    The event was tweeted through #FutureEDU.

  • Over 30 Universities along with Brightest Minds in Higher Ed Participated in the Open edX Universities Symposium

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    [Watch all of the videos at IBL’s Open edX TV]

    The Open edX Universities Symposium (Washington DC, Nov 10-11) attracted over 30 top universities along with some of the brightest minds in higher education in the U.S. such as John Mitchell, Dr. Chuck, Barbara Oakley, Isaac Chuang, Alfred Essa, Kenneth Koedinger, Linda Baer, Armando Fox, Carolyn Rosé, Phil Long, Lorena Barba and George Siemens.

    Over 120 attendees learned, participated in the discussions and networked. It was a fabulous event, according to the participants.

    Throughout the day, the idea that surfaced over and over again was: openness—open source, open data, open standards.

    The research-based and future-looking program was in contrast to many other events like it which get carried away with MOOC enthusiasm.

    The event, organized by the George Washington University with technical support from IBL Studios, was chaired (and mostly organized) by Prof. Lorena Barba.

    Leaders for the following universities and organizations were present: GW, Davidson College, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, McGraw-Hill Education, University of Queensland, Stanford University, Loyola University, Dartmouth, American University, Civitas Learning, Columbia, Delf, MIT, IBL Open edX, University of Zurich, Wake Forest, University of Hong Kong, University of Texas at Austin, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Rey Juan Carlos, Carlos III de Madrid, National Science Foundation, Brown University of School of Professional Studies, University of Maryland, Colgate, Duke, Princeton, Oakland, Universidad de Alcala, University of Illinois, CUNY, Wharton School, Enthought, NVIDIA, Northwestern, Santa Clara, Georgia Institute of Technology, Inside Higher Ed, Coursera, Bunker Hill Community College, edX, NYU, GWSON, Microsoft, Alphabeta, Amazon Web Services, Chronicle of Higher Eucation, University of Adelaide, George Mason, Trinity Education Group.

    Microsoft, McGraw-Hill Education, Alphabeta and IBL Studios sponsored the event.

    The Symposium generated a discussion online thorough #openedxunis.

     

     

     


    Videos of the talks and discussions coming from the streaming signal are featured in this URL. A professionally produced version will be available in the coming days at iblstudios.com/news/ and openedxuniversities.org.

    Here is an advance:

  • Paris Attacks: the Open edX Community Supports France

    After the terrorist attacks that devastated Paris on Friday night, here at IBL we want to express our solidarity to our French friends. Terrorists won’t win. The light is more powerful than darkness!

  • EdX Introduces Timed Exams

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    edX has started to offer timed exams.

    This feature allows course teams to assign a set amount of time to all the problems within a subsection. If a learner goes over the time lime, she can no longer submit answers to problems and does not receive points.

    An additional interesting feature is that course teams can grant individual learners extra time to complete a timed exam.

    The way it works is explained in this section of “Building and Running an edX Course”.

  • Dr. Chuck Says that the edX License Can Be Changed into a "Non-Open License"

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    Prof. Charles Severance –the legendary Dr. Chuck, creator of Sakai, LTI and successful MOOC creator– states in an interview by Prof. Lorena Barba that “edX is legally set up in a position to change the license of their software to a ‘non-open’ license”.

    • “In Sakai, we built structures from the very beginning that made it impossible for any contributor—no matter how big—to control the future direction of Sakai. The kind of (hypothetical) scenario that worries me the most when edX retains the option to relicense their software, is that they use up their initial investment from Harvard and MIT and revenues are not covering expenses and they need to search for new sources of funding to survive. Their (hypothetical) potential funders could want the software to be an “asset” that is exclusive to edX. While I would hope that edX would say ‘no’ to funds with such drastic strings attached, they may find themselves in a position where they feel they have no other choice.”
    • Dr. Chuck considers that edX functions like Canvas Corporation. “The edX project uses the AGPL license and a very corporate-style contribution agreement that makes sure that the edX software remains under strict control of the edX corporation. In that way, edX functions far more like the Canvas corporation, which has an “open source” license but maintains strict control over the contributors and code base, to the extent that its “open source” asset is so well protected that Canvas is about to go public.”
    • “The edX project uses the AGPL license and a very corporate-style contribution agreement that makes sure that the edX software remains under strict control of the edX corporation.”
    • “The edX strategy maintains a bright boundary between the “core” and the “rest of the community” and edX is using its licensing and contribution agreement to create that boundary. Sakai works hard to make our edges as porous as possible and be a genuinely open community built around openly licensed software.”
    • “In the edX community the “commons” are owned by “edX” and while organizations can download and use the edX software they can never be true equal partners in the community because edX holds the copyright for all the code. Copyright owners can change a product from an open license to some other license because they are the owners. While they cannot revoke the licenses of the previously distributed versions of the software, they can change the copyright on all future versions of the software.”

    Read the interview: Q&A with Dr. Chuck.

  • Two Major edX Events this Week: the Global Forum and the first Open edX Universities Symposium

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    Two premium edX-related events will take place this coming week in Washington DC: the Global Forum and Open edX Universities Symposium.

    GLOBAL FORUM

    The Global Forum –a conference by invitation, only for edX partners and selected players– will be hosted by Georgetown University from November 8th to 10th. Educational leaders, instructional technologists, researchers, marketers, visionaries and innovators of all stripes from dozens of countries around the globe will meet to discuss endeavors in blended learning, explore emerging trends and present pedagogical research.

    The event will start with a welcoming reception tomorrow Sunday 8th, and will continue with a two-day conference, as indicated on the conference’s website. The full Global Forum PDF program is available to download.

    UNIVERSITIES SYMPOSIUM

    The Open edX Universities Symposium –an open event organized by George Washington University with technical support from IBL Studios– will attract over 120 attendees (20% more than what was expected).

    It will start on November 10th with a free, open to all, two-hour workshop with Dr. Chuck Severance and Barbara Oakley, two of the most popular online educators of the nation. Only requisite is to RSVP via this form. This workshop will be live streamed on this page.

    Later, from 6:00 to 8:30pm, a welcome reception, sponsored by Microsoft, will take place [RSVP].

    On the next day, November 11th, the Symposium’s talks will take place. In addition to top speakers, leaders at Stanford, MIT, Duke, UT Austin, NYU and GW, will attend the event.

    Registration is still open; the only requirement is a nominal registration fee of $75 that includes breakfast, lunch and refreshments.

     

  • Top Universities Start Experimenting with Free Online Courses as a Way to Engage Alumni

    Another reason to create MOOCs or Mini-MOOCs?

    Alumni engagement… and fundraising!

    Some of the top American universities involved with edX and Open edX are analyzing this approach.

    One of the first organizations experimenting with enrolling alumni in free online courses is Colgate University through ColgateX .

    Prof. Karen Harpp’s “Advent of the Atomic Bomb” course, launched in the spring of 2015 on edX’s Edge platform, is a good example. It attracted 380 alumni. In August, Professors Jennifer Brice and Jane Pinchin re-ran the “Living Writers” course, also on edX’s Edge, with an audience of 800 participants –and 678 of them were alumni.

    Colgate University considers the program a success. This institution didn’t reveal whether donations have resulted from this initiative, but admitted that those types of courses could serve as an indirect way to fundraise in the future, according to “The Chronicle of Higher Education”. Colgate explained that “free online courses have proved to be convenient avenues for continuing education because they allow alumni to learn from home and get exactly what they want.”

    Other universities trying the same approach are Harvard with its HarvardX for Alumni program and the University of Wisconsin.

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  • The Open edX Platform Includes Oppia, a Tool that Recreates the Experience of One-On-One Tutoring

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    EdX has started to offer full support for Oppia, a great third-party, open-source tool that allows to create short interactive lessons or tutorials called “explorations”.

    Created by Google, Oppia simulates conversations with human tutors to encourage exploration and experiential learning –although these assessments cannot be graded on the Open edX platform. Overall, it is an effective and enjoyable learning experience.

    To enable the Oppia XBlock, access Studio and add “oppia” to the Advanced Module List on the Advanced Settings page. Later, on the Course Outline page, open the unit in the ungraded subsections where you want to add the exploration.

    If Oppia is not included in your Open edX platform, you can install it from GitHub.

    At the oppia.org website, there are many samples of experiences created by the community.

     

     

     

  • Jupyter/IPython Notebooks: A Killer App in STEM Education… And An Engaging Course Proves It

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    Are Jupyter –previously IPython– notebooks a killer app in STEM education?

    This what Prof. Lorena Barba, Chair of the Open edX Universities Symposium, stated during the JupyterDay conference that took place in New York last October 24.

    “Modern instructors use multi-media content: printed notes, graphic-rich websites or blogs, videos of many kinds, etc. Jupyter notebooks combine all of this with computable parts written in Python (and/or other languages). This brings a huge opportunity to interact with the material and use computing to construct knowledge,” she said during an interview conducted by Professor Robert Talbert at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

    Lorena Barba, a leading proponent of Project Jupyter in university STEM education, hosted her “Practical Numerical Method with Python” course on GitHub and used Open edX to organize an open online course around the notebooks. The course assessments are all auto-graded in Open edX. This course famously only contains two videos, with the rest of the course structured around student engagement with a series of Jupyter notebooks.

    “The course design follows a structure that I have used before and works really well for complex topics: chunk up the course into somewhat self-contained modules, each composed of small, achievable steps leading to one satisfying result, plus a micro project as assessment. Being about numerical computing, I knew I would use Python as the language and IPython (now Jupyter) notebooks for the content. Each notebook to a lesson, four or five lessons to a module, and five course modules, and we have a “course.”

    “Knowing that online learners have many other things to do and few reasons to “complete” a course, I decided we would award an open digital badge for each module, instead of a course certificate. The final ingredient was persuading a couple of other instructors teaching similar courses at their institution to collaborate in the MOOC and invite their students to join with mine and the followers from around the world. I was looking to form a community around the course.”

    “My experience with Jupyter notebooks is that students engage with the material in an almost tactile way. Manipulating a piece of code, experimenting with parameters in a problem, then reflecting and discussing the output makes for an active learning experience that works. The best results occur when students start creating their own notebooks, either documenting a mini-project or for note-taking and experimenting with code. I encourage them to do it, and it takes a lot of cajoling, but when they start doing this, I know I’ve reeled them in and they will succeed in the course.”

    “Now we need the few innovative universities that decide to use this technology universally (for a broad cohort of students) and prove the impact it can have.”

     

    > Robert Talbert’s Interview with Lorena Barba