IBL News

Category: Platforms | Tech

  • Open edX & Learning Platforms | August 2020: HarvardX, Coursera, Udacity, Whole Foods, Skillshare…

    Open edX & Learning Platforms | August 2020: HarvardX, Coursera, Udacity, Whole Foods, Skillshare…

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    AUGUST 2020 – NEWSLETTER #30  |  Breaking news at IBL News  |  Noticias en Español

     

    edX | Open edX

    • edX Posts the Release Notes of the Open edX Juniper Platform

    • edX, HarvardX, and Google Introduce a Certificate Program on Tiny Machine Learning

    • edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master’s in Civil Engineering with Purdue

     

    Coursera

    • Coursera Valued at $2.5 Billion After a Finance Round of Additional $130 Million

    • A Coursera Report Finds Economic Recovery to be Dependent on Broad Re-Skilling

     

    Udacity

    • Udacity PR Campaign Claims a Revenue Increase of 260% in the First Half of 2020

    • A Unit of the Air Force Will Train Airmen in AI, Data and Programming with Udacity’s Programs

     

    Future Learn

    • Simon Nelson, Original CEO of FutureLearn, Leaves His Company

     

    Learning Platforms

    • Whole Foods Launches a Series of Life-Skills Courses Taught by Instagram Influencers

    • Skillshare.com, with 30,000 Creative Skills-Oriented Courses, Raises $66 Million

    • 2U Reported Second Quarter Loss of $66 M; Stock Improved 83% This Year

     

    Tools

    • Researchers Develop an Open Source Tool for Social Conversations on Events and Conferences

    • A Tool to Create Personalized Learning Pathways from ClassCentral.com

    • Google Meet Unveils New Features Allowing More Control and Increasing Security

     

    2020 Events 

    • Education Calendar  –  AUG  |  SEP  |  OCT  |  NOV  |  DEC  |  Conferences in Latin America & Spain

     

    This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specialized in AI and credential-driven learning platforms. Read the latest IBL Newsletter   |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters

  • edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master’s in Civil Engineering with Purdue

    edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master’s in Civil Engineering with Purdue

    IBL News | New York

    edX announced yesterday that the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) joined its Consortium. The engagement started with the launch of five online courses at edX.org–already open for enrollment:

    UAF is known as “America’s Arctic university. “Our first-class faculty integrate teaching, research, and public service into all they do, creating a center for groundbreaking science, education, and the arts, with an emphasis on the circumpolar North and its diverse peoples,” explained the institution.

    Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering

    Another recent announcement by edX was the launch of an online Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University’s Lyles School of Engineering. The degree, fully online, is priced at $22,500 (30 credits).

    “The Master’s degree in Civil Engineering is designed for working professionals to complete part-time, and provides a deep dive into civil engineering with three interdisciplinary tracks: water infrastructure; infrastructure design, resilience and sustainability; and transportation systems. The degree is ranked the #6 civil engineering graduate degree program by U.S. News and World Report,” edX explained in a blog post.

    This is the third online Master’s degree from Purdue offered on edX. Purdue’s online Master’s in Mechanical Engineering was announced in June 2020, and the Electrical and Computer Engineering degree was announced in September 2019. All three degrees are top-10 ranked programs and priced at $22,500.

  • Simon Nelson, Original CEO of FutureLearn, Leaves His Company

    Simon Nelson, Original CEO of FutureLearn, Leaves His Company

    IBL News | New York

    FutureLearn, the fourth largest MOOC platform (after Coursera, edX, and Udacity), started its search for a new CEO to replace Simon Nelson, who announced this month his resignation, effective at the end of 2020.

    The departure of Simon Nelson–CEO since FutureLearn’s initiation by the UK Open University in 2012– takes place a year after the Australian Seek Group acquired 50% of Future Learn educational portal for $64.6 million (£50 million).

    Simon Nelson and the proprietors–Seek Group and Open University–didn’t provide further details of what motivated the resignation.

    “I’ve decided now is the right time to move on from FutureLearn after eight years building the company, from the kernel of an idea to a world-leading online learning platform, with over 13m registered learners, partnerships with many of the world’s leading educational institutions, companies and governments and a £100m valuation in 2019,” stated Nelson.

     

     

  • Udacity PR Campaign Claims a Revenue Increase of 260% in the First Half of 2020

    Udacity PR Campaign Claims a Revenue Increase of 260% in the First Half of 2020

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity claimed in a press release on Tuesday that it had an increase of 260% in revenue within the first half of 2020, although there was no supporting evidence presented.

    “This growth is the result of a sharp increase in demand from businesses, government agencies, and learners looking to accelerate digital transformation and develop skills in technologies,” Udacity explained.

    The Mountain View, California-based learning company mentioned recent deals with the U.S. Air Force’s BESPIN and Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency to train 100,000 people.

    Udacity continued developing content for brands such as AWS Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, and Alteryx. The AWS scholarship garnered more than 30,000 pre-registrations.

    Other new initiatives launched in the first half of 2020 include Udacity’s first executive program, AI for Business Leaders (developed in cooperation with the BMW Group), the AI for Healthcare Nanodegree program, and two new Nanodegree programs designed to train Product Managers.

  • A Tool to Create Personalized Learning Pathways from ClassCentral.com

    A Tool to Create Personalized Learning Pathways from ClassCentral.com

    IBL News | New York

    Class Central, the leading directory for MOOCs, released a useful tool that allows learners to self-catalog courses and web resources of interest, creating learning paths.

    “Whether a list of courses or a mixture of articles, tutorials, videos, and books, users can add anything with just a link,” explained Scott Robertson, from Class Central in a blog post.

    The user starts using the tool by adding a URL, organizing sections, and curating all kinds of degrees.

    Some profiles from Class Central team members provide an idea of the possibilities around @dhawal, @ruima, @pat, and @suparn.

  • A Coursera Report Finds Economic Recovery to be Dependent on Broad Re-Skilling

    A Coursera Report Finds Economic Recovery to be Dependent on Broad Re-Skilling

    IBL News | New York

    Coursera’s CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda, announced yesterday the release of the 2020 Global Skills Index (GSI), a report that benchmarks skills proficiency for 60 countries, 10 industries, and 11 fields of study in business, data science, and technology.

    The index analyzed data from 65 million learners on the Coursera platform, including 15 million new users since March.

    Coursera’s GSI highlighted that recovery in a post-pandemic world will rely on broad reskilling. “I hope this report inspires institutions to prioritize skills development as the foundation of economic revival,” wrote Jeff Maggioncalda in a blog post.

    Other insights are the following:

    • Countries, both developed and developing, excelling in critical business, technology, and data science skills see more income equality.
    • Countries with higher skill proficiencies are also those with higher labor force participation rates.
    • Countries with more equal access to the internet are also those with higher skill proficiencies.
    • Every skill proficiency percent gained for a country is associated with a $600 increase in GDP per capita.
    • Industries with more highly skilled talent, especially in technology skills, see higher stock returns and less disruption from COVID-19.
    • Of the 200 million higher education students whose studies have been disrupted by COVID-19, 80% are located in countries with emerging or lagging skills.
    • Institutions navigating COVID-19 continue to prioritize business, technology, and data science skills.
    • The top five trending skills related to COVID-19 are public health, recognizing symptoms, understanding risk factors, social distancing, and contact tracing. Since March, there have been more than 800,000 enrollments and a 540% enrollment increase in Coursera courses teaching these skills.
    • Demand for personal development skills like confidence, stress management, and mindfulness has grown by 1,200% among individual learners.
  • Coursera Valued at $2.5 Billion After a Finance Round of Additional $130 Million

    Coursera Valued at $2.5 Billion After a Finance Round of Additional $130 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Coursera yesterday announced that it raised an additional $130 million, as part of a Series F round, which was led by NEA –an investor in the trading platform Robinhood– and joined by existing investors Kleiner Perkins, SEEK Group, Learn Capital, SuRo Capital Corp, and G Squared.

    This is the biggest funding round for a U.S. education technology company in 2020.

    Investors are valuing the company at a reported $2.5 billion. To date, Coursera has raised $464 million.

    The company’s CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda, assured that “this financing brings the company’s cash balance to more than $300 million.”

    The additional funding will be used “to double down on our product and engineering efforts, expand our job-relevant catalog, and further grow our international presence,” explained Maggioncalda.

    “In particular, it gives us the flexibility to meet the considerable demand for two of our COVID-focused initiatives — Campus Response Initiative to help universities teach impacted students and Workforce Recovery Initiative to help governments reskill unemployed workers.”

    The ongoing pandemic has accelerated the expansion of Coursera, which has added 15 million new users since March. Currently, it sums 65 million learners and it houses 4,500 courses with 160 university partners and 40 companies including Google and IBM. Its workforce accounts for 600 employees.

    Since the company announced on March 12 a free offer on Coursera for Campus on March 12, over 10,000 institutions have signed up, and enrollments have spiked 500 percent over the previous spring, with 1.3 million students taking courses.

    These numbers have been used to appeal to venture capitalists, always interested in detecting major market changes.

    Coursera continues aiming for an IPO, although it has not any date on the horizon yet.

     

  • A Unit of the Air Force Will Train Airmen in AI, Data and Programming with Udacity’s Programs

    A Unit of the Air Force Will Train Airmen in AI, Data and Programming with Udacity’s Programs

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity yesterday announced a partnership with Business and Enterprise Systems Product Innovation (BESPIN), a United States Air Force (USAF) agile development lab, via its Digital University.

    The goal is to strengthen airmen’s skills in AI, machine learning, data analysis, and programming, by providing Udacity’s Nanodegree programs.

    “BESPIN started with eight airmen in 2018 and has since grown to 100+ personnel, all of whom are committed to overcoming legacy technology challenges and accelerating USAF’s digital transformation,” said Lt. Col. Paul Cooper, CEO at BESPIN.

    Programs completed by airmen include so far classes on Swift, Kotlin, Kubernetes, and data science.

    “Udacity’s online training platform is used by global corporate customers to skill and reskill their workforces: these customers include Airbus, AT&T, BMW, IBM, Nike, and Shell,” announced the company.

  • Google Announces 100,000 Scholarships for Three Career-Oriented Certificates

    Google Announces 100,000 Scholarships for Three Career-Oriented Certificates

    IBL News | New York

    Google announced this week three new certificate programs in data analytics, project management, and user experience (UX) design.

    The certificates are created and taught solely by Google employees and are offered through Coursera.org. These classes can be completed in three to six months. To take these programs, a college degree or work experience is not required and is priced at $49 a month.

    The tech giant will fund 100,000 need-based scholarships. In addition, it will be awarding over $10 million in grants to three nonprofits–YWCA, NPower, and JFF– to provide workforce development to women, veterans, and underrepresented Americans.

    “This is not revenue-generating for Google,” said Google’s Vice President, Lisa Gevelber, who leads Grow with Google and Google for Startups.

    The company said that these certificates will qualify applicants for jobs across fields with median average annual salaries of over $50,000.

    In 2018, Google launched a similar certificate program for those interested in IT. Over 250,000 people have taken this Google’s certificate, 57% of whom do not have a college degree, making it Coursera’s most popular certificate.

     

  • edX & Platforms | July 2020: JupyterCon, Suse, Juniper, Coursera, Udacity, DeVry, Canvas LMS, Degreed…

    edX & Platforms | July 2020: JupyterCon, Suse, Juniper, Coursera, Udacity, DeVry, Canvas LMS, Degreed…

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    JULY 2020 – NEWSLETTER #29  |  Breaking news at IBL News  |  Noticias en Español

     

    Open edX – Based Platforms

    • JupyterCon 2020 Conference Will Introduce an Innovative Learning Format with Credentials

    • The ‘Freshman Year for Free Program’ Will Pay Learners for Completing their Classes

    • Harvard University’s LabXChange Platform Wins the 2020 Open edX Prize

    • SUSE Acquires Kubernetes Management Platform Rancher Labs –which uses Open edX

     

    Open edX Software

    • edX Posts the Release Notes of the Open edX Juniper Platform

    • Open edX Juniper Platform: Changes on LMS Instructor Dashboard and Studio Tool

    • edX Releases Juniper, Its Tenth Version of the Open edX Platform

     

    edX

    • edX MicroBachelors Will Include Consultants to Help Learners Complete Their Programs

    • An edX Survey Finds that a Majority Is Interested in Pursuing Additional Education

    • Research: Platforms At Scale Will Radically Transform Learning and Teaching

     

    Coursera

    • Coursera Users Complain About Cheating and Plagiarism on Peer Assignments

    • Courses, Strategies, and Resources to Get The Most From Learning with edX and Coursera

     

    Udacity

    • Udacity Develops an Introductory Course and Nanodegree on Machine Learning for Microsoft Azure

     

    Learning Platforms

    • Canvas LMS Picks a New CEO From Outside the Educational Industry

    • DeVry University Releases a Complimentary Video Library to Build In-Demand Tech Skills

    • Apple Will Shut Down iTunes U at the End of 2021

     

    Investment

    • John Katzman Raises Another $16 Million to Expand Noodle Partners OPM Firm

    • Degreed Raises Another $32 Million with Its Platform for Upskilling Employees

     

    2020 Events 

    • Education Calendar  –    JULY – DEC  |  Conferences in Latin America & Spain

     

    This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specialized in AI and credential-driven learning platforms. Read the latest IBL Newsletter   |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters