Category: Platforms | Tech

Imperial College Launches a Free Course Explaining the Science Behind the Response to the Coronavirus
IBL News | New York

As the coronavirus (COVID19) spread goes on, with 2,460 deaths and 78,630 infected so far, online learning resources multiply.

This month, Imperial College London launched on Coursera a free online course about the science behind the response to the virus outbreak.
“Science Matters: Let’s talk about COVID19” features on video experts from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics who have been working on modeling the epidemic, estimating the epidemic size, transmissibility, and severity since the first confirmed cases.

The course provides with updates on the state of the epidemic and deals with topics including:
- Basic Reproduction Number (R0) of an infection
- Case Fatality Rate: Why it varies and why that matters
- Community participation and the role of social media
- Economics of an outbreak
- Developments of a vaccine in real-time epidemics
- Clinical presentations of COVID19
Imperial College’s School of Public Health has launched a number of open specializations including “Epidemiology for Public Health”, “Foundations of Public Health Practice” and “Statistical Analysis for Public Health”. These specializations are part of Imperial’s first fully online degree, the Global Master of Public Health, also available via Coursera.
February 23, 2020
Udacity Releases a Program for Executives Looking to Incorporate AI into their Businesses

IBL News | New York

Udacity will launch on February 25 an “AI for Business Leaders” Executive Program in partnership with BMW.

The Founder and Chairman of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, a German-American educator, and entrepreneur, made the announcement during his visit to the BMW Group in Munich yesterday.

The course takes four to eight weeks to complete and it costs $799. It has been co-designed with the German automotive corporation.

The program introduces the technical foundations and business applications of AI to executives responsible for making strategic technology decisions within their companies.

For the capstone project, participants will need to develop and implement an AI strategy for their own company or with a predefined business scenario for an automotive manufacturer, or a news and telecommunications conglomerate.

Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, Schussel Family Professor at MIT, and co-author of The Second Machine Age, worked with Udacity to develop this Executive Program.

• Syllabus of the Program (PDF)
• Blog Post at Udacity

February 22, 2020
Coursera’s and U-M’s Data Science Specialization Will Cost $1 to Chinese Students

IBL News | New York

In response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, Coursera and the University of Michigan (U-M) announced that they will offer students in China three of their most popular Data Science Specializations for $1 a month for the next six months.

The Specializations are Python for Everybody, the most popular specialization on Coursera; Python 3 Programming; and Applied Data Science with Python. Each specialization includes all the features of the paid version, including faculty instructors and final certifications.

The University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) has had a longstanding relationship with China.

“A substantial number of Chinese students choose to learn with the school as part of its residential degrees. Some UMSI faculty received education or degrees in China, and some conduct research there. So when we heard about the challenges faced by scholars and collaborators in China, we knew we wanted to do something to express our concern and lend a hand,” Jeff Maggioncalda, Chief Executive Officer of Coursera explained yesterday in a blog post.

“We wanted to make a valuable contribution to our scholarly colleagues from China during this difficult time,” he added.

Coursera’s Specializations are a series of online courses with credentials recognized across industries. Their pricing varies, with an option to pay monthly subscriptions ranging from $39 to $89.

The University of Michigan also offers Data Science Specializations through its Michigan Online portal.

The coronavirus, or Covid-19, has already infected more than 75,000 people in two months, and of them, 2,130 have died.

February 21, 2020
A Purdue Program for High School Students Assures Admission by Passing Five CLEP Exams

IBL News | New York

Purdue University announced today a program to help Indiana high school students and residents earn college credit through free online courses.

The program, called Fast Start, is the result of a partnership with the New York-based philanthropy, Modern States Education Alliance (ModernStates.org).

Dedicated to making a college degree more affordable and accessible, Modern States will pay the $89 CLEP exam fee for up to 10,000 learners enrolled, while providing free access to online courses.

Purdue University said that it will assure admission to students who pass a minimum of five CLEP (College Level Examination Program) exams.

“In this visionary partnership with Modern States, Purdue opens up college pathways for all students,” said David Coleman, CEO of the College Board.

CLEP exams can help students receive credit for up to 30 hours of general education courses, or about one full year of college credit. It is estimated that passing five CLEP exams – the equivalent of one semester – can save students and their parents almost $11,000 in college tuition.

The Fast Start option can also move Indiana students toward early graduation and early entry into the workforce.

The program will be officially launched in the fall of 2020, with the first students being granted admission for the fall 2021 semester.

With 200,000 registered users, ModernStates.org is the largest “free college for credit” program in the nation.

Built on an Open edX based ecosystem, powered by IBL Education, the Modern States platform includes an expansive library of online courses, taught by top college professors, at no cost. The professors who teach Modern States courses include experts from Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Tufts, George Washington University, American University, State University of New York and other leading universities.

Students who successfully complete a Modern States course will receive a voucher to pay for the corresponding College Board CLEP exam and be reimbursed for test center fees.

Administered by the College Board, CLEP exams are similar to Advanced Placement (AP) exams. CLEP has historically been taken by adults, especially active-duty military and veterans. Passing scores on CLEP exams are accepted for credit by more than 2,900 colleges and universities, and the exams have been used for more than 50 years.

Behind ModernStates.org, and its latest $1 million gift to Purdue University covering the cost of 10,000 CLEP exams, is the foundation created by Steve and Maureen Sherry Klinsky.

February 18, 2020
Coursera Introduces an Annual Subscription Plan for Learners Similar to Its Business and Campus Offering
IBL News | New York

This week, Coursera started to pilot a new annual subscription program for individual learners at $399 per year. This offering, called Coursera Plus, resembles the existing subscription plans of Coursera for Business and Coursera for Campus – although these ones include analytics and other integration services.

Coursera’s plan follows the trend towards the subscription pricing model, increasingly executed among MOOC platforms and initiatives at scale such as Pluralsight or A Cloud Guru.

Essentially, Coursera Plus allows to access 90% of the courses, Specializations and Professional Certificates on its catalog – over 3,000 classes. There is no limit to the courses that the learner can enroll in or the certificates that can be earned, as long as those petitions fall into that program.

However, some popular courses, such as those of co-founder and AI-guru Andrew Ng e.g. “Machine Learning”, or professional certificate courses from IBM, AWS, and Stanford University, are not available.

The Coursera organization lets its partners decide whether or not to make their content part of the Plus initiative.

In addition, existing subscriptions to Coursera specializations will not be automatically canceled. Users must cancel their existing subscriptions to avoid being charged for both Coursera Plus and single Specialization subscriptions.

Anubhav Chopra, Lead Product Manager at the educational company, explained in a promotional blog post: “Coursera Plus is one of many enrollment options available on Coursera including the ability to audit a course, take a course for free, apply for financial aid, or pay for a course, Specialization, or Professional Certificate individually.”

Coursera encouraged students to explore the following examples:
- Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) (University of Michigan)
- The Science of Well-Being (Yale)
- Learning How to Learn (McMaster University, UC San Diego)
- Algorithms, Part I (Princeton)
- Data Science Specialization (Johns Hopkins University)
- Improve Your English Communication Skills Specialization (Georgia Institute of Technology)
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate (Google)
February 16, 2020
Founder of Udacity Attracts Silicon Valley Investors to His AI-Based Call-Center Startup

IBL News | New York

Founder of Udacity Sebastian Thrun has attracted investors’ interest in his new venture, Cresta.

So far, venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners said this month that they have invested $21 million in Cresta, an AI-based call-center technology startup. Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, Mark Leslie, and Vivi Nevo are also investors in Cresta.

This San Francisco-based company, in which Sebastian Thrun is Chairman, with no daily operational role, provides real-time prompts to help guide agents in order to close deals.

The idea of Cresta was started by Co-Founder and CEO Zayd Enam with his Ph.D. project that involved applying breakthroughs in computers to understand language and create automated answers.

According to Fortune, Sebastian Thrun, who was Enam’s Ph.D. advisor at Stanford University, suggested that the project should be focused on more specific tasks that could be more applicable to business problems like sales.

With a staff of only 30 employees, Cresta underscores recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) that have led to a number of companies applying the software to corporate call centers.

Cresta wants to use AI to school customer service workers and salespeople on how to close the deal – wrote Lucas Matney on TechCrunch.

[Capture from Cresta.com site]

February 10, 2020
UT Austin Launches a Top Master’s Degree on Nutritional Sciences on edX.org

IBL News | New York

The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) announced this week the launch of a 100% online Master of Science in Nutritional Sciences (MSNS) on edX.org.

The program, priced at $22,500, is ranked at number fifth best online master’s in nutrition by The Best Schools. The first cohort will start on August 30, 2020.

Its curriculum is focused on advanced human nutrition with concentration areas available in Biochemical & Functional Nutrition and Health Promotion & Disease Prevention.

UT Austin, an edX partner since its founding in 2012, is the latest institution adding a MOOC-based degree on the edX catalog.

January 31, 2020
Stanford University Joins the edX Consortium Seven Years Later

IBL News | New York

Stanford University joined the edX consortium as an institutional member, contributing with a portfolio of 11 courses ranging from computer science and algorithms to humanities classes in areas such as history and government.

Stanford University’s supporting role at the creation of edX and its open-source code—Open edX—in 2013, was crucial.

However, the institution refrained to join the edX consortium, even criticizing the governance of Open edX through an elaborated report. (Later, the edX Consortium responded, and even it celebrated the Open edX annual developers conference at Stanford’s campus in 2016.)

The courses that Stanford is posting now on edX.org, are a fraction of the ones hosted at its own Open edX instance, called Lagunita.

“Stanford is a long time Open edX contributor, and this milestone deepens our collaborative relationship, which is founded on a vision to increase access to high-quality education for learners around the world,” wrote Johannes Heinlein, Chief Commerical Officer at edX, on a blog post welcoming the Californian university.

In addition to Stanford, the edX Consortium has announced since November 2019 the incorporation of other universities, such as the United Arab Emirates, Western Governors, National University of Singapore, and Queen’s University Smith School of Business.

Super excited to welcome my alma mater @Stanford to the @edXOnline community, after many years as a leading Open edX contributor. Their first courses will be in subjects including humanities and computer science, with more to come. https://t.co/ueufn27gmf pic.twitter.com/vmkLqnkvpd

— anant agarwal (@agarwaledu) January 28, 2020

These are the Stanford University courses hosted at edX.org:

• News stories about Stanford University at IBL News since 2013

January 29, 2020
Coursera Introduces Its First Fully Online Bachelor’s from an American University

IBL News | New York

The University of North Texas (UNT) will offer the first bachelor’s degree from a U.S. university on Coursera.

The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (B.A.A.S.) program creates an affordable and attractive degree pathway for community college students, military veterans, international learners, and non-traditional students.

For example, students who successfully complete the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, hosted on Coursera, will be able to earn credit toward the degree.

“The program will offer students the same engaging support, personal interaction, and career services as our on-campus B.A.A.S. program to ensure they are set up for success post-graduation,” said Dr. Jennifer Cowley, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at UNT.

This four-year degree will cost $330 per credit hour. Students who complete 45 credit hours will see a total tuition cost of $14,850.

The university announced that it will provide each applicant with a pre-advisor to help create a customized degree plan. Once admitted to the program, the student will receive guidance through a permanent advising team.

The B.A.A.S. will begin in fall 2020, and applications will open this February.

“An estimated 35% of jobs in the U.S. require at least a bachelor’s degree, yet 36 million Americans have attended some college, but never completed their degree,” commented Dil Sidhu, Chief Content Officer at Coursera.

January 24, 2020
Harvard and Amgen Announce LabXchange.org, an Open Platform with Scientific Content
IBL News | New York

Harvard University and the Amgen Foundation announced this week the launch of the LabXchange.org platform, intended to promote science education, mainly among high school and college students.

The free online tool provides access to a library of educational content, including videos, interactive simulations, and assessments. It also offers the ability to mix and match materials, empowering teachers to create flexible learning pathways for their classes or personalized instruction for students.

The platform includes a global networking functionality, enabling teachers to collaborate across the scientific community.

Dr. Robert Lue, principal investigator of LabXchange and professor of the Practice of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard, said, “too many high school and college students lack the opportunity to directly explore the scientific process – where you build a hypothesis, understand a method, and determine how to apply it to an appropriate experimental problem.”

LabXchange builds upon other Amgen Foundation programs, such as the Amgen Biotech Experience and Amgen Scholars, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard Unversity (Harvard FAS).

The platform itself contains content from multiple partners and sources, including Khan Academy –so far the most active contributor:
- Khan Academy (247)
- LabXchange (205)
- Harvard University Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (164)
- Wellcome Genome Campus (142)
- The Journal of Stories in Science (120)
- iBiology (112)
- Amgen Foundation (56)
- HarvardX (47)
- BioBuilder (30)
- PhET (29)
The platform is built upon the open-source software Open edX. Last year, Harvard committed to releasing the whole code on GitHub, although no mention was made on the last public announcement.

#ScienceMadePossible: a free online platform for science education from @Harvard, with the support of the @AmgenFoundation.

Start exploring at https://t.co/OGvvIXTqZi. https://t.co/RLCDHmBREV

— LabXchange (@LabXchange) January 22, 2020
- Past Stories of LabXchange on IBL News
January 24, 2020