IBL News

Category: Platforms | Tech

  • 2U Shares Continue to Drop After the Company Announcement of Big Losses

    2U Shares Continue to Drop After the Company Announcement of Big Losses

    IBL News | New York

    The stock price of 2U, the leading OPM (Online Program Manager) provider which partners with universities, plunged over 65 % on Tuesday and Wednesday, projecting doubts about its controversial business model. The stock hit a five-year low of $12.

    The drop started when the company warned on a conference call with investors late Tuesday that growing competition was hurting enrollment at the online programs it runs for schools.

    Wall Street analysts sounded as if they felt blindsided by management’s outlook, and pulled its Buy recommendation, as well as axed its target prices for the stock.

    A year ago, Barron’s warned that 2U’s “hefty fees meant that its university partners charged high tuition prices for online classes—leaving students saddled with almost as much debt as if they had come to campus.”

    During the call, 2U reported a 39% increase in June-quarter revenue, but a larger-than-expected loss of $28 million, or 46 cents a share. CEO Chip Paucek said his company was “tempering short-term growth projections.” Revenue for the 2019 year will range from $566 million to $576 million, with a net loss of more than $150 million, or $1.16 a share, the company said.

    That range is almost double what 2U previously projected—between $77.2 million and $79 million—on its previous quarterly financial update in May.

    “When we started 2U, the market was in its infancy,” the CEO told listeners on Tuesday’s call. “Today, the online education market is evolving. Competition for students has increased so the schools that have teamed up with 2U are seeing lower enrollment than in years past.”

    Another threat to revenue growth is new regulation that could prevent California students from being eligible for federal funding for online courses.

    Paucek declined to discuss the company’s plan to reach a positive cash flow and lowered the number of the new graduate programs it aims to launch next year to “substantially fewer than 21, probably less than half of that.” He said he’d share more details at an investor event in November.

    Regarding 2U’s business’ challenges, Paucek noted, “matching courses with lead professors takes more time than expected even after we signed a deal with the university.” He later added: “We really underestimated that in a substantial way, and that caused us to get behind.”

    Earlier this year, 2U paid $750 million to acquire Trilogy Education Services, which offers universities coding boot camps. In 2017, it purchased GetSmarter to jumpstart its self-paced, short-course offering.

    • Phil on Ed Tech: July 30, 2019: The day the OPM market changed

  • Open edX Forums Will Transition From Google Groups Into Discourse

    Open edX Forums Will Transition From Google Groups Into Discourse

    IBL News | New York

    The edX organization decided to stop using Google Groups for technical conversations and general interactions with developers.

    Instead, a new, Discourse-based forum will be used, available at https://discuss.openedx.org/.

    Now, this forum is in open beta mode. “We still have some things to figure out, and it’s not quite ready for prime time,” said an edX representative. It will be officially launched in August.

    This posting board, which can be also used as a mailing list, is structured by topics. For now, there are Frontend UI/UX, Science of Learning, Community Connections, Announcements, Development, DevOps, and Jobs.

  • MITx Grading, a Library for the Open edX Platform that Assigns Credit on Problems

    MITx Grading, a Library for the Open edX Platform that Assigns Credit on Problems

    IBL News | New York

    MITx has released a version 2.0 of the MITx Grading Library, an open-source python grading library that gives instructors expanded options for constructing much richer problems and exercises on the Open edX platform.

    The full code, under a BSD-3 license, can be found on GitHub, while comprehensive documentation is here.

    Created by Jolyon Bloomfield and Christopher Chudzicki, at MIT Digital Learning Lab, this tool is compatible with Python 2 and 3 and is actively maintained.

    This MITx Grading Library release presents a solution to provide automatic partial credit on formula problems. It also includes the ability to assign credit based on attempt number.

    “The library is designed to be simple to use, give useful error messages, and be incredibly flexible. If what we provide can’t handle what you want to do, then you can always write a plugin that leverages the infrastructure we’ve already created. While we were at it, we implemented a number of long-overdue features and usability improvements over the edX implementation,” explained the authors.

    To show off the features of the MITx Grading Library, the two developers have created a mini-demo course, open to enrollment.

    This is the list of the main features, according to MITx:

    • Works with any edX instance
    • Python 2/3 compatible
    • Ability to assign credit based on attempt number
    • Regex-based validation of text input
    • Automatic partial credit on formula problems
    • Native matrix problem handling with partial credit

    The library is broken up into individual “graders” to grade different types of problems. Some simple graders just grade a single input, such as StringGrader and FormulaGrader. More complicated graders combine simpler graders to grade multiple entries, such as ListGrader.

    Examples of how these all work are given in the mentioned course.

     

  • Cerego Debuts New AI Tools That Use Natural Language Processing

    Cerego Debuts New AI Tools That Use Natural Language Processing

    IBL News | New York

    San Francisco-based Cerego started to roll out a new suite of “Create” tools for its adaptive learning platform.  These AI-powered tools use natural language processing to “reduce content creation time by more than 25%”, according to this company.

    This technology is content-agnostic and can be applied to any subject matter or skillset. It includes:

    • Smart Answers autogenerate multiple-choice distractors.
    • Smart Questions adapt to become more challenging as learners demonstrate knowledge gains, helping to maximize long-term retention.
    • Smart Suggestions turn a single word into a learning experience with one click.
    • Smart Learner Sessions complement the new Create tools by giving learners more transparency and control over their learning schedule, including the option to review specific concepts they struggle with after each session.

    “Smarter content leads to better learning, and that’s the focus of these new tools,” said Paul Mumma, the new CEO of Cerego, appointed this week.

    Cerego claims to be used by nearly 2,000 academic institutions and corporate training programs in the U.S. The platform has generated more than three-quarters of a billion learner interactions, giving Cerego one of the largest learner data sets in the world, outside of academia. Create leverages feedback from these interactions and decades of cognitive science research to provide Cerego partners with the ability to create a customized, personal experience to meet their learning needs.

    “We’ve made incredible progress in the years since, combining cognitive science with modern technology to help more than one and a half million professionals and students increase their knowledge and improve long-term retention. The new Create tools will make it easier than ever to help learners achieve these goals with smarter content,” said Andrew Smith Lewis, co-founder of Cerego.

  • U.S. Librarians Against LinkedIn Learning’s New Policy that Forces Users to Disclose their Identity

    U.S. Librarians Against LinkedIn Learning’s New Policy that Forces Users to Disclose their Identity

    IBL News | New York

    The American Library Association (ALA) denounced this week the upcoming practices on users’ privacy rights of LinkedIn Learning, and urged its owner, Microsoft, to reconsider its position.

    “The protection of library users’ privacy and confidentiality rights are necessary for intellectual freedom and are fundamental to the ethical practice of librarianship,” affirmed ALA in a public statement.

    The planned changes are expected to happen by the end of September 2019.

    “All library users have the right to access library resources without disclosing their personally identifiable information to third parties, and to be free from unreasonable intrusion into, or surveillance of, their lawful library use.”

    Under LinkedIn Learning’s new terms of service, a library cardholder will need to create a LinkedIn profile in order to access this platform, formerly Lynda.com, which is extensively used by library users.

    In addition to providing their library card number and PIN, users will have to disclose their full name and email address to create a new LinkedIn profile or connect to their existing profile. New users will have their LinkedIn profile set to public by default, allowing their full name to be searched on Google and LinkedIn.

    Currently, to access LinkedIn Learning in a library, a person logs in using their library card and a PIN, without any other personal information.

    “The requirement for users of LinkedIn Learning to disclose personally identifiable information is completely contrary to ALA policies addressing library users’ privacy, and it may violate some states’ library confidentiality laws,” said ALA President Wanda Kay Brown.

    “It also violates the librarian’s ethical obligation to keep a person’s use of library resources confidential. We are deeply concerned about these changes to the terms of service and urge LinkedIn and its owner, Microsoft, to reconsider their position on this.”

    “By agreeing to the user agreement and privacy policy, the user surrenders to LinkedIn the power to share the information contained in a user profile with whoever LinkedIn wants,” said California’s State Librarian Greg Lucas in another statement.

    The California State Library went further and recommended libraries no longer use or provide LinkedIn Learning to their patrons until the company changes its policy.

    Mike Derezin, Vice President of learning solutions at LinkedIn, recognized in a blog post in June “that this is a change for both librarians and their patrons; our commitment to you is that protecting our members’ trust and data is our first priority and guiding principle.”

    In 2015, LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, and in 2016 Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.
    LinkedIn Learning hosts today over 14,000 courses across seven languages.

    So far library vendors have abided by the privacy and confidentiality of library users’ laws and code of ethics, according to ALA.

  • Blackboard Introduces Its First Data and Analytics Platform

    Blackboard Introduces Its First Data and Analytics Platform

    IBL News | New York

    Blackboard announced this week, during its BbWorld 2019 annual users conference in Austin, Texas, a release of its data and analytics platform for the end of August.

    It will bring together data from Blackboard SaaS products and store it in a cloud warehouse.

    Clients will be able to use open standards like LTI Advantage and Caliper.

    “Blackboard Data will provide institutions with a single data set with a common structure, as well as the ability to export data for ingestion into existing institutional workflows,” said Rachel Scherer, Senior Director of Analytics at Blackboard, in a statement.

    The first release on the Blackboard Data platform, known as the Blackboard Reporting Stack Developer Tier, will provide clients with direct access to data sets through a Snowflake data warehouse integration.

    Blackboard Inc said that it worked with over 130 client developers at over 75 institutions to co-develop that platform.

    To introduce clients to Blackboard Data, this company has launched the 21 Days of Blackboard Data challenge, encouraging clients to join. Participants will have access to a demo data set with the same user interface as the Developer Tier.


    Blackboard’s vision was outlined last year during its BbWorld 2018 conference:

     

  • EdX Offers Its First Online MBA, from BU Questrom School of Business

    EdX Offers Its First Online MBA, from BU Questrom School of Business

    IBL News | New York

    edX.org will host its first online MBA, offered at a reduced price of $24,000, from Boston University (BU) Questrom School of Business. Applications will open on August 16 of this year, and classes will begin in fall 2020.

    Coursera, edX’s competitor, already offers two MBAs: from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Macquarie University in Australia.

    The BU Questrom MBA program is ranked number 28 in the Top 50 MBA programs according to U.S. News and World Report rankings.

    This new Master’s degree is the latest degree program on edX.org. It is also a stacked degree with a MicroMasters component.

    “The program is designed specifically for online learners who seek to advance their management careers in today’s global economy, providing a comprehensive, engaging, and integrated experience centered on the themes that drive business in the 21st century,” announced Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX on a blog post.

    “We’ve recognized the transformative potential of edX for some time,” said Boston University President Robert A. Brown. “With the online MBA, we’re seizing the initiative to offer a major degree for which we believe there is global demand. Higher education must evolve in a fast-changing world. We aim to lead in this evolution.”

    Boston University (BU) has been an edX partner since 2013.

     

  • UT Austin Joins Colleges that Offer Tuition-Free Programs

    UT Austin Joins Colleges that Offer Tuition-Free Programs

    IBL News | New York

    The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) will offer a tuition-free college program for low and middle-income students –students from families that earn up to $65,000 a year.

    The institution now joins the list of 75 colleges that offer free tuition, reduced tuition or “no student loans” financial aid policies for undergraduates.

    This tuition-free program, to begin in Fall 2020, comes after the University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously to create a $160 million endowment.

    It is expected to benefit 8,600 undergraduates per year with full tuition and 5,700 students with assured tuition support.

    The endowment will cover tuition only (which is about $11,000 per year), but will not include additional living expenses such as room and board.

    “There is no greater engine of social and economic mobility than a college degree, and this initiative ensures that more Texans will benefit from a high-quality UT Austin education,” Chancellor James B. Milliken said.

  • Udacity Creates a 4-Month Program to Train Developers on Java Programming

    Udacity Creates a 4-Month Program to Train Developers on Java Programming

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity announced the Java Developer Nanodegree program last week. It will be a four-month (5-10 hours/week) online class and will cost $1,436 or $399 per month. As a prerequisite, intermediate programming is required.

    After twenty years, Java skills remain in demand by top employers for their back-end development.

    “Java remains the de-facto language for building enterprise-scale applications,” noted Aravindan Ramkumar, a Java Developer Nanodegree program instructor and Software Engineer at Netflix.

    Taught by practitioners from the industry, this program will cover the full range of skills to build, test, and deploy web applications using Java. It will also include real-world projects, such as:

    • Project 1: Create a web-based chat room app using Spring Boot and WebSocket components.
    • Project 2: Develop the back-end system for a car website. Use Java APIs and frameworks to integrate different services using different communication styles.
    • Project 3: Build a data store for customer reviews. Build the polyglot persistence layer for a REST API that will support the customer reviews section of a product page in an e-commerce application.
    • Project 4: Implement authorization for an e-commerce application. Use Jenkins to build a CI/CD pipeline to deploy code to production.
    Students will be assigned a personal mentor, will be able to get a custom learning plan and access to career coaching sessions and interview prep advice.
  • edX Starts Looking For a New Community Lead After John Mark Walker Departs

    edX Starts Looking For a New Community Lead After John Mark Walker Departs

    IBL News | New York 

    John Mark Walker, Open edX Community Lead, has stepped down from his role, departing the edX organization. “I have decided to move on from edX for another opportunity,” he said in an email, without being specific about the reason.

    “I have a hunch that I will continue to be involved in the Open edX community,” he wrote on a blog post.

    “You’re probably wondering what this means for the Open edX Community. For starters, edX is actively seeking my replacement as the Open edX community lead. If you have ideas for that role, preferably in the Boston/Cambridge area, please send them to oscm@edx.org for now,” he added.

    John Mark Walker, an expert in open source programs and a former executive at Dell EMC, has stayed at edX Inc for eighteen months.

    He said with a recent interview at IBL News that Open edX was “moving towards a more inclusive, comprehensive community, where we hope to be the home for learning practitioners in an open-source collaborative way.”