Category: Platforms | Tech

NVIDIA Adds New Improvements to Its Open edX Training Ecosystem
NVIDIA, Silicon Valley’s powerhouse on GPU computing and artificial intelligence, has launched a new version of its online training platform “to deliver an enhanced hands-on learning experience”, according to this company.

The NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute added these new features:
- Skill-based certifications which can be shared online and added to students’ resumes
- Continued access to fully-configured, GPU-accelerated workstations in the cloud
- Single sign-on (SSO) integration with the NVIDIA free Developer Program (if you’re not a member, you can sign up for free today)
Additionally, NVIDIA has recently added several self-paced classes and instructor-led content to its course platform, built on an Open edX – based ecosystem.

In terms of number of learners, NVIDIA is on its way to reach the first 100K students by the end of this year.
- NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute
- IBL News: NVIDIA Launches its Deep Learning Institute on the Open edX Platform to Train Engineers
August 17, 2018
Georgia Tech Launches a Master’s Degree for $10K on edX.org
Georgia Tech, a nationally ranked top 10 university, announced this week a new online master’s degree in Cybersecurity for less than $10,000 on edX.org.

This OMS Cybersecurity (Online Master of Science in Cybersecurity) will launch January 7, 2019, with 250 students and will scale over time. Applications for Spring 2019 are open now until October 1, 2018.

The program offers the same curriculum as the on-campus program at Georgia Tech, which has been offered since 2002 at a cost of $20,000 for in-state students and $40,000 for those out-of-state. It is designed to serve working professionals who can study part-time and earn the degree within two to three years. It is richly technical and offers the same three interdisciplinary tracks available on campus beginning with information security and followed by policy and energy systems.

“We are excited to strengthen our partnership with Georgia Tech by now offering two top-ranked online master’s degrees in high-demand fields to learners all over the world,” said Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX.

OMS Cybersecurity is Georgia Tech’s third at-scale online degree program. It will follow the same model as the groundbreaking online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, which launched in 2014 on Udacity with support from AT&T and has enrolled approximately 10,000 students overall for the $6,800 degree.

Also, it will follow the success of the Online Master of Science in Analytics (OMS Analytics) launched in 2017 on edX with support from AT&T and Accenture. This OMS Analytics currently has 706 students in its second semester and costs less than $10,000.
- edX: Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity from Georgia Tech
- Georgia Tech News Center: Georgia Tech Creates Cybersecurity Master’s Degree Online for Less Than $10,000
- IBL News: Video Talk: Zvi Galil Shared Insights on Georgia Tech’s Online CS Master’s
August 10, 2018
The University at Buffalo Pilots VR Integration on the Open edX Platform

The University at Buffalo (UB), part of SUNY system, presented this Thursday 19 a pilot of an integration of Virtual Reality (VR) into the Open edX platform intended for large-scale instruction.

In partnership with IBL Education and Crosswater Digital Media, a Buffalo-based VR content firm, the initiative was conducted by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UB on a MOOC pilot of Advanced Manufacturing 4.0 Course Elements.

Attendants opened an account on the new UB Open edX platform, enrolled in the Collaborative Robot (Cobot) Safety MOOC, and experienced a 360-degree video by using cardboard goggles. The pilot demonstrated the advanced Cobot functionality.

Tim Leyh, Executive Director at the Center for Industrial Effectiveness (TCIE) at UB, used Industry 4.0 as a case to show how mass delivery of immersive VR can impact workforce development.

“Last week at the Serious Play Conference, UB demonstrated that Virtual Reality can be delivered via Open edX. This is a “game changer” for higher education,” explained Lisa Stephens, Assistant Dean to Digital Education and Strategist in Academic Innovation at SUNY.

“Open edX clearly offers significant advantages for the future growth of this collaboration,” she added.

[Disclose: IBL Education is contractually engaged with SUNY University at Buffalo].

July 28, 2018
MIT’s Supply Chain MicroMaster Program on edX Achieves a Successful Result
The first class on the Supply Chain Management five-course MicroMaster program on edX.org was finalized by 1,900 students. A total of 622 students successfully completed the final exam, and 42 started the residential semester at MIT’s Cambridge campus in January 2018 to earn a full master’s degree.

MIT sees this experimental degree, which combines online MicroMasters and residential learning, as “a great success”.

“Students have not only met all expectations, they ended up performing as well as and being virtually indistinguishable from traditional students in their overall performance,” writes David L. Chandler at MIT News.

The conclusion is that online students are as good as traditional students, and in many cases, even better. Additionally, the blended learning students ranked top of the class, and since these learners had more real work experience and diverse backgrounds, were more engaged and brought rich perspectives to the classroom discussions.
“The grit required to complete the online courses also helped prepare them for the fast pace of the on-campus classrooms,” explained Chris Caplice, Executive Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.

The MIT program in supply chain management has been rated the top such program in the world over the last years.

MIT News: First class excels in “hybrid” master’s program
July 27, 2018
University Governance Favors the Standardization of Online Programs

Most online programs are virtually identical, with faculty becoming commodities.

“Authentic, differentiated, visionary programs are driving the future of higher education. Now, more than ever, institutions need to create something that is unique and of value,” writes in eCampus News Furqan Nazeeri, a partner at Extension Engine, an educational consulting firm and edX provider based in Cambridge, MA.

This consultant explains that institutions are stuck on standardization because “they have a governance structure that tends to favor the minimization of change and the reduction of risk.”

“Scaling offerings through online programs or courses has become an inherent part of growth for public, private, and non-traditional colleges and universities. And for some, it is even a matter of survival.”

In this context, he advises differentiating every learning experience “by creating authentic, adaptive, engaging, customized programs that embrace your institution’s distinctive approach to education.”

• eCampus News: The single biggest mistake universities make when going online

July 22, 2018
Harvard’s LabXchange Will Re-Engineer the Open edX Platform to Allow Instructors to Remix Content
Harvard University’s LabXchange project is planning to re-engineer and transform the Open edX platform architecture in order to allow instructors to completely unbundle and remix at will educational content (as long as its owner gives permission) at the levels of on a lecture video, a single problem, quiz assignment or other components, as a way to create their own learning combination and offer hundreds of “pathways”.

This remixing feature called Blockstore will be completed within 10 to 12 months.

The transformation, which will be open sourced, means that teachers and administrators will be able to reuse pieces of content from several courses –in this case, on biology, biochemistry, and chemistry– and elaborate customized learning environments.

“It’s going to turn Open edX into a next-generation platform unlike anything else,” explained in the Harvard Gazette Robert Lue, the leader of the LabXchange project, faculty director of HarvardX and Professor of the practice of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard.

“The idea is to create more flexible learning experiences that are more adaptive. So, the LabXchange platform will enable a high school teacher to custom remix a course, a background short course, for her class, and register only her students in that course,” he said.

The conceptual framework of the LabXchange –an initiative funded by a $6.5 million grant from the Amgen Foundation– is focused on biotech and the life sciences, but can be done for any subject.

Harvard University will start releasing prototypes of Blockstore at the end of this summer.

No further technical details have been disclosed.
- The Harvard Gazette: Easing the way for students to ‘do’ science
July 20, 2018
Learning Innovation | July 2018: Tsugi, Berklee, Google, Coursera…

[ Newsletter format | Click here to subscribe ]

JULY 2018 – NEWSLETTER #13 ON LEARNING INNOVATION

• TsugiCloud.org, Dr. Chuck’s new initiative in online education, continued to add new functionalities to its framework of apps.

• Berklee College of Music in Boston found success in reducing its online courses’ prices to a third of the cost of face-to-face programs.

• Google.org funded an initiative to bring its IT Support Professional Certificate program to 25 community colleges.

• Coursera and edX released lists of their most popular courses, without providing specific numbers. edSurge analyzed MOOCs’ revenue models.

• GitHub launched a new bundle of its education tools for use by schools. The launch was two weeks after Microsoft announced that it was acquiring GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock.

• The $1.9 billion Capella-Strayer merger was approved by the Higher Learning Commission and is expected to close on or before Aug. 1.

• Coursera added A/B testing to its platform by randomizing enrollees into different versions of the same course and then observing the effects of different teaching inputs on learning outputs.

• Rice University introduced a 24-week Data Analytics boot camp developed in partnership with workforce accelerator Trilogy Education.

• Chegg, the publicly-traded provider of textbook rentals, acquired StudyBlue, a company that offers study tools such as flashcards, for $20.8 million.

• Grand Canyon Education sold Grand Canyon University for $875 million to form a nonprofit. Last year nonprofit Purdue University purchased the online for-profit Kaplan University.

• Another coding boot camp, Learners Guild, in Oakland, CA, shut down, after being unable to find a sustainable business model.

• 2U continued its acquisition spree and acquired a digital annotation tool called Critique IT. This purchase came after 2U raised $331 million through a common stock offering in June.

• Google said that over one million students used AR tools as part of its Expeditions Pioneer Program.

• After raising $42 million of funding in March, Degreed acquired Pathgather, a New York-based provider of corporate training tools.

This newsletter about learning innovation is a monthly report compiled by the IBL News journalist staff, in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company that builds data-driven learning ecosystems and courses with Open edX. If you enjoy what you read please consider forwarding it to spread the word. Click here to subscribe.

Archive:
IBL Newsletter #12 – June 2018
IBL Newsletter #11 – May 2018
IBL Newsletter #10 – April 2018
IBL Newsletter #9 – March 15, 2018
IBL Newsletter #8 – March 1, 2018
IBL Newsletter #7 – February 2018
IBL Newsletter #6 – January 31, 2018
IBL Newsletter #5 – January 15, 2018
IBL Newsletter #4 – December 2017
IBL Newsletter #3 – November 2017
IBL Newsletter #2 – October 2017
IBL Newsletter #1 – September 2017

July 16, 2018
A New XBlock to Award Badges After an Assessment in the Course
The London-based Proversity consultancy has released a Badgr XBlock, which works in conjunction with the open source Badgr Server application or the hosted version at Badgr.io. Badges are based on a passing grade for a specified subsection in a course.

It means that instructors are able to embed the XBlock directly after an assessment in the course. The XBlock reads the grade that the learner gets and, if it’s a pass, the badge is awarded.

This solution differs from the existing default edX.org development, which awards badges to learners at the end of a course.

Proversity’s Chief Learning Officer, Philippa Hardman and Lead Software Engineer, José Antonio González Rodríguez, talked about this solution during the 2018 Open edX Conference in Montreal, Canada. Here are their talk and slides.

GW BADGE OPEN SOURCE SOLUTION: OVER 300 MICRO-CREDENTIALS AWARDED

In the field of badges, the pioneering open source solution is BadgeOne XBlock and Server, developed in 2014-2015 by the George Washington University (GW) and IBL Education with the support of edX.

The badges can be awarded from graded sub-sections in a course in Open edX. The instructor sets the minimum score for the eligibility of the badge, and configures the badge component with the data of the badge service, badge ID, custom messages for the user, at the sub-section (or sub-module) level. There is no limit on the number of badges that can be earned within a course.

In November 2014, GW’s Professor Lorena Barba published a slide deck describing the concept and instructional design for her course, “Practical Numerical Methods with Python.”

She described her proposal of “unbundling the course,” as follows: “Instead of awarding one Certificate of Completion for the whole course, we want to award digital badges for the completion of each individual module.” The course was composed of five modules, each with a graded sub-section and awarded an open badge. The image of the open digital badge awarded for Module 1 of the course was available for re-use under CC-BY, as an example.

Resulting from the work by Prof. Barba and IBL in 2014, edX itself contracted IBL to complete a follow-on project that produced the Badge One server. Combined with the XBlock, this was the first complete solution to award open badges from a graded sub-section in Open edX. Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, enthusiastically supported this badge development.

Since then, the George Washington University (GW) has been consistently using badges in their engineering courses, awarding over 300 badges. The “Practical Numerical Methods with Python” course has been the reference in this field.

CODE REPOSITORIES
- https://github.com/proversity-org/badgr-xblock
- https://github.com/ibleducation/IBLOpenBadges-xBlock
- https://github.com/ibleducation/BadgeOne
- https://code.badgeone.com/
Here is a learner sharing their badger for a course section in #numericalmooc, in December 2014: https://t.co/xtVHa8LIN0

— Lorena Barba (@LorenaABarba) July 5, 2018

OK, that’s neat, but the blog post does make it sound like this is the first Open Badges integration in #OpenEdx—we did this four years ago with @iblstudios! https://t.co/XzN6Zq95P8 https://t.co/fgDUzt2eqt

— Lorena Barba (@LorenaABarba) July 5, 2018
July 14, 2018
A New Edition of HarvardX’s “Science & Cooking” Course on edX.org with More Top Chefs

World-famous chefs, along with Harvard researchers, are participating in an open online course about the science of cooking. “Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (Physics)” is a free 6-week, 30-42 hour course, developed by HarvardX on edX.

A new edition of the course has been launched this month of July, and it will be opened for nine months, until March 30, 2018.

The course, taught by three Harvard professors of Physics and Chemical Engineering, explores how traditional and modernist cooking techniques can illuminate basic principles in Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering. Top chefs –Ferran Adria and Jose Andres, among them– demonstrate their creations and show the scientific principles behind them.

This course lets you be an experimental scientist in your very own lab — your kitchen! https://t.co/xHDJucD1kg

— HarvardX (@HarvardOnline) July 3, 2018

Topics include how cooking changes food texture, emulsions and foams, and phase changes.

“You will have the opportunity to become an experimental scientist in your very own laboratory, your kitchen” and “you will learn to think like both a chef and a scientist,” explain the authors of the course.

https://youtu.be/FqJ4_ZaZEP4

July 13, 2018
IBM Launches on edX a Course About How to Build Chatbots and Make Money with Them

IBM has launched its first open course on edX.org, “How to Build Chatbots and Make Money”.

This 2 week course, with a 2-4 hour per week commitment per week, comes with a marketing promotion: one year of Watson Assistant services to power 10 chatbots at no charge. It requires to sign up for a free IBM Cloud account.

Taught by Antonio Cangiano, software developer and technical evangelist at IBM, this five module course instructs on how to build, analyze, deploy, and monetize chatbots. In the third module, the instructor introduces Watson assistant.

These chatbots can be deployed on WordPress sites.

This course on edX is part of the IBM’s Cognitive Class.ai initiative, based on providing data science and cognitive computer courses as a way to promote its IBM Cloud and Watson services.

On Open edX, IBM strategy consists of building a multi-site network. IBM managers, Leon Katsnelson, Rav Ahuja and Luiz Aoqui, elaborated on that in a talk during the 2018 Open edX Conference in Montreal. [Slides, Video]

July 9, 2018