IBL News

Category: Platforms | Tech

  • Develop.com Offers a Free Month Access to Career-Focused Courses Including Completion Certificates

    Develop.com Offers a Free Month Access to Career-Focused Courses Including Completion Certificates

    IBL News | New York

    Online learning platform Develop.com started offering this week a free month of unlimited access to hundreds of career-focused courses, including expert-led classes.

    The free offering includes completion certificates for every course.

    Develop currently has currently three custom-built subscriptions, starting at $9.99/month: Foundation, Data Academy, and Cybersecurity. Topics include project management, software development, cybersecurity, and cloud technologies.

    “Our high-quality courses are the best way for professionals looking to grow their careers to gain skills and experience to stand out,” said Kevin Pawsey, CEO at Develop.

    Boston-based Develop.com competes with Pluralsight.com by providing on-demand, subscription courses for IT and business professionals.

    The platform is built on an Open edX ecosystem developed by the New York-based IBL Education learning software company.

  • Udemy.com Hires a New President as Its Growth Continues

    Udemy.com Hires a New President as Its Growth Continues

    IBL News | New York 

    Udemy.com announced this Wednesday the appointment of a new President, Greg Brown.

    Brown [in the picture] most recently served as CEO of Reflektive, an employee performance platform. Prior to this company, he was the Senior Vice President of International Business at Blackhawk Network and held the position of Chief Revenue Officer at Achievers.

    This key hire comes at a growth state for Udemy, which accelerated with the pandemic. In 2020, Udemy reached a $3.25 billion valuation and Udemy for Business surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, according to its data.

    Udemy, the largest global marketplace for online learning, claims to reach over 35 million learners with 57,000 instructors teaching 130,000 courses in more than 65 languages.

  • An MITx Course on edX Explores Solutions for the Massive and Persistent World Poverty

    An MITx Course on edX Explores Solutions for the Massive and Persistent World Poverty

    IBL News | New York

    MITx launched on edX.org an 11-week, free course for learners interested in solving the massive and persistent economic poverty in the world.

    The Challenges of Global Poverty is taught by two Nobel Prize instructors: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

    The course–part of the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Development Policy—challenges economics to provide solutions.

    The authors pose the following questions:

    “Is extreme poverty a thing of the past? What is economic life like when living under a dollar per day? Are the poor always hungry? How do we make schools work for poor citizens? How do we deal with the disease burden? Is microfinance invaluable or overrated? Without property rights, is life destined to be “nasty, brutish, and short”? Should we leave economic development to the market? Should we leave economic development to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Does foreign aid help or hinder? Where is the best place to intervene?”

     

     

  • SNHU Launches Two edX MicroBachelors in Business Analytics and Data Management

    SNHU Launches Two edX MicroBachelors in Business Analytics and Data Management

    IBL News | New York

    Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is launching this month in collaboration with edX its first MicroBachelors programs: Business Analytics Foundations and Data Management with Python and SQL.

    The edX’s MicroBachelor standalone credential will allow learners to apply for transfer credit toward an SNHU associate or bachelor’s degree program. Offered at $498 per course, the classes are worth up to six credits each. The two MicroBachelors courses are open for enrollment on edX and start on February 26.

    “Through the new SNHUx programs, learners will be able to study at their own pace, obtain workforce-relevant skills, and apply credits when they enroll at SNHU – creating an even more affordable pathway to an associate or bachelor’s degree,” stated in a press-release Paul LeBlanc, President and CEO, SNHU.

    “With SNHU, we will further the edX mission to increase access to education worldwide,” said Anant Agarwal, edX Founder, and CEO.

    With the launch, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) becomes a partner in the edX Consortium. It will operate as SNHUx.

  • Docebo LMS, Valued at $2.23 Billion, Sells More Shares. Its Founder to Pocket $7.5M

    Docebo LMS, Valued at $2.23 Billion, Sells More Shares. Its Founder to Pocket $7.5M

    IBL News | New York

    Toronto-based Docebo LMS (TSX: DCBO; Nasdaq: DCBO) announced on Friday the pricing of its marketed secondary public offering of common shares in the U.S. and Canada. It will be a price of $49.67 per share for proceeds of $100 million. The offering comprises 2,013,288 common shares.

    One of the sellers is its Founder and CEO, Italian entrepreneur Claudio Erba, with 150,996 shares [In the picture above]. If the offer is successful, he will receive $7.5 million of the proceeds. The other two shareholders are Intercap Equity Inc (1,811,920 shares) and Alessio Artuffo (50,332 shares).

    The offering is expected to close this week, on January 26.

    The selling shareholders have also granted the underwriters the option to purchase up to 301,993 additional common shares, representing in the aggregate 15% of the total number of common shares to be sold.

    Last year, Docebo showed explosive growth in the stock of 387%, from the pricing of $10.30 per share to $67.77 on January 22. In 2020, it attracted big customers such as Uber, Walmart, and AWS. For fiscal 2021, its revenue is expected to grow 44.7%.

    Currently, its market value is $2.23 billion—similar to Instructure’s Canvas LMS, which was taken off the market last year.

    The Motley Fool recommended yesterday the DCBO stock to buy in 2021, along with two other technology companies (Kinaxis and Lightspeed POS).

     

  • MOOCs Skyrocket Due to the Pandemic: Over 180 Million Learners, and Counting

    MOOCs Skyrocket Due to the Pandemic: Over 180 Million Learners, and Counting

    IBL News | New York

    MOOCs (Massive Online Courses) started the second year of the pandemic attracting a massive number of learners.

    Within the last ten months, MOOCs have added one-third of its enrollment until reaching 180 million worldwide (excluding China), according to data released by Class Central.

    Coursera, edX, Udacity, and FutureLearn–the largest MOOC providers–launched over 2800 courses, 360 micro-credentials, and 19 online degrees in 2020. Many were free certificate courses.

    Currently, about 90 online providers offer free learning opportunities. This phenomenon prompted plagiarism and cheating from students aiming to chase free certificates, as a mentor of Coursera denounced.

    Today, the number of MOOCs surpasses 16,500. It’s been a dramatic rise since the MOOC movement started in 2012.

    The most popular course during the pandemic was Yale University’s The Science of Well-Being, with 2.5 million enrollments in 2020.

    One-fifth of the 100 most popular courses launched in 2020 are related to the COVID pandemic. The top course, with over 1 million enrollments, is Johns Hopkins’ COVID-19 Contact Tracing. It’s followed by Harvard’s Mechanical Ventilation for COVID-19, with 300K enrollments.

    “I’m calling 2020 the Second Year of the MOOC,” wrote Dhawal Shah, Founder and CEO at Class Central.

     

     

  • Bitcoin SV Academy: A New Online Learning Platform, with a First Free Course Open to Enrollment

    Bitcoin SV Academy: A New Online Learning Platform, with a First Free Course Open to Enrollment

    IBL News | New York

    Switzerland-based Bitcoin Association launched last week an educational online platform about this currency, Bitcoin SV Academy.

    “It offers academia-quality, university-style courses, and learning materials to make learning about Bitcoin—the way creator Satoshi Nakamoto designed it, accessible, accurate, and understandable,” explained Bitcoin Association.

    Courses are divided into three chapters: Theory, Development, and Infrastructure:

    For now, the platform offers one course open to enrollment: Introduction to Bitcoin Theory. It has been designed for beginners, and it includes 13 lessons, requiring about nine hours of study. Its access is free.

    “Introductory level courses will be offered free of charge for the foreseeable future, part of Bitcoin Association’s commitment to making Bitcoin education available to as wide of an audience as possible,” stated the organization.

    Two more courses are scheduled for Spring 2021.

    “Bitcoin SV Academy will provide a platform to deliver a robust curriculum tailored to all levels of ability and knowledge, as we educate the world about just what’s possible with the power of the original Bitcoin protocol,” announced Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President at Bitcoin Association.

  • Higher Ed Institutions Function Only at 75% Capacity. This Gap Costs $50 Billion

    Higher Ed Institutions Function Only at 75% Capacity. This Gap Costs $50 Billion

    IBL News | New York

    Higher Education in the United States is only functioning at 75% capacity—leaving as many as 5 million empty classroom seats each year, says a report by Lumina Foundation. This is the result of the fact that in the last 10 years, higher education capacity has grown 26% while enrollment has only grown by 3%.

    On average, schools with fewer than a thousand students are down to 59% utilization.

    This imbalance between supply and demand has been deepened by the 2020 pandemic’s impact.

    Underutilization—from empty classrooms to vacant labs to unused dorms—translates into higher costs for students and risks the future of higher education. Overall, it costs students, institutions, and states around $50 billion annually, according to a study completed by EY Parthenon.

    “Institutions whose enrollments are flat or decreasing must adapt to the reality of today’s demographics and stop acquiring land, building more dorms, hiring new faculty, and stop constructing rock walls for the 2% of students who might find them interesting,” write Brad Kelsheimer and Courtney Brown, from the Lumina Foundation.

    Lumina encourages higher ed institutions to reinvent themselves, rethinking who they serve (i.e., adults), what they provide (i.e., employment-aligned credentials), and how they deliver.

    Being more relevant and accessible to adults seems a good opportunity given that 90 million working-age adults have no credentials beyond a high school diploma.

    Another piece of advice to reduce costs and increase efficiencies is to develop collaborations and partnerships between schools, like consortia, or shared service agreements between schools.

  • Develop.com Adds an AI-Based Tool that Recommends Courses to Complement Skills

    Develop.com Adds an AI-Based Tool that Recommends Courses to Complement Skills

    IBL News | New York

    Develop.com—an online learning platform developed by Global Knowledged—announced yesterday a course recommendation feature as part of its personalized learning path AI technology.

    “Next course recommendations, as part of Smart Learning, will initially follow learning paths that guide learners from the introduction of new skills to those course completion certificates and allow them to branch off to related topics,” said John McKeever, Head of Content at Develop.

    This tool is intended to help users avoid spending time grinding through courses for skills that they already have.

    “We envision a future where learning is as smart as you are, and this is the first step to getting to desired skill level destinations more quickly and efficiently,” he added.

    Boston-based Develop.com competes with Pluralsight.com by providing on-demand, subscription courses for IT and business professionals.

    The platform is built on an Open edX ecosystem developed by the New York-based IBL Education learning software company.

  • The Top News Stories of the Year on edX, Coursera, and Learning at Scale Platforms

    The Top News Stories of the Year on edX, Coursera, and Learning at Scale Platforms

    IBL News | New York

    The COVID-19 outbreak seriously hit residential teaching, while boosting online learning revenues and ventures. edX, Coursera, Udemy, and overall all learning platforms experienced remarkable growth.

    Here are the most-read stories at IBL News.

    edX

    • edX.org Reaches 35 Million Registered Learners and 110 Million Enrollments

    • edX Releases Its Latest Open Platform Named Koa

    • edX Launches Its First Two MicroBachelors Degrees with WGU and NYU

    • The ‘Introduction to Linux’ Course on edX.org Surpasses One Million Enrollments

    • Stanford University Joins the edX Consortium Seven Years Later

    Coursera

    • Coursera Weighs an IPO in 2021 at a Valuation of $5 Billion

    • Coursera and edX Launch Initiatives to Support Universities Impacted by the Outbreak

    • Coursera Introduces Its First Fully Online Bachelor’s from an American University

    Platforms

    • Udemy’s Corporate Learning Division Surpasses $100M In Annual Revenue

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

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

    MIT

    • MITx Passes the Milestone of 10 Million Enrollments on Its Online Courses

    • A Practical Course from MIT on edX Teaches How to Shape Your Future in the Age of AI

    Harvard

    • Harvard’s Professor and EdTech Visionary Robert Lue Dies at 56 From Cancer

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

    • Harvard’s Credit-Bearing, Free Course on Mechanical Ventilators Has Attracted 170,000 Learners in Two Weeks

    Transactions | Valuations

    • A Startup Company Raises $16M for User Interface that Adds LMS Capabilities to Zoom

    • A Cloud Guru Acquires The Linux Academy and Claims 1.5 M Learners

    • Outlier.org Raises $16 Million in Funding to Expand Its Cinema-Quality Video Courses