Category: Platforms | Tech

IBL News | New York

Udacity.com announced this month that it secured $75 million in the form of a debt facility, with Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC) serving as the underwriter.

In addition, the Mountain View, California–based learning company said it has reached profitability. “Q3 enterprise and government bookings rose by 120% year-over-year, total bookings increased 80% year-over-year, and ARR increased 260% in H1 2020.”

“Our clients clearly understand that investing in current talent, versus hiring from the outside, has proven to be a far more effective way to accelerate their digital transformation strategy,” said Gabe Dalporto, CEO of Udacity. “This new financing will help us continue to scale and provide global workers with the skills they need to future-proof their careers.”

On the other hand, Udacity forecasted how the online education landscape will look like in 2025 with the changes brought by COVID-19:

• There will be increased educational program options and accessibility. This will solve one of the biggest challenges faced in higher education: accessibility — both financially and physically.
• There will be alternatives to traditional degrees. Employers are placing more emphasis on skills, not degrees.
• Greater incorporation of next-generation technologies such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality. Much of online education has relied on a model more focused on solo study. However, there will be a more hands-on learning experience, group socialization and social platforms, user-generated content, and video conferencing.

IBL News | New York

EdX introduced in October its new edX For Business Subscription initiative. It offers unlimited access to hundreds of self-paced, and on-demand courses and professional certificates for a flat yearly rate ($349 per user).

The service is aligned with competitors such as Coursera for Business, Udemy for Business, or Pluralsight, among others.

EdX For Business facilitates the creation of skills pathways and integrates with native platforms, along with Degreed, EdCast, SuccessFactors, and Cornerstone.

The MIT and Harvard-backed nonprofit highlights that their courses are backed by the science of learning: “EdX courses are backed by science of the McGovern Brain Institute and are carefully designed to motivate and engage learners, and maximize long-term learning benefits.”

IBL News | New York

MITx announced this week that it passed the milestone of 10 million enrollments on online courses within a decade. This year, between March and June, enrollments doubled the same period last year, until 787,000 registrations.

This semester, MITx is launching 45 courses, including eight new courses.

In addition, eight MITx courses–free courses taught by MIT Faculty–have been recognized on Class Central’s list of the top online courses of all time, a list compiled based on the reviews of tens of thousands of learners.

The new offer of courses includes:

• The first MOOC for the newest MITx MicroMasters program in finance, from MITx and MIT Sloan School of Management;
• General Chemistry I: Atoms, Molecules, and Bonding, which adds to our suite of first-year STEM offerings;
• A Master’s-level course on Sustainable Energy;
• A course for teachers on Sorting Truth from Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning; and
• World Music: Global Rhythms (coming soon)
• Disease, Climate Shocks, and Wellbeing: a Long History of Social Response to Crisis
• Financial Regulation: From the Global Financial Crisis to Fintech and the COVID Pandemic

“The MITx team has been unstoppable working diligently to achieve all of this from home these last seven months; MIT’s generous faculty have adapted their courses and dedicated MITx Digital Learning Lab fellows have worked with faculty to design and run all of our courses,” said Krishna Rajagopal, Dean for Digital Learning at MIT.

IBL News | New York

Washington State University (WSU) – ditched Blackboard and adopted Canvas LMS this month. In addition, another U.S. college, Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) expressed its frustration with the Blackboard experience, although it has not made a decision to switch yet.

“As a result of virtual learning, some Cal Poly Pomona students have grown increasingly frustrated with the online learning platform, Blackboard,” explained The Poly Post student newspaper.

Cal Poly Pomona started using Web CT as its LMS before Blackboard bought Web CT and forced a change.

“Those that have voiced frustrations with Blackboard’s deficiencies are often students who transferred to CPP from other colleges that use Canvas, Blackboard’s main competitor in the learning management system market,” says the newspaper.

The switch on WSU extends into all of its campuses. Canvas will replace Blackboard in the Fall of 2021 throughout all WSU campuses. Positive feedback from students and faculty on Canvas prompted the move, according to The Daily Evergreen student newspaper.

Greg Crouch, Clinical Professor and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at WSU explained that “Blackboard’s long-term problems include students having difficulty integrating outside tools with the system, as well as issues with student enrollment being added and dropped”

The university also considered Blackboard Ultra as an option, but the evaluation team found similar complications. “The way Blackboard was fundamentally coded is incompatible with the student information system, so issues connecting would continue to arise,” Crouch said.

Canvas LMS and Blackboard, the two learning management platform, fight for industry primacy in the U.S., although Canvas leads the race with a market share of 31%, while Blackboard controls 23%.

IBL News | New York

Two more U.S. colleges – Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) and Washington State University (WSU) – ditched Blackboard and adopted Canvas LMS this month.

The two learning management platforms fight for industry primacy in the U.S., although Canvas leads the race with a market share of 31%, while Blackboard controls a 23%.

“As a result of virtual learning, some Cal Poly Pomona students have grown increasingly frustrated with the online learning platform, Blackboard,” explained The Poly Post student newspaper.

Cal Poly Pomona started using Web CT as its LMS before Blackboard bought Web CT and forced a change.

“Those that have voiced frustrations with Blackboard’s deficiencies are often students who transferred to CPP from other colleges that use Canvas, Blackboard’s main competitor in the learning management system market,” says the newspaper.

The switch on WSU extends into all of its campuses. Canvas will replace Blackboard in the Fall of 2021 throughout all WSU campuses. Positive feedback from students and faculty on Canvas prompted the move, according to The Daily Evergreen student newspaper.

Greg Crouch, Clinical Professor and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at WSU explained that “Blackboard’s long-term problems include students having difficulty integrating outside tools with the system, as well as issues with student enrollment being added and dropped”

The university also considered Blackboard Ultra as an option, but the evaluation team found similar complications. “The way Blackboard was fundamentally coded is incompatible with the student information system, so issues connecting would continue to arise,” Crouch said.

IBL News | New York

Develop.com online learning platform introduced its new brand and user experience this week, along with new course content and certificates.

Boston-based Develop provides on-demand courses on IT for business professionals. It was launched this Spring in partnership with Global Knowledge, recently acquired by Skillsoft.

“The new look and ‘Find Your Track and Develop’ tagline encapsulates the goal of the platform for its end users,” said Kevin Pawsey, Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Develop.

“The refreshed brand is fueled by a commitment to serve both technical specialists and tech-adjacent workers by helping them discover what course series best suits their needs in an ever-changing, tech-driven landscape,” he added.

“Our new site is more user-friendly, visually appealing, and we’ve updated the checkout process to make it easier for you to find the course you want and start learning as quickly and easily as possible,” explained James McNamee, VP of Marketing and Sales at Develop.com.

Next month, Develop.com will release a Cybersecurity Academy within its platform. It will contain practice with hands-on skills, and include courses on security and password policies, user group management, encryption and firewall implementation, and auditing in Linux domain.

Develop recently added these courses:

The new website and platform are built upon an Open edX ecosystem developed by the New York-based IBL Education learning software company.

New look, same high-quality, expert-led courses with knowledge checks, hands-on practices, and completion certificates. Find your track: https://t.co/wuqABYCAd5 pic.twitter.com/u5Bhg4j59u

— Develop (@Develop) October 26, 2020

IBL News | New York

Coursera made its enterprise offering available for purchase as SaaS at the AWS Marketplace (Amazon Web Services). “It streamlines adoption of online learning and makes it easier for companies,” wrote Leah Belsky, Chief Enterprise Officer at Coursera.

By listing its plan, Coursera revealed its market positioning: 125 user licenses for accessing the Coursera catalog of 4,300 courses and credentials costs $90,000 for 24 months, and $127,500 for 36 months.

This way, the pricing per user per month is set around $30, an amount aligned with other learning platforms such as Pluralsight or edX.

Currently, Coursera reports having customers such as Novartis, Capgemini, and Exelon.

A part of Coursera’s offer is its Skill Development Dashboards, which allows tracking skills that the companies are developing by role, domain, and level of mastery.

The Coursera enterprise learning platform is available for purchase on Amazon Web Services Marketplace! Technical teams using AWS can now easily search and deploy online learning for their organizations using Coursera. Learn more: https://t.co/hYofpL9QCj

— Coursera (@coursera) October 16, 2020

IBL News | New York

A woman from Kerala, India, achieved a world record of completing 350 online courses in 90 days, The New Indian Express reported.

Arathi Reghunath, on her second-year at MSc Biochemistry in the MES College, spent her free time during the COVID-19 lockdown studying and bagged a world record from Universal Record Forum (URF) by completing 350 courses listed on the Coursera.org platform.

“It was my faculty at college who introduced me to the world of online courses. With the support of my college principal Ajims P Muhammed, Coursera coordinator Haneefa KG, and class tutor Neelima T K, I managed to finish the courses I signed up for within a few weeks,” she explained.

Arathi has completed the courses offered by John Hawkins University, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), University of Virginia, State University of New York, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Copenhagen, University of Rochester, Emory University, and Coursera Project Network.