edX is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. EdX differs from other MOOC providers, such as Coursera and Udacity, in that it is a nonprofit organization and runs on the free Open edX open-source software platform.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University created edX in May 2012. More than 70 schools, nonprofit organizations, and corporations offer or plan to offer courses on the edX website. As of 29 December 2017, edX has around 14 million students taking more than 1,800 courses online.
Functionality
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EdX courses consist of weekly learning sequences. Each learning sequence is composed of short videos interspersed with interactive learning exercises, where students can immediately practice the concepts from the videos. The courses often include tutorial videos that are similar to small on-campus discussion groups, an online textbook, and an online discussion forum where students can post and review questions and comments to each other and teaching assistants. Where applicable, online laboratories are incorporated into the course. For example, in edX's first MOOC â€" a circuits and electronics course â€" students built virtual circuits in an online lab.
EdX offers certificates of successful completion and some courses are credit-eligible. Whether or not a college or university offers credit for an online course is within the sole discretion of the school. EdX offers a variety of ways to take courses, including verified courses where students have the option to audit the course (no cost) or to work toward an edX Verified Certificate (fees vary by course). For courses announced before December 7, 2015, there was an option to take honor code courses to work toward an Honor Code Certificate (no cost). EdX also offers XSeries Certificates for completion of a bundled set of two to seven verified courses in a single subject (cost varies depending on the courses).
Research
In addition to educational offerings, edX is utilized for research into learning and distance education by collecting learners' clicks and analyzing the data, as well as collecting demographics from each registrant. A team of researchers at Harvard and MIT, led by David Pritchard and Lori Breslow, released their initial findings in 2013. EdX member schools and organizations also conduct their own research using data collected from their courses. Research focuses on improving retention, course completion and learning outcomes in traditional campus courses and online.
EdX has engaged in a number of partnerships with educational institutions in the United States, China, Mongolia, Japan, and more to utilize edX courses in "blended classrooms." In blended learning models, traditional classes include an online interactive component. San Jose State University (SJSU) partnered with edX to offer 6.00xL Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, as a blended course at SJSU and released an initial report on the project in February 2013. Initial results showed a decrease in failure rates from previous semesters. The percentage of students required to retake the course dropped from 41% under the traditional format to 9% for those taking the edX blended course. In Spring 2013, Bunker Hill Community College and Massachusetts Bay Community College implemented a SPOC, or small private online course. The colleges incorporated an MIT-developed Python programming course on EdX into their campus-based courses, and reported positive results.
Open edX
Open edX is the open-source platform software developed by EdX and made freely available to other institutions of higher learning that want to make similar offerings. On June 1, 2013, edX open sourced its entire platform. The source code can be found on GitHub.
The Open edX server-side software is almost entirely based on "Python, with Django as the web application framework."
Usage
Several higher-education institutions use the Open edX to provide MOOC services, such as St. George's University Online, MIT's MITx platform, and the University of La Serena.
Some private companies also use Open edX to provide training to target populations. For example, MongoDB uses the "Mongo University", powered by Open edX, to provide training for their database product.
Leadership
In March 2014, edX appointed Wendy Cebula, former COO of Vistaprint, as its President and Chief Operating Officer. CEO Anant Agarwal of MIT stated that Cebula would bring "an entrepreneurial aspect" and help the nonprofit to access "commercial opportunities." Alan M. Garber, Provost of Harvard University, assisted by Michael D. Smith, a computer scientist who is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, handles Harvard contributions. The design of a viable business model for sustainability of the enterprise is in progress.
History
EdX was founded in May 2012 by scientists from Harvard and MIT. Gerry Sussman, Anant Agarwal, Chris Terman, and Piotr Mitros taught the first edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, drawing 155,000 students from 162 countries. In 2013 they partnered with Stanford and in June 2013 they reached 1 million students. edx.org released as open source, creating Open edX.
In September 2014 edX announced a high school initiative.
In October 2014 edX announced Professional Education courses, and in March 2015 it partnered with Microsoft.
In April 2015, edX partnered with Arizona State University to launch the Global Freshman Academy.
In September 2016, edX launched 19 MicroMasters programs.
In February 2017, edX launched 16 MicroMasters programs.
Participating institutions
In late 2013, several countries and private entities announced their adoption of the edX open source platform to launch new initiatives. Ten Chinese universities joined together to form an online education initiative in China, called XuetangX. 120 higher education institutions in France joined under the direction of the French Ministry of Education to offer online courses throughout France, the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF) created Edraak as the first MOOC portal for the Arab world, the International Monetary Fund is using the edX platform to pilot online training courses in economics and finance, and Tenaris corporation is using the platform to expand its corporate training and education for its employees.
As of March 2017, edX has more than 110 partners, including universities and for-profit organizations and NGOs such as:
- Amazon Web Services
- Amnesty International
- Open Education Consortium
- Microsoft
- The Linux Foundation
- World Wide Web Consortium
- World Bank Group
References
External links
- Official website