EdX

Last updated
edX
EdX newer logo.svg
Logo of edX
Type of site
Online education
Available in Multilingual (14)
Created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University
Industry E-learning
Parent 2U
URL www.edx.org
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
Users 40 million (2021) [1]
LaunchedMay 2012;11 years ago (May 2012)
Current statusActive
Content license
Copyright of edX [2]

edX is a US for-profit online education platform owned by 2U since 2021. The platform's main focus is to manage a variety of offerings, including elite brand bootcamps. [3]

Contents

History

External audio
Nuvola apps arts.svg Interview with edX President Anant Agarwal [17:47] on the first anniversary of edX, Degree of Freedom [4]

edX was founded in May 2012 by scientists from MIT and Harvard. [5] 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. [6] edx.org released as open source, creating Open edX.

In September 2014 edX announced a high school initiative. [7] The following month, edX announced Professional Education courses, [8] and in March 2015 it partnered with Microsoft. [9]

In April 2015, edX partnered with Arizona State University to launch the Global Freshman Academy. [10]

In September 2016, edX launched 19 MicroMasters programs. [11] It launched an additional 16 MicroMasters programs the next year. [12] [13]

In January 2018, edX partnered with Microsoft and General Electric to provide subsidized online courses and guaranteed job interviews. [14] That same month, Tech Mahindra partnered with edX to re-skill workforce on new tech areas. [15] Later that year, edX introduced nine Master's degrees on the platform. The degree programs can be completed fully online and are offered by universities such as Georgia Institute of Technology and University of California San Diego. [16]

On January 10, 2020, edX launched two MicroBachelors programs. The programs offer undergraduate level courses which can lead to university credit for degree seeking students. [17]

Subsidiary of 2U (2021-present)

On June 29, 2021, edX and 2U announced they had entered into a definitive agreement to join. 2U would acquire edX's assets for $800M in cash. [18] [19] On November 16, 2021, 2U completed its acquisition of the edX business and website from the nonprofit organization. [20]

According to Anant Agarwal, when 2U acquired edX, it “made a legally binding commitment to preserve and advance edX’s founding mission..." Jefferson D. Pooley, a Muhlenberg University professor and Harvard graduate said “The whole sale itself was a betrayal and a fundamentally misguided choice by Harvard and MIT to betray, in my view, the trust that faculty and students put into it when they signed onto the platform.” [21]

In November 2023, 2U found itself in financial peril. [22] [23]

Functionality

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—a circuits and electronics course—students built virtual circuits in an online lab. [24]

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. [25] 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). 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). [26] [27]

In some courses the examination is only available to paying students.[ citation needed ]

More than 150 schools, nonprofit organizations, and corporations offer or plan to offer courses on the edX website. [28] As of July 2020, there were 3,000 courses available for its 33 million registered students. [29]

Research

In addition to educational offerings, edX is used for research into learning and distance education by collecting learners' clicks and analyzing the data, as well as collecting demographics from each registrant. [25] [30] [31] [32] A team of researchers at Harvard and MIT, led by David Pritchard and Lori Breslow, released their initial findings in 2013. [24] EdX member schools and organizations also conduct their own research using data collected from their courses. [33] Research focuses on improving retention, course completion and learning outcomes in traditional campus courses and online. [34]

edX has engaged in a number of partnerships with educational institutions in the United States, China, Mongolia, Japan, and more to use edX courses in "blended classrooms". [33] 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. [35] 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. [36] [37]

Open edX platform

Versions [38] Date
Aspen2014-10-28
Birch2015-02-24
Cypress2015-08-13
Dogwood2016-02-11
Eucalyptus2016-08-26
Ficus2017-02-23
Ginkgo2017-08-14
Hawthorn2018-08-07
Ironwood2019-03-22
Juniper2020-06-09
Koa2020-12-09
Lilac2021-06-09
Maple2021-12-20
Nutmeg2022-06-10
Olive2022-12-21
Palm2023-06-13

Open edX platform 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. [39] The source code can be found on GitHub. [40] [41] The platform was originally developed as a research project at MIT, with maintenance transferred to edX in 2012.

The Open edX server-side software is built almost entirely on Django. [42]

Leadership

edX is led by the 2U CEO Paul S. Lalljie. edX Founder and former CEO Anant Agarwal currently serves as Chief Platform Officer.

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 to form an online education initiative in China, called XuetangX. [43] 120 higher education institutions in France joined under the direction of the French Ministry of Education to offer online courses throughout France, [44] the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development [45] (QRF) created Edraak as the first MOOC portal for the Arab world, [46] the International Monetary Fund is using the edX platform to pilot online training courses in economics and finance, [47] and Tenaris corporation is using the platform to expand its corporate training and education for its employees. [48]

As of March 2021, edX has more than 150 partners, including universities, for-profit organizations and NGOs. [49]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MIT OpenCourseWare</span> Web-based publication of MIT course content

MIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywhere. The project was announced on April 4, 2001, and uses Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The program was originally funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT. MIT OpenCourseWare is supported by MIT, corporate underwriting, major gifts, and donations from site visitors. The initiative inspired a number of other institutions to make their course materials available as open educational resources.

OpenCourseWare (OCW) are course lessons created at universities and published for free via the Internet. OCW projects first appeared in the late 1990s, and after gaining traction in Europe and then the United States have become a worldwide means of delivering educational content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Ng</span> American artificial intelligence researcher

Andrew Yan-Tak Ng is a British-American computer scientist and technology entrepreneur focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Ng was a cofounder and head of Google Brain and was the former Chief Scientist at Baidu, building the company's Artificial Intelligence Group into a team of several thousand people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John C. Mitchell</span> American computer scientist

John Clifford Mitchell is professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University. He has published in the area of programming language theory and computer security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D2L</span> Global software company

D2L is a Canada-based global software company with offices in Australia, Brazil, Europe, Singapore, and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massive open online course</span> Education service on the web

A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Udemy</span> American online learning platform

Udemy, Inc. is an education technology company that provides an online learning and teaching platform. It was founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coursera</span> Online education technology company

Coursera Inc. is a for-profit U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, certifications, and degrees in a variety of subjects.

MITx is the massive open online course (MOOC) program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A constituent program of MIT's Office of Digital Learning, MITx produces MOOCs from MIT departments and faculty. Prior to 2U's acquisition of edX, MITx courses appeared there. After the acquisition, courses appeared on MIT's own site. MITx also supports residential experiments with scalable learning technologies and research on digital learning. MOOCs offered through edX by MITx are open-enrollment and free to take. In September 2012, edX and MITx introduced the option to receive an ID verified certificate on some courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2U (company)</span> Education technology company

2U, Inc. is an American educational technology company that contracts with non-profit colleges and universities to build, deliver and support online degree and non-degree programs. It is also the parent company of edX.On February 12, 2024, 2U announced "there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."

iversity Berlin-based online education platform

Iversity is a Berlin-based online education platform. Since October 2013, iversity has specialised in providing online courses and lectures in higher education, specifically MOOCs. Courses are free and open for anyone to enroll and participate. Many of them are conducted in English or German, but also in other languages. iversity cooperates with individual professors as well as different European universities. Some of the courses were winners of the MOOC Production Fellowship held in early 2013. iversity.org officially launched the MOOC platform online in October 2013 and as of February 2015 has a user base of 600,000 online learners, enrolled in 63 courses offered by 41 partner universities. iversity is the only MOOC platform offering courses with ECTS-integration. iversity has branch offices in Bernau bei Berlin, Germany and Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David J. Malan</span> American computer scientist and professor

David Jay Malan is an American computer scientist and professor. Malan is a Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, and is best known for teaching the course CS50, which is the largest open-learning course at Harvard University and Yale University and the largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) at EdX, with lectures being viewed by over a million people on the edX platform up to 2017.

Stanford Online is an educational initiative launched by Stanford University which offers a variety of professional education opportunities. As a part of Stanford Online, Stanford University created an open access OpenEdX platform which offered a variety of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in 2013, but that site is no longer accessible. Online classes previously offered on that platform can now be accessed on an updated platform known as edx that offers a wide range of online courses covering many topics. Some of the online classes offered by Stanford Online on this platform are available free of charge. Classes can be accessed from anywhere around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edraak</span> MOCC website in Arabic language

Edraak is a non-profit massive open online course (MOOC) portal established by Queen Rania al Abdallah of Jordan for the promotion of knowledge in the Arab world. It is considered the first non-profit and pan-Arab online educational platform that offers courses for free to learners worldwide. The MOOC platform operates in partnership with the Harvard-Stanford-MIT consortium called edX and is headquartered in Amman.

In higher education a microdegree, also microcredentials and micromasters, is a qualification focused upon a specified professional or career discipline and typically comprises one or more sources of accelerated educational experiences. Microdegrees are a single manifestation of Competency Based Education (CBE) which seeks to tie credentialing to specific skills sets. Micro-credentials may be completed on-site, online or in a blended format.

OpenClassrooms is a France-based online education platform for vocational training, providing courses in IT, technology, entrepreneurship, and digital skills.

Language MOOCs are web-based online courses freely accessible for a limited period of time, created for those interested in developing their skills in a foreign language. As Sokolik (2014) states, enrolment is large, free and not restricted to students by age or geographic location. They have to follow the format of a course, i.e., include a syllabus and schedule and offer the guidance of one or several instructors. The MOOCs are not so new, since courses with such characteristics had been available online for quite a lot of time before Dave Cormier coined the term 'MOOC' in 2008. Furthermore, MOOCs are generally regarded as the natural evolution of OERs, which are freely accessible materials used in Education for teaching, learning and assessment.

The Open edX platform is the open-source software whose development led to the creation of the edX organization. On June 1, 2013, edX open sourced the platform, naming it Open edX to distinguish it from the organization itself. The source code can be found on GitHub. The platform was originally developed as a research project at MIT, with maintenance transferred to edX in 2012.

MicroMasters programs are a series of online graduate level courses offered by universities through edX that one can take to develop standalone skills for career advancement or earn graduate level credentials.

As part of the EdTech boom, Online Program Managers (OPMs) provide bundled products and services on which educational institutions can run online courses. The two most notable OPMs are 2U and Academic Partnerships.

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