EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise composed of 20+ leading global institutions, the xConsortium. Founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, edX is focused on transforming online and on-campus learning through groundbreaking methodologies, game-like experiences and cutting-edge research on an open source platform. EdX provides inspirational and transformative knowledge to students of all ages, social status, and income who form worldwide communities of learners.

Previously the xConsortium was composed of twelve leading institutions including founding universities MIT and Harvard, as well as the University of California – Berkeley, the University of Texas System, Wellesley College, Georgetown University, McGill University, Australian National University, University of Toronto, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Delft University of Technology and Rice University.

It will be gaining fifteen more schools including six from Asia including The University of Hong Kong, Kyoto University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,Perking University, Seoul National University and Tsinghua University. They will add to course offerings by including courses on subjects in science, engineering, humanities, social sciences, architecture, management, law, medicine, arts and design.

edX is also bringing on five more institutions from the US, three from Europe and another from Australia.

 “As we continue to grow the xConsortium and offer courses from institutions as diverse as our global community of students, we are moving forward with our mission to reimagine education,” said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. “These schools, with their unique faculties and student bodies, will help us conduct collaborative research on best practices which improve education online and on campus.”

edX differs from other massive online courses (MOOCs) providers because they want to go much further then to simply offer quality free online courses. They are networking the world’s top universities on an open source educational platform in order to improve online and on campus education while conducting research on how students learn.

Thus far, edX has over 900,000 individuals on its platform.

 In addition to these new institutions, edX recently launched more than 20 new courses ranging from HarvardX’s Science & Cooking to UTAustinX’s The Ideas of the 20th Century to DelftX’s Solar Energy to GeorgetownX’s Introduction to Bioethics to BerkeleyX’s Introduction to Statistics: Inference to MITx’s Mechanics ReView.  These and other online and blended courses offered by xConsortium institutions are designed to take advantage of the unique features and benefits of online learning environments, including active learning, game-like experiences, instant feedback and cutting-edge virtual laboratories

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VentureBeat is reporting that Doximity, a company that has long been known for being a “Facebook for doctors,” is expanding its mission. After collaborating with the non-profit academic medical center Cleveland Clinic, Doximity hopes to become a digital education provider for practicing physicians.

Prior to Doximity, the continuing medical education required of all working doctors took place in an environment that resembled a very large college lecture hall. Doximity is hoping to change all that.

“Doctors spend about 40 hours a year to get accredited and 90 percent of physician education happens offline,” said Doximity CEO Jeff Tangney said. “This is time spent away from practice, not to mention administrative time needed to track the courses they’ve completed. It’s a pain. This platform will make it easier for doctors to track all these credits and automatically keep them up-to-date.”

CME refers to the practice of physicians learning about new areas of the field, and staying on top of the latest research. In the past, doctors have needed to travel to a remote auditorium; now they can access cutting-edge research from a smartphone device.

Doximity made the announcement on the stage at the VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference. Among the benefits of the new online system, Tangney – who was also a founder of Epocrates, a company that develops mobile health applications – believes that it will eliminate a large proportion of paperwork for students since the system will be able to keep track of what courses each doctor has taken an passed. The online format could prove to be quite a time-saver for busy medical professionals.

Doximity’s new service offers relevant medical research to its community of registered physicians — about 170,000 and growing. The company’s existing suite of secure HIPPA-compliant collaboration tools will enable doctors to share and discuss cases.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Doximity is one of the fastest growing digital health startups; it recently closed a $17 million series B round led by Morgenthaler Ventures. During a fireside chat with Rebecca Lynn, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, Tangney said that doctors “get a bad rap” when it comes to technology, but they were the first adopters of pagers and Palm Pilots. Doctors are busy and on-the-go, and they need solutions that fit into their workflow.

According to VentureBeat, nearly a quarter of all physicians practicing in America make use of Doximity services to send secure messages to colleagues without having to worry about running afoul of HIPPA. As Tangney explains, technology tools like Doximity free up the doctors to focus on what is really important – the patients.

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A massive online open course about one of the biggest providers of massive online open courses? According Bob Meister, who teaches social science and political thought at University of California Santa Cruz, that is just what students need.

Although the suggestion for a Coursera MOOC is tongue-in-cheek, Meister made it as part of an open letter sent to one of the company’s co-founders – Daphne Koller – criticizing everything about the organization, from its methods and goals to its funding. No doubt, Meister views the included idea for using Coursera as a MOOC subject as his own version of Swift’s satirical “A Modest Proposal.”

“As the course progresses, my more diligent students will come to see…that reducing income gaps through education is not the main problem that Coursera and other Massive Open Online Course (Mooc) providers are trying to solve in their pitch to investors,” he writes.

“That problem is, rather, how and when to price the content that you are now giving away in your current (pre-public offering) phase of development.”

Meister proposes that the Coursera MOOC explore not only what he sees as the company’s true business plan, but also offer students an explanation about how the information collected on them is being used in aid of that goal.

He says that students in the class will learn that the data they freely provide to the company could then be used by Coursera to help it make money in the future.

The possibilities for renting this information back to its students are “endless”, he writes, “not to mention the added possibility of developing other markets for the user-assessment information that Coursera will own”.

Contacted for comment by the Times Higher Education, Koller brushed off the complaints implicit in Meister’s proposal. According to Koller, Coursera provides a revolutionary approach to higher education, so it’s expected that the company will attract the attention of “skeptics and critics” who continue to be wedded to the status quo.

Meanwhile, Coursera continues to take steps to reach its goal of transforming and expanding access to college education all over the world by offering free college textbooks for students enrolling in its MOOCs. The move will allow students to achieve even greater savings when taking online open courses, because they will be able to get access to needed academic materials without paying.

Some of the largest education publishers have signed on to Coursera’s plan, including Wiley, Oxford University Press and Macmillan Higher Education. This will ensure that MOOC professors will have a wide selection of excellent textbooks to choose from when designing their courses.

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Regulating distance learning programs around the US has presented a challenge for states and the federal government, but a new report published by the Commission on the Regulation of Postsecondary Distance Education could serve as the key to unlocking the gridlock. The commission, which is comprised of accreditors from around the country, proposed that states adopt a “reciprocity system” which will make it easier for universities around the country to offer online courses that will be accepted for college credit in schools outside their own immediate locality.

The report – titled Advancing Access through Regulatory Reform: Findings, Principles and Recommendations for the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement – could usher in a era of increased cooperation between distance learning providers and will expand access to higher education for American students.

According to Richard Riley, the former Secretary of Education and chairman of the commission, the impact of SARA will be felt by the higher education system in the United States for a long time.

“The importance of this work cannot be overstated. The nearly 7 million students using online technology to access postsecondary education will benefit immensely from the consumer protection and quality assurances built into the commission’s proposed system of interstate reciprocity,” Riley says.

“This system will increase opportunity and access for students across the country, bringing us closer to President Obama’s goal of leading the world in college completion rates by 2020,” Riley says.

The adoption of the proposed reciprocity system depends on the participants first adopting a nationwide standard for regulating distance education programs. This will allow institutions to offer distance education opportunities in any of the participating states, as long as they meet the requirements in place in their own state.

The interstate reciprocity system would follow along three guiding principles:

1) The home state of an institution would be responsible for regulating and overseeing that institution’s work nationwide. Each state would ensure that its institutions meet a set of agreed-upon national baseline standards, but could require additional oversight and regulation of its schools as it sees fit.

2) Other states in which the institution in question would offer distance education programs could not regulate that institution unless the institution has a “physical presence” in the state. Most regulatory activity over the last two decades has involved defining the concept of physical presence. A core concept in the commission’s recommendations, therefore, is a proposed definition of physical presence for all participating states.

3) Institutions with a physical presence in another state, however, would be subject to regulations of that other state, but only for work done within that state.

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Georgia Institute of Technology announced that it will offer a two-year master’s degree in computer science in the format of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), reports Douglas Belkin of the Wall Street Journal.

Georgia Tech is the first top-tier school to offer this type of online program for a graduate degree. The program will be offered through Udacity, a widely-used MOOC platform.

The course is available to anyone, but in order to obtain the degree from Georgia Tech the student must gain admission and pay the course fees, which will amount to between $6,000 and $7,000. Students must have a bachelors degree in computer science or the work equivalent and earn a grade of B or higher in the first two classes.

The program’s startup cost to create online lectures runs between $200,000 and $300,000. However, the school estimates that it will only have to hire one teacher for every hundred students as opposed to one for every ten or twenty students, allowing the school to keep costs low.

This program comes at an exciting time as the cost of education is growing rapidly and there is a need for computer scientists.

 “There is currently a significant shortage of computer scientists in the country, and the government projects that there will be for years to come. Through 2018, the demand for computer software engineers is projected to increase by 34%—among the most of any occupation in the country, according to a 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.”

The university hopes to admit everyone who meets university requirements. Eventually it is estimated to enroll 10,000 students into the program, which is nearly half the size of Georgia Tech’s student body on campus, according to Justin Pope of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Some worry that the quality of education will falter on such a large scale. Georgia Tech assures that the university will be able to maintain its high standards.

 ”This is a full-service degree,” Bras said. “We have our name reputation and excellence behind it. These people will be assessed graded, take exams, have help, will have access to individuals that answer questions.”

Another concern of faculty expressed by Benjamin Flowers, an architecture professor and chair the graduate curriculum committee, is that the degree will lose some of it value since there will be such a large turnout of graduates.

 ”One of the key attributes of educational distinction has always been that you control the number of people that have degrees from your institution,” Flowers said. “Are we producing something that’s of genuine value and in demand, or is it something we’re producing because there’s an arms race in place and we’re trying not to be left behind?”

With admission standards being comparable to the traditional Georgia Tech computer science masters program, the school assures that the program will not be an easier route to a Georgia Tech credential.

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Veterans are getting a little help when it comes to evaluating their education choices post-military thanks to US News & World Report. The “king of college rankings” is adding a new horse to its stable: a list of online programs that are best when it comes to serving veterans’ unique academic needs.

Analysis shows that the market for vets who are seeking higher education opportunities is growing in record numbers – funded by the post-9/11 GI Bill – and landing some of that business could pay big benefits. Because vets tend to be older and are typically balancing family and job obligations along with their schooling, many are giving online education, which provides flexibility that traditional schooling doesn’t, a serious look.

According to Eric Brooks, a data research analyst at US News, the publication looked at how well the online programs served the needs of vets, like providing support to those enrolled in more than one school, graduation rates and graduates’ debt loads. Each program was judged not only on how well it does by its military veteran students but also by its overall quality.

Online programs are convenient for nontraditional students juggling work, school and family, but they may have specific benefits for former and current military members.

Service members are particularly transient, often moving from base to base. Distance learning programs allow troops to study anywhere, be it Kentucky or Afghanistan. Online programs also allow students to study at any time of day – a perk for veterans accustomed to working unconventional hours.

Exactly how unconventional is demonstrated by Raymond Lee, an army vet who served in the first Gulf War. He says that even now after more than a decade out of the army, he regularly wakes up at 3 in the morning. While this would be a huge hindrance were he enrolled in a traditional college program, the schedule doesn’t interfere at all with his MBA program at Kaplan University.

Despite the various benefits of online degree programs, veterans and service members should also be aware of their potential drawbacks.

Some veterans, for example, say they learn better when they have face-to-face interaction with peers and instructors. Others want the camaraderie and networking that come with student veterans groups.

Pace University located in downtown Manhattan in New York City was found to have the best online bachelors degree program for veterans, followed by Brandman University, Bellevue University and Regent University.

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Chief Information Officers from over 40 colleges and universities around the country gathered for a panel during The Higher Education Technology Forum in San Diego last weekend to talk about the impact massive online open courses are likely to have on higher education. The conference, organized by Consero, was an invitation-only event that looked to pose and answer questions about technology and higher ed.

The MOOC panel included among the participants three CIOs whose schools made important decisions about participating in the MOOC movement. Gayle Barton’s school – Amherst College – recently voted down a partnership with the non-profit edX consortium. David Baird’s Wesleyan University makes use of services provided by the popular for-profit MOOC platform Coursera. While Patricia Schoknecht’s Rollins College has indicated that it will be offering massive online open courses, they’ll do it using their own in-house platform.

“When I started last July, online education was the last thing on my mind,” Barton said. Amherst is a small liberal arts college in Amherst, Mass., known for small class sizes and faculty-student research collaboration. Yet after Amherst was approached first by 2U (formerly 2tor) and then Coursera, she felt responsible to investigate other options. She approached edX, the non-profit started by MIT and Harvard, that so far supports a relatively exclusive club of a dozen universities, as well as Udacity, which like Coursera is a for-profit company. 2U offers a cloud-based online education platform that allows schools to charge tuition.

“Those of us working on it felt that edX was the best fit because of their focus on very high quality courses and helping people do that,” Barton said. She figured Amherst needed the help coming up to speed on online education. In addition, she thought it would be valuable to get access to the assessment and analytics tools built into the edX platform.

MOOCs put schools – and their CIOs – in a tight spot. Actively or passively supporting MOOCs, or even offering some independently or on a third-party platform, could serve to undermine the message that a college degree from their own institution is worth as much as $50,000 in tuition a year. Yet schools that fail to embrace MOOCs risk getting left behind – and risk allowing other schools to set the agenda.

It’s a dangerous position to be in, especially if the free courses available to everyone eventually become viewed the same way as traditional college courses are now.

Yet Wesleyan, a private university in Middletown, Conn., is willing to take the risk, Baird said. “We decided we’d be better able to position ourselves if we’re involved than if we’re standing on the sidelines.”

Wesleyan president Michael S. Roth was in the process of closing a deal with Coursera when Baird joined the university in August. Although Wesleyan also consulted with faculty as part of the decision-making process, the deal was cut over the summer when many professors were away, Baird said. A six-week course on The Language of Hollywood recently wrapped up, and the film studies professor who offered it is so enthusiastic he plans to do it again in the fall.

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“Carroll County has definitely pulled the rug out from [under] everyone,” said Cherie Nielsen, a parent leader of the Virginia chapter of Public School Options, an advocate for nontraditional public schools. “We are scrambling.”

The School Board voted last month to discontinue the contract with K12 Inc., stating that administrative and liability concerns as the reason. However, the families around the state that are to be suddenly left without schooling plans for next year only found out late last week via email from the Virginia Virtual Academy.

Jeff Kwitowski, a spokesman for K12 Inc., the Herndon-based company that operates the school, said the decision also came as a surprise to the company. “We are aggressively looking for a new partnership” to keep the school open, he said.

The Virginia Virtual Academy opened in 2009 and was the first full-time virtual program offered statewide. Two more have since opened, but one shut after only a brief availability period. Administrative and integration problems are said to at the heart of the troubles, worsened by Virginia’s constitution giving local governments jurisdiction over public education. Instead of creating statewide school districts to oversee their virtual schools as other states have, Virginia is forced to offer online curriculum through local school districts.

Carroll County School Superintendent Strader Blankenship was unhappy that so much time was spent on students not from Carroll County with only five of the virtual academy’s students being from the area.

Rachelle Berry-Bissesar is an Ashburn parent with two children enrolled at Virginia Virtual Academy and had hoped to enroll a third in the fall. She switched her children to the online option after being failed the neighborhood school in Fairfax County.

“I sent him off to school already reading and enthusiastic,” Berry-Bissessar said. “By November, he was in tears every morning, and by January, he did not want to go any more.”

After she started teaching him at home through the virtual academy, he blossomed again academically and emotionally, she said.

“I think it’s really unfair to remove this option for the kids that it’s working for,” she said.

Virtual schools are an increasingly popular option with over quarter of a million students enrolled full-time in them so far, and growth estimated at 30% a year.

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Duke University will no longer be a part of Semester Online, an education consortium that will offer credit for undergraduate courses online, reports Tamar Lewin of the New York Times. The withdrawal is said to be due to Duke University faculty member objections.

“As late as early March, there was no generalized opposition to our joining Semester Online,” said Peter Lange, the Duke provost. “But when the proposal was circulated in March, some people who’d not heard of it before, or not paid sufficient attention, got concerned.”

Lewin reports that Lange was in favour of the consortium, viewing it as an expansion of options, but the vote by the Arts and Sciences Council at Duke was 16 to 14 against participation with many objectors citing inadequate consultation.

Semester Online is continuing without Duke, however. They announced on Tuesday that they will be offering 11 courses this fall semester. These courses will be from Boston College, Brandeis, Emory, Northwestern, the University of North Carolina, Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.

The courses will be hosted by the education platform 2U, whose spokesman Chance Patterson dismissed concerns that none of the originally named 10 participants (from last year’s announcement) are offering Semester Online courses this fall. He said it was natural that some decided to go in a different direction or simply wait.

Semester Online courses are $4,200 each.

For students at the consortium schools, that tuition would typically be covered by the regular tuition at their home school, Mr. Patterson said, while students from other universities would generally have to pay the difference between their own institution’s tuition and the $4,200.

The withdrawal from Semester Online doesn’t mean that Duke is finished with online classes; they remain actively involved offering over twenty courses through Coursera. The main difference however is that Coursera courses, while free of cost to the student, don’t provide credit.

Dr. Lange expressed disappointment that Duke students would not be offered a for credit online option for their studies but recognized the concerns of faculty members that there might be negative long term consequences for the university in the form of fewer courses offered and fewer professors hired.

Faculty concerns about the spread of online courses may be on the rise. Just two weeks ago, faculty members at Amherst College voted against participating in edX, the nonprofit collaboration founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, citing concerns about costs and about how “massive open online courses” would affect a residential campus devoted to small discussion classes.

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OpenupEd is the new European portal for massive online open courses, typically known as MOOCs, supported by the European Commission. Chris Parr writes in the Times Higher Education Supplement that the site contains a course database that includes varied offerings from fiction writing to mathematics. Each partner institution offers the courses via their own website, and the fact that partners include the UK’s Open University adds considerable legitimacy and heft to the enterprise.

Androulla Vassiliou is the European commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth and is excited by the project and its capacity. He said that OpenupEd had the capacity and potential to extend educational opportunities to tens of thousands of students and would help European universities become more flexible and open to innovation in their teaching methods.

“The Moocs movement has already proved popular, especially in the US, but this pan-European launch takes the scheme to a new level. It reflects European values such as equity, quality and diversity and the partners involved are a guarantee for high-quality learning,” he added.

While Europe often lags slightly behind the US in terms of technological progress it appears the EC is keen not to be left behind by US progress on education innovation.

The OpenupEd site has university partners in France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey and Israel. Courses are available in all of the countries’ native languages, and Arabic, and range from 20 to 200 hours of study.

The courses carry academic credit and can lead to recognition of progress with completion certificates or credit certificates which the participating student can use towards a degree. Students will have to bear the cost of the certificates, which ranges from 25 Euros to 400 Euros depending on the specific course and institution.

The OpenupEd sites claims that their offering reflects European values with a focus on equity, quality and diversity. They aim to expand the concept of an ‘open’ education beyond that of simply being free from charge and accessible. The learner will be at the center of the experience, taking advantage of high quality learning materials specifically designed for self-study.

EADTU president Will Swann, who was formerly the director of students for the Open University, said:

“The pan-European Moocs initiative shows our collective passion to further innovate. We look to expand with a growing range of courses from the launch partners, and we will welcome new partners from across the world who share our vision and practice of flexible, responsive higher education.”

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