Announced today by the MIT News office: "UC Berkeley joins edX. UC Berkeley joins Harvard and MIT not-for-profit online-learning collaborative; edX broadens free course offerings into public health, computer science and solid-state chemistry; opens registration" Read the article below or see the MIT News Office July 24, 2012 article; the press release; the edX website.
EdX, the online-learning initiative founded by Harvard University and MIT and launched in May, announced today the addition of the University of California, Berkeley to its platform. UC Berkeley, ranked No. 1 among public universities in the United States in 2012 by US News & World Report, will collaborate with edX to expand the group of participating “X Universities” — universities offering their courses on the edX platform.
Through edX, the “X Universities” will provide interactive education wherever there is access to the Internet and will enhance teaching and learning through research about how students learn, and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online. EdX plans to add other “X Universities” from around the world to the edX platform in the coming months.
UC Berkeley will offer two courses on edX this fall, and the university will also serve as the inaugural chair of the to-be-formed “X University” Consortium.
Robert J. Birgeneau, the chancellor of UC Berkeley, announced: “We are committed to excellence in online education with the dual goals of distributing higher education more broadly and enriching the quality of campus-based education. We share the vision of MIT and Harvard leadership and believe that collaborating with the not-for-profit model of edX is the best way to do this. Fiat Lux.”
Meanwhile, edX announced two new courses each from HarvardX and MITx to be launched on edX this fall, along with MITx’s 6.002x Circuits & Electronics. All of the courses will be hosted from edX’s website, www.edx.org.
MIT launched its MITx online-learning initiative in December 2011, with 6.002x as its prototype course, and more than 150,000 students worldwide enrolled. EdX was announced by Harvard and MIT in May, with each university committing to contribute $30 million toward the online partnership.
“We are very excited that UC Berkeley is joining us in this effort,” said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. “EdX is about revolutionizing learning, and we have received a tremendous outpouring of excitement and interest from universities around the world. UC Berkeley is an extraordinary public institution known not only for its academic excellence but also for its innovativeness. With this collaboration, edX is now positioned to improve education more rapidly, both online and on-campus worldwide.”
“From the outset, we have imagined edX as a platform to be shared with other educational institutions,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif. “Berkeley's decision to join the effort is great news: MIT is already seeing the benefits of its collaboration with Harvard, and we look forward to working with our remarkable colleagues at Berkeley as we explore the future of online education. Together, we are sure to learn much about how to enrich residential education even as we reach new learners far from our campuses.”
In addition to the funding commitments by Harvard and MIT, edX has already garnered outside financial support, including two individual leadership gifts. MIT alumnus Philippe Laffont, founder and chief investment officer of Coatue Management, LLC, has made a gift to support MITx in honor of MIT Professor Stephen A. Ward, Laffont’s thesis advisor at MIT. Harvard alumnus Jonathan Grayer, former chairman and CEO of Kaplan, Inc. and co-founder of Weld North LLC, has made a gift in support of HarvardX.
Foundation support has also begun to flow in. Earlier in the summer, MIT received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Grant funds will go toward developing an introduction to computer science course on the edX platform and partnering with a postsecondary institution that targets low-income young adults to offer this introductory course in a “flipped classroom” setting, where students watch course videos at home and work together in the classroom.
“Interest from other institutions in collaborating with edX has been enormous from the outset and we are delighted that the partnership announced today by Berkeley has come together so quickly,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “Since the beginning, our goal has been to broaden edX offerings by partnering with other universities who are equally committed to both expanding access to education and improving research about teaching and learning. Today’s announcement is an important step in that direction.”
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