Harvard joins the MITx project

Lavoie, D. (2012) EdX Online Learning Project Announced By Harvard, MIT Huffington Post, May 2

Harvard University has joined the MITx project, now renamed edEX, supported by $60 million invested jointly by both institutions. As with the earlier MITx courses, students who ‘pass’ the courses will be given certificates.

Comment

Good. Free open courses from top universities are welcome.

However, this will not cause a revolution in higher education until:

• full degrees are awarded by the institutions
• other institutions can find $30 million each to ‘invest’ in such programs
• the MITx courses use effective pedagogy so that most of the those attempting the course can successfully complete.

In the meantime, though, this will present an increasing challenge to traditional Continuing Education departments, who have often relied on fee-based online programs as a major source of revenue.