Google Expands Role in Digital Education, Teams Up With edX to Build a YouTube for Free Online Courses
18th September 2013
For edX, MOOC.org represents another step towards going beyond the boundaries of its current model, which includes partnership with institutions like Harvard, MIT, Stanford and other elite universities. In April, the organization merged with Stanford University-based startup Class2Go to build an open-source version of its platform that can be used by any institution around the globe. The goal has been to allow developers access to edX’s code to allow any institution to host and distribute digital courses for on-campus and distance learners — both online and offline — and create better ways to collect student data.
With today’s partnership, edX is expanding that mission, as its partnership with Google will enable any institution or business to post courses on MOOC.org and presumably open the doors to public access of edX’s content. It will also offer a more diverse range of content from non-profit institutions to higher education institutions and businesses, edX President Anant Agarwal said.
Unfortunately, this will suffer from the General Problem of the Internet: Sorting through all of the crap to fine the useful stuff. And, when it comes to education, what constitutes ‘useful stuff’ will differ from person to person. I have high hopes, but low expectations, for the success of this initiative.