2U Buys edX for $800M, In Surprise End To Nonprofit MOOC Provider Started by MIT and Harvard (edsurge.com) 53
When MIT and Harvard University started edX nearly a decade ago, it was touted as a nonprofit alternative to for-profit online course providers. Today, the universities announced that they are selling edX to one of those for-profit providers for $800 million. From a report: edX had fallen behind rivals like Coursera, a similar platform founded by Stanford University professors, in fundraising and reach, though it still boasts 35 million users and more than 3,000 courses. Leaders of edX cited the pandemic as a factor that led to the sale. "Covid drove an explosion in remote learning, which spurred huge investments into edX's commercial competitors," wrote MIT's president L. Rafael Reif, in an open letter today. "This put edX, as a nonprofit, at a financial disadvantage. This new path recognizes this reality and offers a solution that allows edX to continue to support and maintain the key aspects of its mission."
What happens now is a bit complicated. 2U, a so-called Online Program Management company that helps traditional colleges start and run online degree programs, says it will operate edX as a separate subsidiary that will be structured as a public benefit corporation. That means it will be for profit.
What happens now is a bit complicated. 2U, a so-called Online Program Management company that helps traditional colleges start and run online degree programs, says it will operate edX as a separate subsidiary that will be structured as a public benefit corporation. That means it will be for profit.
Stop using acronyms without spelling them out (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, so I looked it up and it's a "Massive Online Open Course" but it is just editorial laziness not to spell out acronyms the first time they are used.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Considering it has "US" in it, it's pretty obvious it's referring to the president of the US. Thanks to US cultural exports (their biggest export), US culture gets into the lexicon of everyone, so using POTUS has spread worldwide to reference the one person pretty much the whole world knows.
Shockingly, you'll probably be able to find people who can name several US presidents, but has difficulty naming their own executive (prime minister or president).
Re: (Score:2)
Considering it has "US" in it, it's pretty obvious it's referring to the president of the US.
C. IuliUS Caesar is my favourite POTUS.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stop using acronyms without spelling them out (Score:5, Informative)
No MOOC is not part of "the lexicon." Don't be absurd.
As for the rest, yes. Almost any style manual will tell you, always spell out acronyms on first use. It's basic English.
Re:Stop using acronyms without spelling them out (Score:4)
MOOCs have been around since 2008. At one point, they were relatively common topic of discussion here on Slashdot. Given the number of other common acronyms we've picked up in the intervening time, I think they're OK just running with the acronym. I mean, it's not like a vast resource of universal information isn't available with a small twitch of your fingers.
On the other hand, maybe this is a sign of the MOOC market bubble collapsing, and the acronym is starting to fade.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's proper standard English editorial usage to spell out acronyms, dipshit. And evidently, everyone but you knows that and agrees with me. So suck it.
Re: (Score:3)
For the originating site, their actual audience sees "MOOC" so frequently that they'd be more annoyed by being slowed down having it spelled out out in every damn article.
For here, "MOOC" only appears in the title, not in the summary.,
While in many cases complaints about not spelling out acronyms here are well founded, in this case you are wrong twice.
Re: (Score:2)
For the originating site, their actual audience sees "MOOC" so frequently that they'd be more annoyed by being slowed down having it spelled out out in every damn article.
For here, "MOOC" only appears in the title, not in the summary.,
While in many cases complaints about not spelling out acronyms here are well founded, in this case you are wrong twice.
Yeah, that puts it in good perspective. MOOC to that site is like GUI on this site. If someone around here submits a story with "GPU (graphics processing unit)," I groan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Stop using acronyms without spelling them out (Score:2)
edX user base screwed over in⦠(Score:1)
Educational tipping point (Score:5, Informative)
Education in the US is at a tipping point right now. This was outlined in the book "Disrupting class" by Clayton Christensen, where he plots the uptake of online (and other disruptive) learning products over time, and the graph was set to hit the breakeven point (50% of stuff learned online) at about 2020.
His point is that education is a big, monolithic, fixed structure that is so interrelated that it cannot change easily. This makes it susceptible to disruptive innovation. Schools can only implement sustaining improvements, while newcomers can invent entirely new ways to teach.
For example, students learn using different modes. Most students are visual learners, but some are audible, some are kiniesthetic, and some are abstract learners. Because textbooks have to go through expensive review and have production costs, they cater to the majority (visual), which gives the other types a hard time in high school.
Online learning is now a thing, and is the disruptive technology. You can take a class in Arabic if it's not given in your school, you can find classes that are taught in different modes, if you don't understand something you can get an explanation in an alternate mode, and if you screw up you can go back over material even if the rest of the class forges ahead.
Online learning is right now ramping up the "s-curve" of innovative disruption, and in the next 5 years or so will be eating the lunch of all the traditional institutes of learning; or at least, the ones that can't adapt.
To the point of the OP: edX did nothing more than videotape lectures and put them online, with some web software to take and grade homework. They then invited other colleges to put *their* lectures online - with no quality control whatsoever. I had lunch with the president of edX and pointed out that for one of their guest courses there was no way to determine what would be taught from the course blurb - and he told me that edX has no control over the guest courses they serve.
Online education right now is a sea of innovative solutions - some good, some bad - and edX is improving nothing.
For a quality experience: Check out Paul Bloom's Introduction to Psychology [youtube.com] course. If you are interested in the subject you can get pretty-much a college-grade course just by watching the lectures.
For an awful experience, check out Daphne Koller's Probabilistic Graphical Models [youtube.com] course. Watching someone read off the text of powerpoint slides is hard to pay attention to.
For an innovative experience, Khan Academy reverses the traditional experience: kids read/watch material at home and do homework during class. Kids help each other out, because learning to teach the information makes for better understanding. And so on and so on.
Re:Educational tipping point (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly the problem with schools in the US is funding level. The schools are so poorly funded that they don't have proper school supply.
In many cases, the same person teaches 3 or 4 different subjects with at most one in their specialty. I have talked to a number of middle school math teachers that just don't understand basic arithmetic or geometry, let alone proof construction. Why don't they have the right people? Primarily because they can't pay them.
Some US school districts are better funded, but most h
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Educational tipping point (Score:5, Insightful)
Also learning styles are bullshit in the sense that you have a style that makes you a better learner. What the science has actually found (as opposed to what companies looking to sell new shit to schools) is that people have preferred learning styles, but that using one you don't prefer doesn't impair learning ability. At best you may just feel better about your learning experience. Disabilities (e.g. dyslexia) may make some a lot harder for certain individuals, but letting a general person use only preferred learning style may be detrimental as they'll lack the ability to use others and not everything they'll need to know will be conveniently packaged for them in their preferred style. The last part is only a hypothesis and hasn't been scientifically proven either, at least not since I looked at any of the literature.
Good and bad courses will continue to exist regardless of delivery mechanism or media. We haven't invented something to get around Sturgeon's law yet. Some people are brilliant researchers, but couldn't give a damn about teaching or at least teaching anything that isn't at a very advanced level.
Re:Educational tipping point (Score:4, Insightful)
it does such a shit job for what it costs
For what it costs, you could just about hire a one-on-one private tutor for your entire college education.
Re: Educational tipping point (Score:2)
But where do you find an accredited tutor who can give you a degree?
HR need's to drop the degree part or they may endu (Score:3)
HR need's to drop the degree part or they may endup with people who lie or have monster loans to pay off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think there are huge swaths of people who lie about education and work experience, already. For years. Ever wonder how HR finds people with 5 years experience as a senior programmer in a language that has only been out for 4? The answer is simple: Fucking retarded HR types (as they all are), and liars.
In my experience, HR generally parrots what a manager says they need and makes sure the post doesn't violate any laws. If the idiot manager demands 5 yers of experience for 4 year old language, it's on them, not HR. The only place I've seen HR really be screwed up is where they only send a partial list of candidates, based on HR's rankings, and can say, we've sent you X resumes, we won't send anymore. Supposedly they do that in the name of fairness so a preferred candidate won't simply be fished out of
Re:Educational tipping point (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, students learn using different modes. Most students are visual learners, but some are audible, some are kiniesthetic, and some are abstract learners. Because textbooks have to go through expensive review and have production costs, they cater to the majority (visual), which gives the other types a hard time in high school.
BTW, you know that's not true right? This has been debunked over and over again.
It is true that people have a preferred learning modality. People learn just as much whatever the delivery modality is. The original scientist who came up with the theory noticed anecdotically difference in performance in a group of students. She hypothesized that there were different type of learners and that different people may learn better depending on modality. The field conducted dozens of study to replicate the difference at scales and were never able to actually replicate it in statistically significant way.
Baring physical difference such as being blind, or deaf, or something of that sort, we all can learn as well whatever the modality. But it became a great scapegoat: "I did not do well because my instructor talks too much and I am a visual learner. It's not my fault."
Anyone in education that actually pays attention knows it is not true. Now some courses are definitely better than other, but "visual learning" has nothing to do with it.
Do you have links? (Score:2)
For example, students learn using different modes. Most students are visual learners, but some are audible, some are kiniesthetic, and some are abstract learners. Because textbooks have to go through expensive review and have production costs, they cater to the majority (visual), which gives the other types a hard time in high school.
BTW, you know that's not true right? This has been debunked over and over again.
It is true that people have a preferred learning modality. People learn just as much whatever the delivery modality is. The original scientist who came up with the theory noticed anecdotically difference in performance in a group of students. She hypothesized that there were different type of learners and that different people may learn better depending on modality. The field conducted dozens of study to replicate the difference at scales and were never able to actually replicate it in statistically significant way.
Baring physical difference such as being blind, or deaf, or something of that sort, we all can learn as well whatever the modality. But it became a great scapegoat: "I did not do well because my instructor talks too much and I am a visual learner. It's not my fault."
Anyone in education that actually pays attention knows it is not true. Now some courses are definitely better than other, but "visual learning" has nothing to do with it.
I knew that different types of intelligence had been debunked, in the sense that after accounting for fluid intelligence the variation predicted by intelligence type is zero.
I wasn't aware that learning modalities had been debunked. A bunch of articles have been published in the last year, so if it's been debunked it's pernicious.
Per wikipedia, there's about a half dozen theories of learning, two appear to be based on learning modes with one researcher claiming it's pseudoscience. I couldn't (quickly) find
Re: Educational tipping point (Score:2)
Engagement foments learning, according to widely accepted studies. Multimedia presentations of information drive engagement, according to widely accepted studies. And the level of engagement one gets from multimedia is dependent on personal and environmental factors, according to widely accepted studies.
So, while there might not be any such thing as a preferred learning modality, it's still probably a good model for developing better, more engaging learning resources.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you. That piece of educational mythology still pops up frequently well over a decade after it was fully debunked. It shows up in IEPs, education classes, evaluation documents, etc..
Re: (Score:2)
Uber -> University
Driver -> Adjunct
TaxiDriver -> Professor
Rider -> Student
Everybody but Uber/University gets screwed.
Disruptive!!! (also: Profit!!)
Re: (Score:2)
Second it can encourage significant time management skills, the one thing e
Even deeper point is "learning on demand" (Score:2)
... versus "just in case" as I discussed here (from 2007): http://patapata.sourceforge.ne... [sourceforge.net]
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In ord
Re: (Score:2)
No, most learners are not visual, there is no such as learning style, no more than your "sign" affects your temperament or ability to learn. Veritasium [youtube.com] should have a video out on this soon, in which he summarizes the research and speaks with those in the field.
Re: (Score:2)
The Biggest Myth In Education [youtube.com]
You are not a visual learner — learning styles are a stubborn myth.
Nonprofit != not for profit (Score:3)
https://www.councilofnonprofit... [councilofnonprofits.org]
"Myth: Nonprofits can't earn a profit
Reality: The term "nonprofit" is a bit of a misnomer. Nonprofits can make a profit (and should try to have some level of positive revenue to build a reserve fund to ensure sustainability.) The key difference between nonprofits and for-profits is that a nonprofit organization cannot distribute its profits to any private individual (although nonprofits may pay reasonable compensation to those providing services). ..."
Basically, nonprofits are like any commercial enterprise, except they don't have shareholders to pay profits to. This can cause problems, since you typically don't have shareholders that can vote to remove board members. So you can end up with nonprofit boards full of dead wood and/or opportunists.
I bring this up because the last line of the summary makes it sound like they changed from a not for profit to a profit mission, which in fact all they did was get rid of the constraints of operating as a tax-exempt entity. As a non-profit, they could have monetized their content to a degree equal to their commercial competitors, with the exception that they couldn't issue stock to raise capital.
https://smallbusiness.chron.co... [chron.com]
Even then, they could have formed a joint venture with a for-profit spinoff or another company to give themselves more flexibility with fundraising, if they really wanted to maintain their tax exempt status (with some limitations.)
https://nonprofitlawblog.com/n... [nonprofitlawblog.com]
Nonprofits vs. Not for profits:
https://www.uschamber.com/co/s... [uschamber.com]
"Nonprofits run like a business and try to earn a profit, which does not support any single member; not-for-profits are considered 'recreational organizations' that do not operate with the business goal of earning revenue."
MIT News article (Score:1)
From the horse's mouth: https://news.mit.edu/2021/mit-... [mit.edu]
This article also includes a link to a longer letter from the president of MIT.
I'm confused about this. In one spot, they imply edX needs an infusion of capital to keep up with competitors. In another spot, they say the buyer of edX is paying $800M. So which is it, a sinking ship or a gold mine?
How do the original edX contributors feel about this move? It seems to follow a trend of selling the commons to investors. We can discuss on Freenode.ORG
Re: (Score:2)
Why not both? Some level of assets that are supposedly insufficient to remain viable alone, but can be developed/exploited with further investment. Compare, RadioShack, Victor, etc. who disappear in their original productive form but have their named licensed out because there's value in them. Clearly edX does not have significant brand recognition, but they must have lots of course materials.
The more awkward thing here, is that a lot of these materials are from existing courses at these universities. They
Online education is great, except (Score:3)
But there's no arguing - in most cases, remote learning is a subpar way to educate people. It doesn't matter that they're offered by MIT or Princeton, Phoenix, or one of those places that shut down the moment uncle sam turned off the "free loan money no questions asked" tap.I work in an educational environment. We have well over a decade of data on the classes that we give over and over again. And the COVID years have been decidedly, measurably, above-the-noise-threshold worse. There can be no argument about this. In-person education is better for nearly everyone. Even the people who SAY they do better remotely... usually, when you test them on the subject matter, they do MEASURABLY WORSE.
Someday, somebody might figure out the magic formula to making online education first-rate. I sincerely hope this day comes to pass. But it flies in the face of millions of years of evolution. We're social animals. We don't do well in isolation.
To the people who THINK you're learning great in a remote format - you're probably wrong, and if you ever get matched against a person who attended class in person - the odds are that other person will probably dunk on you.
We need to move people back to in-person as quickly as possible. I sincerely wish it were otherwise.
Re:Online education is great, except (Score:4, Insightful)
I taught CS online for 3 semesters now. It's definitely subpar! MOOCs are fine for people who already know how to learn and are motivated, but your average MOOC is pretty abysmal in term of pedagogy.
On top of that it turns out that the problem you usually have is very different. Typically you get students that don't understand that they do not understand. Or students that do not understand what they do not understand. Or students that are just WAY out of practice. Or student that missed a train years and never really caught up.
To address that, you need someone to talk to them. The same person who week after week will get to know the student and their shortcoming so that you can fix it.
How are you supposed to that when you have 4000 students for 1 instructor, and 10 TAs? Turns out education does not scale, when you have twice the number of student, you need a twice bigger pedagogical team.
What MOOCs have really created is the modern textbook in video form. And I'd rather have a good textbook!
Re: (Score:2)
I think there's a big difference between institutions that improvised moving to online during the pandemic and others that have been doing it for a while as a mission like Georgia Tech, University of Illinois, Stanford and others in their online programs.
Obviously, if Universities rapidly "switch to online" without taking the time to develop the appropriate courses with the correct level of forethought and rigor, it's going to be inferior.
As for Coursera, a lot of their emphasis is to make education more ac
Re: Online education is great, except (Score:2)
Great deal for professors (Score:2)
That was always such a great deal for professors and even adjuncts: give us the result of your hard labor for free, and we will give it away in such a manner as to prevent you from ever earning a living again. But we totally, totally promise to never "monetize" that "work product". Sure.
Socialism (Score:2)
It turns out that even socialist do-gooders like money.
FutureLearn (Score:2)