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Weekly News Digest
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February 25, 2013 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
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EdX Expands Internationally
EdX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), announced the international expansion of its X University Consortium with the addition of six new global higher education institutions. The Australian National University (ANU), Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, McGill University and the University of Toronto in Canada, and Rice University in the U.S. are joining the consortium and will use the edX platform to deliver the next generation of online and blended courses. This international expansion enables edX to better achieve its mission of providing world-class courses to everyone, everywhere, and is the natural next step to continue serving the large international student body already using edX on a daily basis.
While MOOCs, or massive open online courses, have typically focused on offering a variety of online courses inexpensively or for free, edX’s vision is much larger. EdX is building an open source educational platform and a network of the world’s top universities to improve education both online and on campus while conducting research on how students learn. To date, edX has more than 700,000 individuals on its platform, who account for more than 900,000 course enrollments.
Courses offered by institutions on the edX platform provide the same rigor as on-campus classes but are designed to take advantage of the unique features and benefits of online learning environments, including game-like experiences, instant feedback, and cutting-edge virtual laboratories. Through edX, the new X Universities will provide interactive education experiences for students around the world. All that is required of edX students is access to the internet and a desire to learn. By breaking down the barriers of location and cost and enabling the global exchange of information and ideas, edX is changing the foundations of both teaching and learning.
The new member institutions will join founding universities MIT and Harvard, as well as the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Texas System, Wellesley College and Georgetown University in the X University Consortium. ANUx, DelftX, EPFLx, McGillX, RiceX, and TorontoX will offer courses on edX beginning in late 2013. All of the courses will be hosted on edX’s open source platform at https://www.edx.org/. Source: EdX
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Brandi Scardilli
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