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How would you like to take courses at the best universities around the world for free? Not watered down seminars but the same courses that are taught in top university classrooms. You don’t have to pay a dime in tuition, take admissions tests, submit your grades or teacher recommendations to get into these university classes. You don’t even have to travel to the university. All you have to do is sign up online.
If this sounds too good to be true, you may be thinking that this is fiction or university education of the future. Yet an organization called edX is offering exactly what I just described: free online education from top universities around the world. The courses are the same as those offered to students in the classroom, but for free.
edX is an organization started in May 2012 by Harvard University and MIT to give free access to top level education for people around the globe. In a little more than a year, the program has registered over 1.3 million people and expanded to over 29 universities around the world, including University of California at Berkeley, Georgetown, Wellesley, Cornell, University of Texas. Universities from Australia, China, Japan, India, Europe have joined edX to offer their courses as well.
I recently spoke with Nancy Moss, the Director of Communications for edX about the program. “Harvard and MIT got together and each put $30 million into the venture with the goal of providing access to quality courses to anyone around the world with an Internet connection.”
edX Courses
You can take over 70 different courses from edX, in 23 different subjects, such as science, politics, history, literature, computer science and philosophy. Here are some sample courses offered this fall:
- Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science
- Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance
- The Foundations of Computer Graphics
- Was Alexander Great? The Life, Leadership, and Legacies of History’s Greatest Warrior
- The History of Chinese Architecture (in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles)
- Globalization’s Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries
You can find a complete list of courses at the edX Course Listing website. Many courses are starting this month, but if you audit a course you can start at any time.
The course description sets out what to expect, how much time is involved, grading and any prerequisites for the course. You can view a video from the professor giving you a preview of the class before you sign up.
Moss explained that the edX platform is interactive, using games, video, instant feedback and other technologies to help students learn. Student interaction takes place in online forums.
How edX Works
You can either audit the class for free to learn from the class or apply to earn a certificate. To earn the certificate, you must do the assignments and take the tests. Your work will be graded, just like in a real classroom. The number of students who can take a class for a certificate is limited and you must pay a fee for your certificate.
Update from edX about the cost of the certificates:
As of now, edX is only charging for verified certificates in three standalone courses this fall: 6.002x Circuits and Electronics from MITx, and two courses from BerkeleyX: 169.1x Software as a Service and Stat 2.1x Intro to Statistics: Descriptive Statistics. All the other certificates are free. ID verified certificates for the current 3 courses range from $25-100.
Why Universities Participate in edX
You may wonder why universities are giving away for free what university students pay thousands of dollars to attend. According to Moss, the university partners all share three goals that edX was founded on:
- Access to quality education
- Improve the quality of learning on campus
- Research teaching and learning to see how students learn best
The university partners hope that by studying the information gained through edX courses they can understand how students learn best. Based on the findings of edX, universities may incorporate blended classrooms where some lectures may be online videos from visiting professors students can watch independently, with classroom time dedicated to learning in small groups. Students may learn better watching videos in snippets of ten minutes with immediate evaluation of learning after each video.
Moss said that universities are licensing edX courses to use in the classroom so students can take the courses for credit.”For example, a physics professor in a California university may want to use a physics professor from MIT the same way he might use that professor’s textbook.”
Massive open online courses, MOOC‘s, are not new, but “edX is more than just MOOC’s,” said Moss. Educators can understand the environments in which students learn best: what time of day, what is the right blend of online and on campus, what is the right proportion of studying vs. homework. “These courses provide big data and analytics in a format we’ve never had before.”
Producing a Course
I also spoke with Summer Marion, the Lead Course Producer for HarvardX, Harvard University’s contribution to the edX partnership. She works on the course Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy and the Press: An Introduction that is being offered for the first time on edX this fall. Marion took the course as a student and then helped teach the course as a teaching assistant before she started her job in July 2013.
She works with the video and content development team as well as the faculty to create multimedia content for the students. “It’s a very different endeavor to put your lectures on film,” Marion explained. Professors have to become accustomed to speaking into a camera rather than to a classroom of students. “Many of them have been teaching for decades so it’s content that is near and dear to their hearts and they’re very comfortable in the classroom setting.”
To understand the challenges professors were facing in presenting their lectures via video, Summer tried giving a lecture in front of a video camera herself. Although she is comfortable speaking publicly, she confessed to a new nervousness being in front of the camera.
“It helped me to understand better how faculty, who are used to being in front of a classroom, scanning the room, making eye contact with students, picking up on their body language, would be challenged by speaking to a camera instead,” said Marion.
The course Marion is working on has enrolled over 7000 students to audit the class, but the class has a limited enrollment of 500 students who are taking the course for a certificate. The course is taught by Harvard professor Dr. Graham T. Allison, Jr., founder of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, and covers domestic and international challenges to US national security. Students are given case assignments to put them in the role of advising President Obama on matters of security.
Your Thoughts
Are you excited about the opportunity to take courses from the best universities around the world for free? Which courses interest you the most?
Hi Carolyn,
I think this is a really good idea. I wonder how much the certificates cost. It would be free education and 100K for the certificate if we did it in Britain! I have thought about studying something. My interest in art seems to be developing. I have written an article for a new online Art magazine being launched in London. I’m still waiting to hear if they like it! I have studied art, but it would be interesting to take it further. I had to do some research last week and reading about the formation of the Royal Academy and different art movements was interesting. I am considering some voluntary work at the moment to get me away from my computer though. I might go to a gallery this afternoon.
I’ve started to do some images that are before and after editing combined, so I might use those next week! 🙂
Hi Mike, Yes, when I first heard about edX, it seemed too good to be true, but it really exists. How cool to take a course from a top university for free from anywhere in the world. I’ve taken online courses before and really enjoyed them so I am very excited about edX and about sharing this with Wonder of Tech readers! That would be very cool if you found a course you would like to take at edX.
Great photos over at your place today! Loved the images and the edits. I look forward to your before/after images next week. What a great way to showcase your edits!
Neat resources Carolyn! I know some universities, like Harvard, are offering lectures online through YouTube, but this looks really good.
I like the idea that some of the courses offer you a certificate for completing (just wondering if it’s something you can add to your resume?).
Hi James, Yes, edX gives a structured approach to learning, the same classes you could take in the classrooms.
I do believe that’s why people elect to go for the certificate with edX so they can show it to potential employers.
I already have a few learning sites on my list (Like Coursera – and Cerego. I think I got them from this blog :D). I also use Keenjar for video tutorials (Especially helpful for learning new skills such as drawing, painting etc) and Duolingo for language learning.
edX seems to be a great program. I definitely need to check it out! It is always good to hear that universities are providing free education online. Education isn’t really free in the offline world (isn’t it supposed to?). It is considered as a business, instead of something that is supposed to be part of life; it has to empower us and teach us what life is about. Instead, education is all about grades. Getting the good grades! That’s it. Fortunately, that is changing.
Anyways, Thanks for the review, Carolyn 🙂
Hi Jeevan, Yes, I thought of you when I found out about edX. What makes this really special is not only that the courses are free, but that they are the same courses taught in the classrooms at the top universities around the world.
You’re right, we can certainly enrich our lives through education and edX helps us do that for free! :-bd
Nice The best universities and research centers are public institutions, financed by either the local … Graduate students can get paid if they qualify for the incentive but … Homeschooling, private or parochial schooling is usually a legal alternative. As of the start of many free internet based learning institutions such as edX
Hi Mahendra, Excellent point. These courses could be an effective teaching tool for homeschoolers. Advanced students could take these courses to get a head start on their university education.
Hey Carolyn, what an interesting idea. It is great the education (especially in the states where it is so expensive) is giving back and for free. There are so many people that cannot afford this type of education but can not benefit from it and perhaps better themselves and their families without having to fork out their bank account or go into debt. Not only this, but I am sure as you discussed with some of the contributors, that their teaching will improve as a result. Having to teach something makes you understand your subject matter better and having to adapt it each time, even more so I am sure.
I also did a quick post on Google’s new Analytics Academy which is startingon Oct 8th – check it out on my site if you are interested. Seems everyone is offering freebies :>
ashley
Hi Ashley, Yes, this is a very interesting idea, especially from top universities in the world. You’re right, US higher education is extremely expensive so to take these courses for free is a huge opportunity.
Good point, the teachers and the students benefit from this so everybody wins. If students can take classes from top universities for free in the topics that interest them, they can gain a top education for free. They take away a lot of the obstacles to education such as money and location.
I enjoyed your Google Analytics Academy article, Ashley. Thanks for letting us know about it!
Thanks so much for sharing this, Carolyn! What a great opportunity this is for anyone interested in continuous learning (by design – school of hard knocks gets old after a while :-)). I’ll look forward to reviewing the course list this weekend to decide which course I will sign up for first.
Hi Nanette, I’m so glad you found edX to be an exciting opportunity. Please stop back by if you have a chance and let us know which courses interest you. 🙂
Hello,
i am using w3schools for my Website designing course. It is the best website for my carrier growth. Nice to hear about this learning sites over here Cerego, Keenjar, Coursera and edX. Thanks To all for give this beautiful idea for everyone.
Hello Oliver, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you found this article about edX to be helpful for you. Good luck with your web design course!
Hi Carolyn !
Its good to see top universities collaborating to come out with such a brilliant Idea .I wish i was able to use to such service during my college days . I’ll share this post with a few college groups that i had joined 2-3 years ago as a student , students will surely benefit for EDX . Thanks for making us aware of EDX . I appreciate your Ideas of coming out with very useful posts .Thanks
-Pramod
Hi Pramod, You’re right, edX is very useful for people who want to have a top level education and need to save time or money. Why not get your education from a top university for free? :-bd
I have been looking at various classes at MIT, when I was working at the University. I thought it was amazing how they could offer so many things for free. And now, others are doing the same. I will probably not attend anything officially, but I love to learn and I keep watching videos and tutorials a lot.
Hi Jens, Yes, taking an online class is a commitment, both of time and energy. While taking an online class requires significantly less time and energy than attending a class on campus, you still need to be able to make the commitment to the class.
I hope you get a chance to check out the offerings of MIT and other universities through edX, Jens. I bet you will find plenty to interest you!