An MIT report, published on October 17, urged its community of researchers to increase the open sharing of publications, data, software, and educational materials. The MIT Open Access task force, convened by Provost Martin Schmidt on July 2017, was charged with exploring how the institute should update and revise current policies. Now, the final recommendations research concludes that openly sharing research and educational materials is key to the MIT mission of advancing knowledge. The task force also calls for heads of departments, labs, and centers to develop discipline-specific plans to encourage and support open sharing. “Scholarship serves humanity best when it is available to everyone,” Libraries Director Chris Bourg, co-chair of the task force with Hal Abelson, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science said on MIT News. In an email to the MIT community, Provost Martin Schmidt announced that he would appoint an implementation team this fall to prioritize and enact the task force’s recommendations. He has asked Chris Bourg to convene and lead this team. The MIT libraries have already begun working with the departments of Linguistics and Philosophy and Brain and Cognitive Sciences to develop sample plans.
Coursera’s full-time employees who are accepted into degree and MasterTrack programs on the platform will not pay their tuition. This benefit will allow them to earn credentials and better understand Coursera’s product. Stephanie Hale, Coursera’s head of brand and creative, said, “This is beyond generous and a beautiful reflection of Coursera standing by its mission and putting the betterment of all people first.” Programs that Courserians –as the company calls employees– can apply to are the following: Master of Computer and Information Technology from Penn Master of Business Administration from the University of Illinois Master of Computer Science from the University of Illinois Master of Accounting from the University of Illinois Instructional Design MasterTrack Certificate from the University of Illinois In September, LinkedIn named Coursera one of the 50 hottest companies to work.
In May 2012, Susan Hockfield, former president at MIT, made a statement that turned into a belief at the institution: “Online education is not an enemy of residential education but rather an inspiring and liberating ally.” The idea caught fire, and MIT increased its commitment to online education. The same year, MIT teamed up with Harvard University to launch edX, the free open-source platform for digital learning. It also increased the number of online classes. Today, MIT’s OpenCourseWare website hosts 2,450 classes and receives 2 million monthly visitors, while edX contains 90 MIT courses. MITx, the online learning unit of the institution, reports an average number of people who register for an MITx MOOC every day of 3,307. So far 176 MOOCs have been produced. More interestingly, 99% of MIT undergrads have taken a class that uses MITx tools. Also, 15% of undergrads took an MITx MOOC before being admitted. The most popular MITx class on edX.org, Introduction to Computer Science using Python has achieved a total of 1.3 million enrollments to date. This number shows that the impact is global. In fact, 75% of learners live outside the U.S. In total, 3.8 million unique learners from 200 countries have earned 195,000 certificates. Only 1,805 learners earned MicroMasters credentials, and 76 went on to complete MIT master’s degrees on campus. In 1999, President Charles Vest asked a faculty committee how to best use the Internet to further MIT’s mission. He got risky advice: put all of MIT’s course materials online for free. MIT’s Open Learning initiative has served amazingly well both its students and learners around the world. It is one of the breakthroughs in education in the last two decades.
Microsoft has launched a video series to learn Python for beginners on YouTube. It consists of 44 videos of three-to-four minutes taught by two developers at Microsoft: Christopher Harrison, a senior program manager at Microsoft, and Susan Ibach, a business development manager from Microsoft's AI Gaming unit. The course focuses on Python version 3.x, but Microsoft says the lessons should still be valuable to users on Python 2.x. A page on GitHub titled "Getting started with Python" contains additional resources. There are many reasons why Microsoft is investing in Python courses. First, it is an opportunity to expand the population of Python developers using Azure for building AI applications. Second, Microsoft's own Python extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is its most popular extension in the company's marketplace for developers. More Python Courses In the newest annual ranking of popular programming language by IEEE Spectrum, Python is seating in top place, just ahead of Java, C and R. Last month edX.org announced new editions of Python courses: Introduction to Python Programming with Georgia Tech and Analytics in Python with Columbia University.
Udacity announced yesterday its Pledge to America’s Workers job training initiative. Over the next five years, Udacity will fund 100,000 tech and analytics scholarships on its learning platform. With this move, Udacity is joining more than 350 companies and organizations, including Google, Apple, and IBM in signing the White House’s Pledge to America’s workers –a project undertaken by the Trump administration. "Udacity’s scholarships will equip America’s workers with the skills they need to succeed in high-paying, future-proof careers in fields such as front-end web development, mobile app development, and data analytics," said Udacity's new CEO, Gabe Dalporto. The program will initially revolve around front-end web development, mobile app development, machine learning, and data analytics. (See image below) The recipients of scholarships will be, according to Udacity, "low-income individuals looking to learn the in-demand skills needed to land higher-paying jobs and advance their careers." Applications will open in early 2020, although the company offered the possibility of pre-registering now through a website.
