UC Berkeley will suspend access to its iTunesU video community beginning on March 15, 2017. "Instead of focusing on legacy content that is 3-10 years old, much of which sees very limited use, we will work to create new public content that includes accessible features. Our public legacy libraries on YouTube and iTunesU include over 20,000 publications. (…) Moving our content behind authentication allows us to better protect instructor intellectual property from “pirates” who have reused content for personal profit without consent," explained Cathy Koshland, UC Berkeley vice chancellor, to the university community. Additionally, "Berkeley will maintain its commitment to sharing content to the public through our partnership with EdX (edx.org). This free and accessible content includes a wide range of educational opportunities and topics from across higher ed."
Harvard University will launch on February 28 a new, free online course on edX.org, intended to teach the fundamental principles of architecture. "The Architectural Imagination" introductory course will be taught by Harvard's Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory K. Michael Hays alongside Professor of Architectural History Erika Naginski and G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology Antoine Picon. Over the course of ten modules, these professors will examine some of history's most important examples that show how architecture engages, mediates, and expresses a culture's complex aspirations. Video presentations and hands-on exercises will be featured to explore all of these issues. This is the course syllabus: Part I: Form and History Module 1: The Architectural Imagination: An Introduction Module 2: Reading Architecture: Column and Wall Module 3: Hegel and Architectural History Module 4: Aldo Rossi and Typology Part II: The Technology Effect Module 5: The Crystal Palace: Infrastructure and Detail Module 6: The Dialectics of Glass and Steel Module 7: Technology Tamed: Le Corbusier’s Machines for Living Part III: Representation and Context Module 8: Drawing Utopia: Visionary Architecture of the 18th Century Module 9: The Pompidou Center in the City of Paris Module 10: Presenting the Unrepresentable The course will join other architectural courses hosted on edX from institutions including MIT, ETH Zurich, and the University of Tokyo.
These are some of the most relevant. https://youtu.be/-kp7F4xer4s On the other hand, several other universities are releasing MicroMasters courses. Artificial Intelligence (AI). ColumbiaX. Supply Chain Fundamentals. MITx. Managing People from a Global Perspective. ThurderbirdX. Accounting for Decision Making. IIMBx. Leaders in Global Development. The University of Queensland. Entrepreneurship: DO Your Venture. IIMBx. International Human Rights Law. LouvainX. Social Work Practice with Individuals, Families and Small Groups. MichiganX.
The TOEFL Test Preparation MOOC will launch its third round this January 25, 2017. Registration is open. So far this course, one of the most popular on the edX.org platform, has attracted thousand of students worldwide. However, a number of students have expressed negative opinions regarding the course's "poor and inadequate content". David C, a student who has completed the course, has given it a 2.5 star rating on edX, saying, “The amount of practice questions is very little, and most of them are the same that you can get as 'free content' on the ETS website, therefore, they are not providing anything new. In the discussion threads, the instructors mostly used 'copy-paste' bits of text to answer to our questions – sometimes up to the point that the answer received wasn't related to the question asked.” "Students who completed the course have used other platforms too to prepare for the test." Another critique is based on the way ETS handles its Twitter community. Students are asked to join the community and this is used a promotional campaign as the same tweets appear from multiple profiles.
These courses, all of them open to enrollment, are the following: Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines Microsoft Azure Virtual Networks Microsoft Azure identity Microsoft Azure Storage Azure Fundamentals Microsoft Azure for AWS Experts Automating Azure Workloads Managing Azure Workloads Microsoft Azure App Service Databases in Azure Azure Security and Compliance DevOps on Azure PaaS Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment These courses are mostly text-based, with poor quality videos and no transcripts on them, and have almost no interactivity. Technical support to students is provided exclusively through Microsoft's forum system. Even Open edX's forum feature has been deactivated. This Open edX platform, which is running on Azure, is used as a repository of content, with no intention to create a community of users.
