The 2016 edX Global Forum, celebrated at the Sorbonne Universite in Paris, welcomed the 13 new partners of the edX consortium, including Institut Mines-TĂ©lĂ©com, Babson College, University System of Maryland, Imperial College London. This annual event discussed ideas to further integrate blended learning into education, shared new ways to unbundle the academic offering and heard views from some of the 14 partners who have participated in the MicroMasters initiative. Recognized as best professor on a Solar Energy course During the gathering, TU Delft Professor Arno Smets was named the first-ever winner of the edX Prize for Exceptional Contributions in Online Teaching and Learning. His course, Solar Energy, has reached almost 150,000 learners globally. By using innovative online teaching tools like custom animations, promoting peer interaction and facilitating discussions, Professor Smets guides learners through the process of creating a photovoltaic system. The systems simulate the use of renewable energy, and show how it can have an immediate impact improving the lives of those living in developing countries and how it can make an overall contribution to a more sustainable world. Active learners in his course uploaded information on the hours of sun and the reliability of the electricity-network in their areas to create a valuable map for the feasibility of solar energy, which is being used by researchers and installation professionals in the field today. After spending time working with Professor Smets in The Netherlands, these learners – from Algeria, Nepal, Ecuador and Myanmar – returned home equipped with the tools they needed to make a difference in their own local communities. The course has been translated into Arabic and is offered on Edraak. In June 2016, a Chinese version of the Solar Energy course was launched on the XuetangX China platform as well. Additionally, Professor Smets offered the first draft of his book on Solar Energy for free. We are very proud of @ArnoSmets for winning the first @edXOnline prize for Exceptional Online Teaching #AlwaysLearning pic.twitter.com/UBfLmKXhIf .@agarwaledu welcoming @Mines_Telecom as a new @edXOnline member #globalforum pic.twitter.com/Bs2RhT40hU — Ella Hamonic (@Ella_Hmc) November 16, 2016 Steadily growing @edXOnline #GlobalForum pic.twitter.com/uucANdtkMW — nancyrubin (@nancyrubin) November 16, 2016 openedX @edXOnline 2016 #globalforum pic.twitter.com/ILW7fgVCVd — Maria Laura Garcia (@malu_garcia_) November 16, 2016 #MicroMasters @edXOnline 2016 #GlobalForum pic.twitter.com/k1MqzUKsfq — Maria Laura Garcia (@malu_garcia_) November 16, 2016
Peter B. Kaufman, founder of Intelligent Television, has launched "MOOCs and Open Educational Resources: A Handbook for Educators", a free PDF-booklet intended for university faculty, educators, and educational producers involved in producing online courses. This guide is a step-by-step manual of how to produce and distribute educational video content under the freest of licenses, with an emphasis on Creative Commons.  Its structure follows the key stages of video course production, with analysis and support at its core dedicated to methods of keeping video content free throughout all stages of course pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. The handbook also provides some notes on the history of online course production and Open Courseware (OCW), and some thoughts about the future of educational video. Peter Kaufman's vision is based on achieving "a giant rich resource: a gigantic global encyclopedia, or Encyclopédie, or library or museum, contributing to universal access to human knowledge."
Modern States Education Alliance, New York City – based non profit organization, has launched the "Freshman Year for Free" fall 2016 pilot program. This program, established as a charitable initiative by Modern States in alliance with edX, is designed to give students increased access to college and reduce expenses. ModernStates.org now contains the first eight courses, available free of charge, like a "public library of college courses". They include free online textbooks and questions to check learners' understanding. These courses are hosted at edX.org and a branded Open edX platform. "Our goal is to offer you a high quality learning experience. The courses are taught by top college professors and designed to prepare you to pass the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) exam in the course you have chosen. These exams were established a long time ago, and are run by the College Board (an organization which is separate from us at Modern States, but which supports our goals.)", said Modern States. "Once you pass the CLEP exam in a college subject, many major traditional colleges will give you course credit for that subject, and you can graduate sooner and at less cost." "Normally, the College Board charges $80 to take the CLEP exam. However, because you are one of the early users of our program, Modern States will also pay the fees for you to take the CLEP® exam related to your course." • "Passing the CLEP and Learning with Modern States" orientation course. • Disclosure: IBL works for Modern States as a course producer and platform developer.
edX has launched some enhancements for standard quizzes (or problems) on courses hosted at edX.org. These are the enhancements: The "Check" and "Final Check" buttons have been consolidated, and relabeled "Submit". Secondary actions (e.g., hint, save, reset, show answer) are visually separated from Submit in order to allow learners to have the opportunity to take advantage of them before submitting their answers. When a learner chooses to show a hint for a problem, every hint shown now remains visible above the Submit button. This change has the result of aggregating hints for a cumulative effect. Feedback (Correct/Incorrect) now display in a banner at the bottom of the problem. Practice problems (that is, problems within ungraded subsections) are now identified by a message that appears immediately below the problem display name.
“Joining OSI marks a major step in our commitment to our #opensource community & #OSS movement." – @jbarciauskashttps://t.co/59UO16cnuD "We look forward to working w/OSI to promote…#opensource collaboration." – @jbarciauskas, Engineering Mgr., @OpenEdX https://t.co/59UO16tYTd — OpenSourceInitiative (@OpenSourceOrg) October 11, 2016 edX has highlighted its commitment to the open source community and movement by joining as an affiliate member the "Open Source Initiative" (OSI), a recognized organization for reviewing and approving licenses as Open Source Definition (OSD)-conformant. Last year the OSI extended its Affiliate Member program to include institutions of higher education, recognizing the growing engagement with open source on campuses. "EdX, as both an open source project and an educational initiative, serves as a model for higher education where a commitment to not only open source licensing but also an open source ethos fosters 'a thriving worldwide community of educators and technologists who share innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere,'” said Patrick Masson, OSI General Manager referring to the Open edX mission. "At edX, we've always had a deep commitment to open source. We cemented that commitment in 2013 when we first released the platform under the AGPL license in collaboration with Stanford University,” said Joel Barciauskas, Engineering Manager at Open edX. Press Release: "Open Source Initiative Welcomes Open edX as Newest Affiliate Member"
