AUGUST 2020 – NEWSLETTER #30 | Breaking news at IBL News |  Noticias en Español edX | Open edX • edX Posts the Release Notes of the Open edX Juniper Platform • edX, HarvardX, and Google Introduce a Certificate Program on Tiny Machine Learning • edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master's in Civil Engineering with Purdue Coursera • Coursera Valued at $2.5 Billion After a Finance Round of Additional $130 Million • A Coursera Report Finds Economic Recovery to be Dependent on Broad Re-Skilling Udacity • Udacity PR Campaign Claims a Revenue Increase of 260% in the First Half of 2020 • A Unit of the Air Force Will Train Airmen in AI, Data and Programming with Udacity's Programs Future Learn • Simon Nelson, Original CEO of FutureLearn, Leaves His Company Learning Platforms • Whole Foods Launches a Series of Life-Skills Courses Taught by Instagram Influencers • Skillshare.com, with 30,000 Creative Skills-Oriented Courses, Raises $66 Million • 2U Reported Second Quarter Loss of $66 M; Stock Improved 83% This Year Tools • Researchers Develop an Open Source Tool for Social Conversations on Events and Conferences • A Tool to Create Personalized Learning Pathways from ClassCentral.com • Google Meet Unveils New Features Allowing More Control and Increasing Security 2020 Events • Education Calendar – AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC  | Conferences in Latin America & Spain This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specialized in AI and credential-driven learning platforms. Read the latest IBL Newsletter  |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters
Udacity yesterday announced a partnership with Business and Enterprise Systems Product Innovation (BESPIN), a United States Air Force (USAF) agile development lab, via its Digital University. The goal is to strengthen airmen's skills in AI, machine learning, data analysis, and programming, by providing Udacity's Nanodegree programs. "BESPIN started with eight airmen in 2018 and has since grown to 100+ personnel, all of whom are committed to overcoming legacy technology challenges and accelerating USAF's digital transformation," said Lt. Col. Paul Cooper, CEO at BESPIN. Programs completed by airmen include so far classes on Swift, Kotlin, Kubernetes, and data science. "Udacity's online training platform is used by global corporate customers to skill and reskill their workforces: these customers include Airbus, AT&T, BMW, IBM, Nike, and Shell," announced the company.
Google announced this week three new certificate programs in data analytics, project management, and user experience (UX) design. The certificates are created and taught solely by Google employees and are offered through Coursera.org. These classes can be completed in three to six months. To take these programs, a college degree or work experience is not required and is priced at $49 a month. The tech giant will fund 100,000 need-based scholarships. In addition, it will be awarding over $10 million in grants to three nonprofits–YWCA, NPower, and JFF– to provide workforce development to women, veterans, and underrepresented Americans. "This is not revenue-generating for Google," said Google's Vice President, Lisa Gevelber, who leads Grow with Google and Google for Startups. The company said that these certificates will qualify applicants for jobs across fields with median average annual salaries of over $50,000. In 2018, Google launched a similar certificate program for those interested in IT. Over 250,000 people have taken this Google’s certificate, 57% of whom do not have a college degree, making it Coursera’s most popular certificate.
JULY 2020 – NEWSLETTER #29 | Breaking news at IBL News |  Noticias en Español Open edX – Based Platforms • JupyterCon 2020 Conference Will Introduce an Innovative Learning Format with Credentials • The 'Freshman Year for Free Program' Will Pay Learners for Completing their Classes • Harvard University's LabXChange Platform Wins the 2020 Open edX Prize • SUSE Acquires Kubernetes Management Platform Rancher Labs –which uses Open edX Open edX Software • edX Posts the Release Notes of the Open edX Juniper Platform • Open edX Juniper Platform: Changes on LMS Instructor Dashboard and Studio Tool • edX Releases Juniper, Its Tenth Version of the Open edX Platform edX • edX MicroBachelors Will Include Consultants to Help Learners Complete Their Programs • An edX Survey Finds that a Majority Is Interested in Pursuing Additional Education • Research: Platforms At Scale Will Radically Transform Learning and Teaching Coursera • Coursera Users Complain About Cheating and Plagiarism on Peer Assignments • Courses, Strategies, and Resources to Get The Most From Learning with edX and Coursera Udacity • Udacity Develops an Introductory Course and Nanodegree on Machine Learning for Microsoft Azure Learning Platforms • Canvas LMS Picks a New CEO From Outside the Educational Industry • DeVry University Releases a Complimentary Video Library to Build In-Demand Tech Skills • Apple Will Shut Down iTunes U at the End of 2021 Investment • John Katzman Raises Another $16 Million to Expand Noodle Partners OPM Firm • Degreed Raises Another $32 Million with Its Platform for Upskilling Employees 2020 Events • Education Calendar –    JULY – DEC | Conferences in Latin America & Spain This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specialized in AI and credential-driven learning platforms. Read the latest IBL Newsletter  |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters
edX officially announced Juniper, the latest release of the Open edX platform, and posted their release notes. “Overall, Juniper represents a huge step forward for the Open edX platform,” wrote Ned Batchelder, Architect at edX. Juniper, the tenth release of Open edX, is the version that took the longest time to develop: 17 months. It comes with new features related to the learner experience, instructor management and developer functioning. Learners will find new front-end pages regarding Profile, Account Settings, Order History, Checkout Page, and Course Experience. Improvements extend to areas like e-commerce, schedule personalization, team assignment submission, and mobile video app. The app now presents the ability to render YouTube videos within the application experience (previously learners would be redirected out of the application). Educators will find updates on Studio–the platform authoring tool– on component naming, unit creation, problem markdown editing, learning sequence navigation, and grading tools. For instances using programs, there is now a new registrar service to set enrollments. Developers will see major core upgrades to support Python 3 and Django 2, along with many areas deprecated.
