edX Removes Free Certificates and Adds Verified and XSeries Credentials – Udacity Leads the Way

edX has discontinued the free honor code certificates, although the old ones will remain valid. Instead, learners will be able to audit courses without a fee and have the option to apply for financial assistance to help cover 90% of  the cost of verified certificates.

New courses on edx.org now offer two types of certificates: Verified and XSeries.

“It seems that the top two MOOC providers in the world, Coursera and edX, are going along a similar path as they too strive to achieve sustainability. Both have made announcements to the effect that they will remove a key component of the MOOC experience,” writes Dhawal Shah in Class-Central.com this week.

Before edX and Coursera, Udacity pioneered this formula by stopping free certificates, making graded assignments a paid feature and creating their own type of credential (Nanodegree). This way Udacity reached profitability.

In this fight to generate revenue, some universities are doing well.

• Johns Hopkins University made at least $3.5 million in less than a year from the sales of verified certificates for its nine Data Science Specialization courses.

• HarvardX, with more than three million enrollments on edX, obtained $435,000 from verified certificates, $400,000 from course donations and $300,000 from sublicensing income.