The massive open online course (MOOC) platform edX announced on its blog that it is releasing its entire learning platform as open source, enabling universities and independent developers to contribute to its online platform.
The venture began May 2, 2012 as a partnership between Harvard and MIT, and in March 2013 reached its 1 millionth student enrollment. The edX platform is implemented in Python, Ruby and NodeJS. Developers can access edX’s source code at http://code.edx.org/.
After adding the University of California Berkeley to its platform early on, edX eventually grew its xConsortium to 27 partner universities, including the University of Texas system, Georgetown, Wellesley, and the University of Toronto. The first year of courses were developed by software developers and content producers from its many partner universities.
Now edX wants developers to come from all over to further improve its MOOC platform. In an InformationWeek article, Rob Rubin, edX’s VP of engineering, explained that developers are still in the early stages of creating online learning platforms and taking advantage of the available technology. “Let’s all contribute to the open-source effort to be able to rapidly evolve that for the benefits of the student,” he said.
In his blog post, EdX president Anant Agarwal wrote that edX’s vision is to “provide world-class education to everyone, everywhere, regardless of social status or income.” Argarwal explains edX has worked hard to develop its technology in an attempt to become the “best possible platform” for online education. Among its many development efforts so far, edX has developed autograded homework exercises, interactive videos, online textbooks and a learner dashboard that helps students keep track of their progress.
In celebrating its one-year anniversary with a giant expansion effort for future development, edX is providing evidence that MOOC platforms are transforming the future of higher education. Other MOOC developments outside of the edX platform are likewise transforming the education landscape.
Coursolve, for example, is a startup that connects organizations with online courses and enables students to deal with problems organizations have in the real world. In a Harvard Business Review blog post, Coursolve founders Zafrin Nurmohamed and Nabeel Gillani wrote that the MOOC revolution is changing what it means to be a student. They explain that the student emerging from the MOOC platform is a lifelong learner who typically has work experience and has developed a set of skills already.
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