Distance Learning | News

UC Berkeley Joins EdX

• By Kanoe Namahoe
• 07/30/12

The University of California, Berkeley last week announced that it has joined edX, the not-for-profit online learning collaborative launched this spring by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). UC Berkeley will offer two classes through the edX platform, starting this fall.

EdX offers free, open online courses to any student with access to a computer and Internet connection. The initiative first launched in December 2011 with MIT's 6.002x course, which garnered registration from more than 150,000 students across the globe. In May, MIT partnered with Harvard to create edX. UC Berkeley is the latest institution to join the initiative and will chair its "X University" Consortium.

"We are very excited that UC Berkeley is joining us in this effort," said Anant Agarwal, president of edX, in a prepared statement. "EdX is about revolutionizing learning, and we have received a tremendous outpouring of excitement and interest from universities around the world. UC Berkeley is an extraordinary public institution known not only for its academic excellence but also for its innovativeness. With this collaboration, edX is now positioned to improve education more rapidly, both online and on-campus worldwide."

EdX will offer a total of seven classes this fall. The classes offered through HarvardX include "Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research" and "Computer Science 50." MITx will deliver "Introduction to Computer Science and Programming", "Introduction to Solid State Chemistry", and "Circuits and Electronics." Classes through BerkeleyX include "Artificial Intelligence" and "Software as a Service." EdX will issue certificates of mastery, at no charge, for these introductory courses to those "learners motivated and able to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material."

UC Berkeley will contribute new open source technology to edX. The learning platform will be released for others to use, though a release date has not yet been determined. The consortium also plans to add new "X Universities" to the platform in the near future.