UC Berkeley Joins EdX

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.

About the Author

Kanoe Namahoe is online editor for 1105 Media's Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • network of transparent cloud icons, each containing a security symbol like a lock or shield

    Okta, OpenID Foundation Propose New Identity Security Standard

    Okta and the OpenID Foundation have announced the formation of the IPSIE Working Group — with the acronym standing for Interoperability Profiling for Secure Identity in the Enterprise — dedicated to a new identity security standard for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications.

  • UIUC Study: AI Agents Can Exploit Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities

    In a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), researchers demonstrated that large language model agents can autonomously exploit real-world cybersecurity vulnerabilities, raising critical concerns about the widespread deployment and security of these advanced AI systems.

  • IBM and Microsoft Partner on Cloud Security

    IBM and Microsoft have announced a "strengthened cybersecurity collaboration" aims at fortifying their joint customers' cloud environments.

  • scene in a cybersecurity operations center, showing an AI and a human competing head-to-head

    91% of CISOs Say AI Will Outperform Security Pros

    A new survey of CISOs by Bugcrowd indicates AI is already beating security pros in some areas and is expected to take on a larger role in the future.