Category Archives: oa.edx

TechCrunch 2U set to acquire nonprofit edX for deal north of $600M | TechCrunch

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2U, a SaaS platform that helps nonprofits and colleges run online universities, plans to acquire all the assets of Harvard and MIT-founded edX for a deal north of $600 million, according to multiple sources. 2U did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it’s unclear if this is an all-cash deal. The combined forces of edX and 2U could reach over 50 million learners.

Update: 2U confirmed the deal, expected to close within 120 days subject to regulatory and governmental approvals, in a press release post-publication. It also confirmed that the price of the acquisition which will be an $800 million all-cash deal.

2U, Inc. and edX to Join Together in Industry-Redefining Combination

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“2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU), a global leader in education technology, and edX, a leading online learning platform and education marketplace, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to join together in an industry-redefining combination that will help power the digital transformation of higher education, expand access and affordability, and usher in a new era of online learning. 

2U will acquire substantially all of edX’s assets for $800M in cash. Together, 2U and edX will reach over 50 million learners globally, serve more than 230 partners, and offer over 3,500 digital programs on the world’s most comprehensive free-to-degree online education marketplace.

Proceeds of the transaction will flow to the nonprofit that will continue under the leadership of edX founders Harvard and MIT and will be dedicated to reimagining the future of learning for people at all stages of life, addressing educational inequalities, and continuing to advance next generation learning experiences and platforms. Drawing on insights gained at Harvard, MIT, and other institutions, this organization will develop strategies and partnerships to help close the learning gap. …”

edX acquired by education technology company 2U – Harvard Gazette

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“Today, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and edX announced a joint effort with education technology company 2U to further the reach and impact of online learning across the world.

Under the agreement, edX will be converted to a public benefit entity that is fully owned and operated by 2U. 2U will use its resources to grow the online learning platform with the speed, and at the scale, that learners need today.

The proceeds of the acquisition will be used by a nonprofit led by Harvard and MIT that will focus on closing the learning and opportunity gap through the development of new partnerships, digital tools, and strategies. The nonprofit will devote significant resources to forging partnerships with institutions of higher education, particularly community colleges and other educational institutions that serve under-resourced communities. It will also seek to partner with other nonprofit organizations to tackle longstanding inequities in education, and with enterprises and governments to address workforce reskilling needs, while advancing learning experience platforms and research in all these areas….”

Article in Journal ‘Science’ Argues MOOC Participation is Declining as Providers Pivot | EdSurge News

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“What lessons can be learned from the rise and pivot of MOOCs, those large-scale online courses that proponents said would disrupt higher education?

An article this week in the prestigious journal ‘Science’ explores that question, digging into six years of data from MOOCs offered by Harvard University and MIT on the edX platform launched by the two universities….

MOOCs have not disrupted higher education….”

The MOOC pivot | Science

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Summary: When massive open online courses (MOOCs) first captured global attention in 2012, advocates imagined a disruptive transformation in postsecondary education. Video lectures from the world’s best professors could be broadcast to the farthest reaches of the networked world, and students could demonstrate proficiency using innovative computer-graded assessments, even in places with limited access to traditional education. But after promising a reordering of higher education, we see the field instead coalescing around a different, much older business model: helping universities outsource their online master’s degrees for professionals (1). To better understand the reasons for this shift, we highlight three patterns emerging from data on MOOCs provided by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) via the edX platform: The vast majority of MOOC learners never return after their first year, the growth in MOOC participation has been concentrated almost entirely in the world’s most affluent countries, and the bane of MOOCs—low completion rates (2)—has not improved over 6 years.

Harvard DART – Digital Assets for Reuse in Teaching

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“Since 2012, HarvardX has developed over 35,000 learning assets for the edX platform, yet the use of these resources on-campus has been limited to small specialized experiments. A contributing factor to this limited use is that edX educational assets are only accessible behind the firewall of an edX registration page. MOOC learners, course staff, and faculty leads must all register for a course in order to even simply browse resources. Allen & Seaman (2016) indicate that two of the most cited obstacles to adoption of open educational resources by university faculty in the U.S. are the difficulty of finding high quality resources and the lack of comprehensive catalogue of resources….”

Everywhere and Anytime, Here and Now: Digital and Residential Education at Harvard

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“Since the founding of edX and HarvardX in 2012, Harvard has made substantial investments in online learning in order to advance three goals: [1] Expanding access to knowledge, [2] Improving teaching and learning on campus, [3] Advancing our understanding of how people learn. These goals reflect our mission as a research university: to create and disseminate knowledge and to educate talented students from around the world….”

Media Day at HarvardX | Higher Ed Beta | InsideHigherEd

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“Held on July 21st, Media Day at HarvardX brought together local reporters, internal media, colleagues from edX and MITx, and others interested in, well, what was new….Kyle Courtney ended the short chats by talking about copyright, a subject I said at the start did seem the most sexy or compelling. And yet, Courtney explained that MOOCs and other forms of open online learning all owe their existence to “the deeply important principle of transformative use,” or the ability to use various copyrighted materials in the service of education. Moreover, MOOCs are pushing this principle to the extreme, as how else can an open online course on modern art or popular music be taught without the ability to use works by Picasso or The Beatles. Broadly, the trend of opening up classrooms to the world parallels the way scholarship is moving; Courtney talked about his other role as a key player in DASH, or Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, an effort that rivals the massive numbers associated with MOOCs, “with over 5.6 million free downloads of scholarly research articles authored by our faculty.”…”