Call it the ‘Ivy League Spring’: the disruption of higher education by the Internet is opening up learning at the most prestigious institutions for the world to experience.
At the end of last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had announced a new, Web-based learning platform, called MITx, with which it would offer free online courses to anyone in the world. Now, MIT says it is extending its MITx model to its next-door neighbor, Harvard University. The new platform, called edX, will enable the two institutions will collaborate, not only to build a global classroom, but also enhance campus-based teaching. The first MITx course, “Circuits and Electronics,” commenced in March with 90,000 people signed up.
“Online education will change the world,” said Anant Agarwal, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and co-creator of MITx. “In the prototype course that we’re offering, the number of students around the world that are taking it is insane — 120,000 students around the world.”
Online, Web-based education enables anyone, anywhere in the world to access top-tier educational opportunities without leaving their communities. In addition, at a time when traditional tuition and educational costs are severely bloated and out of reach of many potential students, a new low-cost Web-based model is emerging in which individuals may assemble their own educational opportunities."