Considering MITx, Udacity and Coursera in context - a quick snapshot of online education.

1. Free/Open Online Education – a snapshot
Institution & No. Launched License Sample University Course materials Notes
programme courses course credits available
available
MIT 2,100 2002 CC-BY- Introductory No Courses available in MIT was the 1st higher
Open NC-SA Biology various formats may education institution to
Courseware include some or all of commit to OCW,
(OCW) the following: lecture making available course
notes, online textbooks, materials for all
assignments & solutions, undergraduate &
exams & solutions, graduate courses; many
multimedia content have followed MIT’s
lead, e.g. Yale, NYU,
etc. (see OCW
Consortium)
Yale 35 2007 CC-BY- Frontiers of No Lecture video/audio &
Open Yale NC-SA Biomedical transcript, reading list,
Courses Engineering lecture notes, review
questions (also in iTunes,
YouTube)
NYU 6 2011 CC-BY- History of No Lecture videos, reading
NYU Open NC-SA New York list, links to Study Groups
Education City: A Social (also in iTunes, YouTube)
History
MIT 8 2011 CC-BY- Linear No Lecture videos & OCW Scholar was
OCW Scholar NC-SA Algebra summary notes, designed specifically for
problem-solving videos, independent learners;
Java Demonstrations, these courses are more
problem sets & solutions, complete than typical
exams & solutions, links OCW courses
to Study Groups

2. MIT 1 2012 CC-BY- 6.002x Yes (MITx All course materials, MITx is a pilot initiative in
MITx NC-SA Circuits and credit, not interactive instruction, offering open, online
Electronics MIT credit) online labs, online education for MIT credit;
(begins communication, 6.002x is the first course
March 5th ) assessment of student
work
Stanford 13 2004 CC-BY- iPad and No Audio & video podcasts This was Stanford’s first
on iTunes U NC-SA iPhone App foray into online
Development education, similar to
many other university
offerings in iTunes U
Stanford 3 2011 Copyright Machine Certificate Lecture videos, Hugely successful
Online Courses – access Learning; (no credit) exercises, mid-term & launch of 3 online
(no longer limited to Intro to AI; final exam courses last autumn –
available) registered Intro to (automatically scored), however, a new model
users only Databases discussion forum for 2012 with Coursera &
Udacity (see below)
Coursera 16 2012 CC-BY- Human- Certificate Lecture videos, quiz Stanford will continue to
(still affiliated NC-SA Computer (no credit) questions, assignments & offer free, online courses
with Stanford) Interaction exam (automatically through Coursera
(begins Feb.) scored)
Udacity 2 2012 CC-BY- Building a Certificate Lecture videos, Sebastian Thrun has left
(independent NC-SA Search (no credit) programming problems, Stanford to launch
of Stanford) Engine assignments & exam Udacity; additional
(begins Feb. (automatically scored) courses are planned
20th)
MOOCs 12 2007 CC-BY- Connectivism Yes/No Connecting distributed MOOCs have been
Massive Open NC-SA & (depends instructors & learners, offered since 2007,
Online Courses Connective on the course materials are sometimes with
Knowledge MOOC) dispersed across the thousands of people
2012 web; discussion & social taking part
media form an essential
element

3. NOTE: Class Central provides a summary of free, online courses from Stanford’s Coursera, MIT’s MITx and Udacity.
Online Education - a snapshot (March 2012) by Catherine Cronin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.