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(edX employee here) I'm not particular privy to whatever tactical insight our leadership has on Udacity, Coursera, etc... but I can tell you where edX is looking to head as a MOOC when it comes to college/university partnerships. We have our partner-developed content. This is stuff like Harvard's CS50, MIT's 6.00.1x, etc. High quality content. People are very eager to take the courses -- they're developed by professors, TAs, etc, from these schools, and, to be honest, there's a lot of front-loaded name recognition -- but there's also a good chunk of learners who go on to pay for a verified certificate. On the flipside, we've talked to major businesses (tens of thousands of employees) who say they're willing to treat these certificates, the output of these courses, in line with their campus equivalents. That's pretty huge for someone looking to beef up their resume. The next evolution of what we're doing by partnering with these institutions are things like Arizona State University's Global Freshman Academy or MIT's MicroMasters. ASU's Global Freshman Academy is taking your entire "freshman" year on edX, and getting real credit from it. MIT's MicroMasters (in Supply Chain Management) is taking a semester online, which makes you eligible for taking the rest of the degree (which is two semesters total) on campus. These cost money; they aren't entirely free like the standard courses on edX. However, they're deeply discounted and this is what our learners say they want. Many people want credentials, they want them from top colleges and universities, and they want them targeted to specific fields. Ultimately, these people just don't feel confident figuring out which courses to take, and they want to be told which courses to take to get them to a specific place: better comprehension of X, better chances of job in a given field, etc. This is what is precipitating a lot of the advent of the specializations/nanodegrees, as you say. (sorry, a little long-winded) |