HarvardX and MITx released a number of reports describing their open courses. The overarching paper describing these initiatives, entitled HarvardX and MITx: The first year of open online courses is really helpful in gaining a holistic understanding of HarvardX and MITx learned about their initiatives.
My (preliminary) thoughts:
- It’s exciting to see more data
- It’s exciting to see education researchers involved in the analysis of the data
- The researchers should be congratulated for making these reports available in an expeditious manner via SSRN
- We need more interpretive/qualitative research to understand participants’ and practitioners’ experiences on the ground
- I am wondering whether the community would benefit from access to the data that HarvardX and MITx have, as other individuals/groups could run additional analyses. Granted, I imagine this might require quite a lot of effort, not least in the development of procedures for data sharing.
The course report appear below, and these are quite helpful in helping the community understand the particulars of each course:
- 3.091x Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry – Fall 2012 MITx Course Report
- 6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming – Fall 2012 MITx Course Report
- 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics – Fall 2012 MITx Course Report
- 2.01x Elements of Structures – Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 3.091x Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry – Spring 2013 MITx course report
- 6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming – Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics – Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 7.00x Introduction to Biology: The Secret of Life – Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 8.02x Electricity and Magnetism – Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 14.73x: The Challenges of Global Poverty - Spring 2013 MITx Course Report
- 8.MReV: Mechanics ReView – Summer 2013 MITx Course Report