Democracy in Education: The Case of edX

Abstract

The online learning platform edX is the result of Harvard University’s and MIT’s dedicated efforts to globally democratize education. In 2012, when edX was launched, a number of other massive open online course (MOOC) providers started to operate, such as Coursera or Udacity, making edX part of a group of innovators in the MOOC domain. From the outset, edX aimed to offer education at unprecedented quality, access, and scale. The platform did not only start by offering lectures provided by two of the world’s leading universities, but also improved lecture comprehensibility through integrated exercises with instant feedback and live work groups. Although, in essence, different MOOC providers share the same motivation to offer qualitative education, their business models subtly diverge from one another. Unlike Coursera and Udacity, edX is a not-for-profit organization, allowing it an unparalleled focus on content provision. By the time edX was launched, the MIT had already accumulated over a decade of experience offering lecture notes, exams and course videos on demand via the internet. In comparison to Udacity and Coursera, edX evolved from the long-standing MIT open platform MITx, which in turn based on MIT’s first online platform for professors, MIT Open Coursework, introduced in 2001. The roots of edX date more than a decade back from its market introduction, making the platform the pioneer among MOOC providers.