MIT and Harvard release working papers on open online courses
MIT and Harvard University today announced the release of a series of working papers based on 17 online courses offered on the edX platform. Run in 2012 and 2013, the courses analyzed drew upon diverse topics — from ancient Greek poetry to electromagnetism — and an array of disciplines, from public health to engineering to law. The working paper series features detailed reports about individual courses; these reports reveal differences and commonalities among massive open online courses (MOOCs). In the coming weeks, data sets and interactive visualization tools will also be made available.Led by Isaac Chuang, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and Andrew Ho, an associate professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, the collaborative research effort was in service of a mutual goal — “to research how students learn and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online” — part of a...