Cambridge, MA - At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, edX set out to help our partner universities and learning institutions across the world address our new reality of fully remote teaching and learning - a move that many had not planned for. This included the launch of edX Online Campus, which granted access to a catalog of edX courses for free to universities in need, to help faculty, students and staff at schools as they quickly addressed the challenge of being fully remote.
In the short time period of April-June 2020, nearly 400 schools delivered digital learning content to over 45,000 students worldwide. This is a multi-million dollar investment made by edX and our partners in helping our fellow educators ensure learning continuity. We saw three common use cases of edX courses amongst Online Campus users: supplementing the course content of instructors that were adjusting to teaching remotely; offering electives and other opportunities to keep students engaged; and professional development opportunities for remote staff.
Global universities including Anahuac, Dartmouth College, IIT Bombay, UC3M, UP Valencia and University of Iceland joined in on this initiative during this period as an opportunity to provide online learning content to their communities. Online Campus is a critical part of edX’s vision for the future of education, which includes the sharing of courses and credentials across institutions as part of modular and stackable learning. edX’s Online Campus will continue to create resources and provide support to educators as they adapt to our ‘new normal,’ and create long-term solutions for success for students and teachers.
A webinar in May, Teaching Online for Absolute Beginners, attracted over 1,000 teaching professionals looking to learn how to best deliver remote and distance learning. We saw that their biggest concerns were around encouraging learner engagement, creating a sense of community and effectively receiving and giving feedback. Our most recent webinar, Transforming the Higher Ed Classroom, explored best practices and tips to implement a blended or hybrid learning model on-campus. Over 1,500 participants joined to take part in discussions on developing new models in the classroom and the challenges - and opportunities - facing higher education institutions. Looking ahead to the next semester, many institutions are still uncertain whether they can deliver in-person learning and at what capacity. They also need to be prepared to pivot back to fully remote teaching should there be a second wave of COVID-19.
With edX Online Campus, educators can be resilient in the face of abrupt shifts to how teaching is delivered by leveraging the robust edX course catalog. For example, the government of Pakistan is making edX Online Campus available to its 200 national universities, in order to deliver online learning without disruption. There will alway be a place for in-person learning, but the pandemic has illustrated that online learning must be a key pillar of every university’s strategy.
Everything edX and our partners have been building over the past eight years has prepared us for this moment to lead universities and students around the world in navigating our ‘new normal.’ Together, we will deliver impactful online learning experiences in the upcoming semester and beyond.
