UC3M’s New MOOCs on edX

UC3M’s New MOOCs on edX

EdX, the platform founded by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Harvard University, and in which UC3M participates as a partner, is internationally renowned in the field of digital education, offering an extensive range of courses taken by millions of people around the world. During the last academic year, UC3M offered its first MOOC´s on this platform and had more than 166,000 registered students (among all of the courses) with the majority coming from the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Brazil for the courses in English, and from Spain, Mexico, Peru and Colombia for the courses in Spanish. The largest percentage of registrations were from people in the 26 to 40 age group, followed by those younger than 25.

In addition to edX, UC3M participates in Universia’s platform, MiríadaX, and offers open online courses through projects like OpenCourseWare (OCW). Projects for innovation were also being developed at the end of 2014 through a call for proposals for new MOOCs to be offered on edX in 2016. Four of the proposals have become new courses that will start in February of this year: Introduction to vision by computer, The Conquest of Space, The Software Architect Code and Introduction to Management Information Systems (MIS).

Introducción a la visión por computador: desarrollo de aplicaciones con OpenCV (Introduction to vision by computer: developing applications with OpenCV): The analysis of images or vision by computer is the computers’ capacity for analyzing images captured by a camera and obtaining information from the objects present in that scene. Currently, it is one of areas of artificial intelligence that is experiencing the most rapid development and growth in new applications. (Start date: February 2nd. Language: Spanish).

The Conquest of Space: Space Exploration and Rocket Science: Explores the history of space travel and offers knowledge of the basic principles of aerospace engineering. This course is a first step for those who wish to learn more about the history of outer space and the impact of space exploration on our everyday lives. (Start date: February 9th. Language: English)

The Software Architect Code: Building the Digital World: An introductory course on software creation that explains how people in different professions can work together to create innovative software. It also looks at the most important activities for generation products and services to satisfy the computer demands of the future. (Start date: February 16th. Language: English)

Introduction to Management Information Systems (MIS): A Survival Guide: This course allows students to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary for achieving success in a business world dominated by MIS: its influence on the course participants’ work in the present and the future, and how they should use the skills and knowledge imparted here in their professional lives. (Start date: February 23. Language: English)

In addition, since November the first part of the Java course has been offered again (Introduction to Programming with Java - Part 1: Starting to Code with Java) and the second part (Introduction to Programming with Java - Part 2: Writing Good Code) will be offered during the month of April. This is an introductory course that will enable the student to learn to program using Java, one of the most commonly used programming languages in the world.

The CEO of edX, Anant Agarwal, visits UC3M

MIT tenured professor and edX president, Anant Agarwal recently visited UC3M and gave a speech titled The Education of the Future as part of the first forum of UC3M’s 2016-2021 Strategic Plan (Plan Estratégico 2016-2021). In an interview with the university’s corporate magazine, Agarwal stated that “online education is helping us rethink what the university of the future will be like. We have the hope that, by applying technology to education, we can create a completely new educational system for the future, which will combine the best of classroom learning and what technology can offer us,” and he praised UC3M’s role in this process of educational innovation.