Kevin Carey, one of my favorite education thinkers, writes on the profound significance of MIT’s new credentialing initiative, MITx:
Beginning this spring, students will be able to take free, online courses offered through the MITx initiative. If they prove they’ve learned the material, MITx will, for a small fee, give them a credential certifying as much.
In doing this, MIT has cracked one of the fundamental problems retarding the growth of free online higher education as a force for human progress. The Internet is a very different environment than the traditional on-campus classroom. Students and employers are rightly wary of the quality of online courses. And even if the courses are great, they have limited value without some kind of credential to back them up. It’s not enough to learn something—you have to be able to prove to other people that you’ve learned it.
Because MITx is built on an open platform, other colleges and universities can join in the effort with relative ease. Assuming the MITx credential gains currency, we can imagine a shift in the balance of power between students and elite institutions. A variety of nontraditional educational providers will spring up, promising to offer high-quality instruction at low cost, the value of which will be certified by an MITx credential.
And as it turns out, a new provider, Udacity, was just launched at this year’s DLD Conference in Munich. We are at the start of a larger unraveling of incumbent educational providers that has the potential to dramatically expand human potential.
