E-commerce giant Alibaba together with Peking University launched a joined MOOC platform. Chinese MOOCs currently features over 20 courses from lecturers at Peking University which can be accessed for free. Some of the courses offer certifications for completion. According to Tech in Asia, the platform also lists six other universities as partners, including University of Hong Kong, National Taiwan University, and Beijing Normal, yet there are no courses available from these institutions at the moment. Chinese MOOCs enters a competitive market as both Coursera and edX have launched portals with Chinese partners over the past two years alongside homegrown portals like Kaikeba, Guokr, Jike Xueyuan or Xingshuai Teach. Online education is growing fast as it has become an attractive alternative for students in China who feel those offerings are more flexible and cheaper compared to traditional alternatives. Further Reading Alibaba and Peking University Establish Chinese MOOC Platform | TechNode Alibaba and top Chinese university launch new education portal for MOOCs | Tech in Asia China Sees Rise in Online Education as Students Prefer Its Flexibility | Yibada Links chinesemooc.org

2U, which offers select partner colleges and universities a cloud based SaaS platform, reported its fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results last week. For the fourth quarter 2014 revenue was up 34% to $30.8 million. For the full year, revenue was up 33% and reached $110.2 million. Co-founder and CEO Chip Paucek expects revenue increase of around 31% for 2015 and called 2014 a milestone year for the company. 2U made its stock market debut on March 30th 2014 and extended its contract with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School for an additional 10 years in February 2015. 2U now has a list of 18 partner universities that offer over 30 programs. The company also managed to further cut its losses down to $14.2 million in 2014 from $21.2 million in 2013. Further Reading 2U, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Results | Press Release

Massive Open Online Courses have been around now for just over 3 years. Since then they have become more popular and are more known. Nevertheless, completion rates of MOOCs remain low (on average, completion rates are below 13%). This is often seen as something that shows MOOCs will not revolutionize education as, in order to be successful, completion rates would need to increase. However, I do not believe this is as big of problem because of the following 3 reasons: There are no incentives to keep you from dropping out. Unlike traditional university, where dropping out of a class would results in you having to re-enrol in your programme, there is no negative incentive if you drop out of a MOOC. There are no cost involved in dropping out as you did not invest any money it (you can even get a voucher on some platforms if you did) and the only thing lost is the time you had already invested. It will not affect your degree in any way because there is no fixed curriculum and no one will blame you for not finishing. This lack of incentives makes it very easy for people to stop participating or un-enrol from the course. Even though I completed over 60 MOOCs, I have also stopped participating for various reasons. The lack of incentives was one of them. Not everyone feels the need to complete the course. As MOOCs cater to a varied public which is much more diverse than traditional education, it is likely the things MOOC participants expect from this type of education is different than traditional students. Some of the students that are enrolled might pursue to complete the course but others might just be interested in a specific element or topic of the course. Time commitments differ more than traditional education as MOOC students might do this next to their regular job or educational programme as something that is a great supplement to their main activity but does not require completion to benefit them. Concepts such as ‘enrolment’ have different meanings from traditional education. In traditional education, enrolling in a course often includes some consideration of the added value of the course to your overall programme. In the world of MOOCs, this is not necessarily the case. As Robert Wright, a Pinceton lecturer, pointed out ‘enrolment’ in a MOOC could mean as little as "Sure, what the hell, send me an email when this course starts." making it have a fundamental different meaning than enrolling in more traditional education. As a result of this the metrics we use to measure the success of a MOOC should differ from those used in traditional education (at least for now). The combination of the lack of consequences, the greater variety in the student population of MOOCs compared to traditional education and different meanings of the same concepts are some of the reasons MOOC completion rates are so low. Nevertheless, this is no problem as students do gain valuable knowledge and skills from participation in these courses which they can use both inside and outside the classroom. Picture License  Some rights reserved by drocpsu

I was honored to learn that I’ve been nominated for Blackboard’s first ever Key to the Community Award. This award will recognize Blackboard clients who go above and beyond the call of duty to support, share, and contribute to the success of their peers and colleagues in the Blackboard Learn and Blackboard Collaborate client community. Twenty three individuals have been nominated for the Key to the Community Award. Six winners will be awarded at the Blackboard Client Community Center during BbWorld. Blackboard is leaving the decision of who will receive the awards up to the vote of Blackboard users - who has provided you with great information, answered your questions, shared something you were able to leverage at your own organization to improve the way teaching and learning happens? Voting ends on Monday, July 1st at 11:59pm ET. You can VOTE HERE. I’d appreciate your vote Spread the word on Twitter, #votebbworld13

21 months have gone by since our last report on how much top course creators on the online learning platform can make. That definitely qualifies for an update as Udemy shared new data on its course creator earnings. At the time of our first post, Udemy’s Top 10 course creators had earned a combined $5 million with the top person having made $450k over the course of two years. While back then these numbers were a strong confirmation that learning online literally pays if you are a top instructor, I think they also showed that learners were willing to give up-and-coming startups, like Udemy, a chance instead of only putting their money with established players in the field, like Lynda.com for instance. Today we already think of it as normal or an established business that learners choose online courses to acquire new skills and are willing to pay for them, and people can make a nice living creating such courses. Let’s take a look at the evolution of Udemy. Not only has the startup added some senior executives last year along with raising more money as well as heavily invested in their marketing efforts. They have also expanded into offering part of the course catalogue in seven local languages and opened a first overseas office in Dublin, Ireland. All of it should translate into making the platform and its creators more money, shouldn’t it? It does. The first Udemy instructors have become millionaires teaching via the platform with the Top 10 Udemy instructors earning a combined $17 million and individual earnings ranging between $500,000 and $8 million. The top three Udemy instructors are currently Web Development - Rob Percival Earnings: $2.8 million Students: 120,000 Web Development - Victor Bastos Earnings: $900,000 Students: 52,000 Personal Development - Alun Hill Earnings: $650,000 Students: 47,000 Once more, work skills for the knowledge and tech economy make the top of the list. It also shows that talented instructors are not a nine day wonder. Victor Bastos who comes in on second place teaches on Udemy since 2011 and made top of the earners list in 2013. Since then he doubled his earnings. Udemy states to have 12,000 instructors and 5 million students on its platform. The US-based startup raised $48 million to date with a $32 million Series C in May 2014 to ramp up its international expansion. Further Reading Sharing Economy Millionaires: Top Udemy Instructors Continue to Crack Major Earnings Threshold | PR Newswire Picture License  Some rights reserved by Thomas Hawk

In October 2004, I joined the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the role of Online Technology Coordinator, where I was tasked with developing and offering in-depth training programs and consultations on teaching with technology, teaching online using the institution’s learning management system (Blackboard). as well as developing online and hardcopy documentation on online teaching and related topics. In October 2006, I stepped into the role of Assistant Director, providing leadership on technology-related issues and working closely with units at NIU to address faculty needs related to online teaching, and performing supervisory functions at the Center. I also have taught as an adjunct for several institutions, designing and teaching a wide array of blended and online courses in instructional design and educational technology. I have enjoyed the opportunities I have had to share my expertise designing and teaching online and blended courses with others. July 1st I officially step into a new position at NIU as Director of Distributed Learning. I’ll be tasked with providing leadership and central coordination for the Office of the Provost on various aspects of online learning at NIU. I’ll also continue working closely with my colleagues in the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center to address faculty needs related to online teaching. Some of my new responsibilities include: facilitating partnerships with external and internal infrastructure providers streamlining distributed learning support services offered by various campus units assisting academic units with their curricular needs for implementing marketable distributed learning programs researching and coordinating the development of institutional policies, quality standards and technology resources to support distributed learning needs and growth managing staff, budgets, and web resources coordinating faculty training and support on distributed learning pedagogies serving on committees related to distributed learning handling other duties for the Office of the Provost as assigned I look forward to this new opportunity to help lead the advancement of online learning at NIU while continuing to serve the institution I’ve grown to know and love.

AltSchool, a collaborative community of micro-schools that aims to transform K-8 education, has hired four seasoned tech executives from Google, Uber, Zynga and Rocket Fuel. Joining the AltSchool team are Bharat Mediratta from Google, who has been appointed CTO. Uber’s former head of global security Michael Ginty has been appointed to head of safety at AltSchool. Former Rocket Fuel VP Sue Yoon and former Zynga Director of Product Rajiv Bhatia are also joining. AltSchool was founded by Max Ventilla, a long term Google executive and founder of social search engine Aadvark, which was acquired for $50 million by Google in 2010. AltSchool raised a $33 million Series A in March 2014 led by Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. The startup now has four private schools in San Francisco with a total of 150 students and will open two new schools in Palo Alto and Brooklyn in fall 2015 and aims to grow to 500 students. Tuition costs around $20,000 per year. Further Reading Tech veterans jump on startup aiming to overhaul education | Silicon Valley Business Journal From wearables to Uber for kids, start-ups look to tech to protect children | FT HEDLINE: AltSchool raises $33 million Series A | EDUKWEST Links altschool.com

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Versal, a platform for publishing online courses, announced that it ended its beta testing phase. Along with the announcement comes a partnership with Wolfram Research, with its founder, Stephen Wolfram, joining Versal’s board of directors. Versal offers individual teachers and institutions a platform to create interactive and customizable lessons and courses without the need to code by using a drag and drop interface and so called gadgets. The courses can then be embedded on a website, blog or LMS. Through the partnership, course creators have now access to Wolfram’s vast catalog of interactive math and science exercises with further integration of Wolfram Demonstrations, Wolfram|Alpha widgets and other Wolfram resources planned further down the line. Further Reading Versal Emerges From Beta with Design Update and New Gadgets; Announces Key Partnership With Wolfram Research and New Board Member | Press Release Links versal.com