-- Growing demand from foundations, NGOs, businesses and universities to offer courses on edx.org has prompted the nonprofit to expand its membership model

-- Smithsonian, Linux Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank and Osaka University among new members joining the non-profit online learning community

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, March 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- EdX, the not-for-profit online learning initiative composed of the 32 charter members of the xConsortium, today announced a new expanded membership structure that will enable additional universities and colleges, foundations and other global organizations to join the edX community. These new members will supplement the distinguished group of colleges and universities that currently make up the xConsortium. The expansion comes in response to increasing demand from edX students for a broader array of courses, along with growing interest from academic and non-academic institutions to offer a diverse set of high quality courses to a global audience on edx.org and through the expanding network of edX open source partners.

New edX members represent a diverse mix of global leaders that will develop high-quality courses for the edX platform. The xConsortium includes founding members Harvard and MIT and some of the world's most prestigious universities such as Australian National University, UC Berkeley, Boston University, Delft University of Technology, University of Texas, Tsinghua University and the University of Queensland. The 32 charter members will continue to provide edX with strategic counsel, while driving its three-part mission: to open up access to the world's best education globally, improve on-campus education, and conduct research to enhance teaching and learning.

New edX members announced today include:

Colleges and Universities
Colgate University
Hamilton College
OpenCourseWare Consortium
Osaka University
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Other institutions
International Monetary Fund
Inter-American Development Bank
Learning by Giving Foundation (Buffett family philanthropy)
The Linux Foundation
The Smithsonian Institution
Television Educativa, Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Mexico

"Improving the quality of global education and student success remains at the core of the edX mission, and we are continuing to grow and expand as we build the next generation of online learning," said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. "We are energized by the increasing interest from leaders in academia, non-profits, NGOs, countries and industry to join the edX community, with many also using our open source technology. Through our new membership structure, we are opening up edx.org to a wider pool of quality course providers, while offering both our global learners and our open-source adopters additional diversity and richness in our course offerings."

"EdX shares our values in increasing access to course material that can help learners achieve their personal goals and advance important technologies like Linux," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "EdX, like Linux Foundation, is not-for-profit and uses open source to innovate. Our partnership is a natural one, and we look forward to working together to bring important knowledge to the masses."

Adds Tedd Dodds, CIO of xConsortium member Cornell University, "When we joined edX in 2013, we were continuing the Cornell tradition of serving a broad community of students. Expanding edX membership to global leaders such as the Smithsonian helps all edX partners, including Cornell, to extend our reach to an even more diverse set of learners. We welcome these new members to the edX platform." 

All courses developed by these new members, such as "Giving With Purpose: How to get the most out of your charitable giving," offered by Learning by Giving Foundation, will be vetted by edX to ensure relevance and quality.

Since its inception, edX has embraced a number of innovative collaborations with organizations including Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Stanford University, The College Board, World Economic Forum and others. Institutions and countries that have adopted edX's open source platform include France, China, Japan and the Queen Rania Foundation.

EdX offers more than 150 courses in many areas of study, including the arts and humanities, public health, law, math, and computer science. More than 400 faculty and staff teach on the edX platform and over 100,000 certificates have been earned by edX students.

About edX
EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise offering online courses from the 32 global institutions of higher education that comprise the xConsortium, along with a diverse group of leading organizations around the world that also contributes courses to edx.org. Founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, edX is focused on transforming online and on-campus learning through groundbreaking methodologies, game-like experiences and cutting-edge research on an open source platform. Based in Cambridge, MA, USA, edX is focused on people, not profit.

Contact:
Dan O'Connell
Associate Director of Communications, edX
oconnell@edx.org  

SOURCE edX