Media Releases

University of Toronto joins Harvard/MIT platform to deliver online courses

February 20, 2013

TORONTO, ON – The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is join­ing edX, a US-based plat­form for mas­sive open online cours­es that is acces­si­ble to stu­dents of all ages and means around the world.

Found­ed by Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, edX is designed to improve edu­ca­tion, both online and on cam­pus, while con­duct­ing research on how stu­dents learn. To date, edX has more than 675,000 sub­scribers; its goal is to edu­cate one bil­lion peo­ple world­wide in the next 10 years.

As a new part­ner, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to will deliv­er four cours­es on the www.edx.org plat­form in the sub­ject areas of ener­gy, pub­lic health, behav­iour­al eco­nom­ics and orga­ni­za­tion­al design. All will be taught by lead­ing U of T schol­ars.

“The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is extreme­ly pleased to join edX,” said Cheryl Mis­ak, Vice-Pres­i­dent and Provost of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. “This is the lat­est move in our ongo­ing efforts to pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple world­wide to have access to out­stand­ing edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als and to enhance the learn­ing expe­ri­ences of our own stu­dents.”

On the edX plat­form, U of T will offer four cours­es in the fall of 2013:

  • Ter­res­tri­al Ener­gy Sys­tems – Pro­fes­sor Bryan Kar­ney, Fac­ul­ty of Applied Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing;
  • Death 101: Reli­able Mea­sure­ment of the Caus­es of Death Glob­al­ly – Pro­fes­sor Prab­hat Jha, Dal­la Lana School of Pub­lic Health;
  • Behav­ioral Eco­nom­ics – Pro­fes­sor Dilip Soman, India Inno­va­tion Insti­tute, Rot­man School of Man­age­ment; and,
  • The Log­ic of Busi­ness: Build­ing Blocks for Orga­ni­za­tion­al Design – Pro­fes­sor Mih­nea Moldoveanu, Desau­tels Cen­tre for Inte­gra­tive Think­ing, Rot­man School of Man­age­ment.

Pri­or to today’s announce­ment, the edX con­sor­tium includ­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley, Welles­ley Col­lege, George­town Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Sys­tem. Join­ing U of T as new addi­tions today are Aus­tralian Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Ecole Poly­tech­nique Fed­erale de Lau­sanne, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty, Delft Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and McGill Uni­ver­si­ty.

The University’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in edX fol­lows its deci­sion last July to join Cours­era, anoth­er promi­nent plat­form for mas­sive open online cours­es that was devel­oped by Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. U of T has expe­ri­enced tremen­dous suc­cess with Cours­era, with more than 256,000 stu­dents sign­ing up for its sev­en cours­es.

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

U of T Media Rela­tions
Tel: 416–978-0100
media.relations@utoronto.ca