Steve Hargadon, founder of the education website Classroom 2.0, said, “This is going to be a learning opportunity not only for the students, but for the universities.”
Institutions will be able to collect and analyze enormous amounts of data in a way that has never been done before.
“The research opportunities are just tremendous. That’s what’s really novel,” said Garber.
According to Garber, the information collected from edX will be available to researchers worldwide.
Faust emphasized that this data would improve learning for Harvard students and learners around the world. Professors who put their courses on edX will have access to information about how students learned in their courses, while researchers will be able to examine methods of teaching on a broader scale.
As Martha Stone Wiske, an Ed School lecturer on technology, innovation, and education, sees it, edX “both benefits the education of the elite while at the same time increasing access to quality education for a much broader audience.”
Many of the details surrounding what the program will look like when it launches this fall have not yet been determined. This, however, said Garber, is part of what makes the program most exciting.
“As you can detect, there’s a lot of questions that are unanswered as of today. That’s deliberate,” Garber said when edX was announced. “We need our faculty to be deeply engaged in the shaping of Harvardx.”
The excitement is bubbling despite the fact that MIT and Harvard have yet to disclose many specifics about the platform.
“It’s difficult to know how innovative the online courses are going to be. Before all of that is determined, any excitement about the program is premature,” said Chris Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Ed School.
But hopes are as high as could be. As MIT and Harvard look to take advantage of the untapped potential of online education, the platform represents a chance for the universities to reaffirm their preeminent positions in the world of higher education.
“Online technology could have the same impact on education as the printing press,” Agarwal said.
—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.