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Digital Pedagogy - A Guide for Librarians, Faculty, and Students

This guide is meant to inform the user about Digital Pedagogy. It includes information on educational theory, a collection of case studies, and resources relevant to the study of digital pedagogy.

MOOC Providers

There are now numerous providers that offer access to MOOCs, however, the top providers remain Coursera, edX, and Udacity. The following is a brief description of the history and service provided by each.

  1. Coursera: For profit educational platform that partners with the top universities in order to provide open courses to anyone online. Coursera’s courses appear to have an emphasis on pedagogical approaches including mastery and blended learning, with an emphasis on peer assessments. It offers almost 1800 courses, and has 138 educational partners (January 2016).

     b. edX: Founded by Harvard University and MIT, edX has 90+ global partners, offering around           850 courses. The company was founded and continues to be governed by colleges. It emphasizes the following pedagogical questions:

  • What motivates students to learn and persist?
  • What helps students retain knowledge?
  • What are the best ways to teach complex ideas?
  • How can we assess what students have learned?
  • What is best taught in person vs. online?

     c. Udacity: This for profit company was founded by former Stanford professor Sebastian Thurn, and made headlines in 2011 by offering a course on artificial intelligence that 150,000 + students enrolled in. This platform now offers nanodegree programs. This platform, in addition to partnering with universities, has also partnered with proprietary companies. Certificates of completion are provided to participants.

Other providers include: