Talk:EdX

Bad Faith Corporate Edits

I am the original author of the Open edX platform.

FYI: edX/Axim employees are making bad-faith edits to the page:

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=EdX&diff=1168261720&oldid=1157703250

Specifically, very strangely, nedbat who is a "community organizer" there, appears to be going around Wikipedia pages and likely other places, trying to erase my involvement in the project (I am also not mentioned anywhere in official edX literature, and the authors/contributors file was removed from the repo). I understand the politics there, but at the core, it's not very honest, and it's outside of how Wikipedia ought to operate.

There is a git version history on the repository: https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform

I originally proposed the initiative to MIT, and all of the commits in 2011 were made by me, to the point of a working platform / core architecture. We launched to MIT students start of spring semester in 2012 (beginning of Feb 2012); by the point other contributors came in, the core platform was done. In terms of current maintenance, it's an open-source project, controlled by Axim/MIT/Harvard, but with around a thousand individual contributors.

I gave a more comprehensive history on the Open edX talk page, before noticing that this was a concerted effort to rewrite history internet-wide.

It's very strange. This should ideally be handled by someone objective from Wikipedia (not myself, and not edX astroturf efforts).

I'll mention this is not restricted to edits about me. edX has always generated a lot of controversy. That should be reflected in the page. Prior to the edition of the section "Subsidiary of 2U (2021-present)" (which I'm guessing marketing drones haven't found / astroturfed yet), this page read as marketing copy (with none of the controversy mentioned) giving the official edX marketing history, which as with any marketing history, is somewhat detached from external reality.

I don't quite know how Wikipedia handles something like this, but I thought I would flag it. Pmitros (talk) 10:21, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@PMitros: I don’t think removing the name Piotr Mitros necessarily constitutes bad faith. We do require everything is corroborated by sources though. For corroboration a memento (copy of an old version) of a credible source is sufficient, it doesn’t need to be still present in today’s version. Wikipedia’s procedures have already been criticized. ‑‑ K (🗪 | ✍) 15:35, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kai Burghardt: In this case, there is a lot of politics which I don't want to get into, but it was very much bad-faith. It was also contrary to wikipedia conflict-of-interest policy, which would have required the edX PR folks to identify themselves as such (much as I did).

The archival, primary source here is the version history of edX and of 6.002x, both of which are public, and which anyone can look up. These are archival records, in `git` (which is very similar to a block chain in design, in that they are stored in a cryptographically-secure Merkle tree, so early records can't be tempered with or forged). Simply run: `git clone https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform` then `git log` and you'll see all the 2011 commits were made by me. If you want, you can even run the late December version and see a fully-working MOOC platform with OLX and whatnot. You can do the same for the 6.002x repo, and you'll see that probably a majority and definitely a plurality of the actual work was done by Jerry Sussman. If anyone actually wants to do archaeology, I can provide emails and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it's almost certainly not worth it. I'm just annoyed at MIT astroturfing, constantly violating its own academic integrity policies, and generally acting without integrity (not just around edX; this is an institutional problem).

In practice, someone neutral and objective (not me) should revise the whole page to include not just this, but all of the controversy around early and late edX. It's actually sort of important for the historical record, so if someone tries again, they can perhaps learn from the experience and make a different set of mistakes next time.

Also: For the sake of transparency and not splitting threads, User:ElKevbo left a comment on my talk page, I responded on his, and he responded, if you'd like more background here specifically. Pmitros (talk) 00:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

History

The History section reads more like a history of MOOCs. Shouldn't it focus on edX and let the MOOC page elaborate on the broader perspective? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kern3020 (talk • contribs) 17:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

MITx and Harvardx

The cited sources use those terms. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:53, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Course Entries

Added the newly announced courses to be offered by edX.org in Fall 2012. User:ConAntonakos 3:57 AM 12 August 2012 (PDT)

A limited number of the initial courses is fine; listing large numbers is not. A link to the site's list of course offerings is what is needed on a permanent basis. User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I pruned the list to ten, and frankly, it could be pruned down to 3-5. I tried to keep the sample somewhat representative. --Eekim (talk) 22:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

contradictions?

edX is a massive open online course (MOOC) platform founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in May 2012 to host online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide audience at no charge and to conduct research into learning. EdX has nearly 1.6 million users. The two institutions have each contributed $30 million of resources to the nonprofit project. The prototype course, Circuits and Electronics, began in December 2011, through MITx, the massive open online program at MIT.[3] There are currently 29 schools that offer or plan to offer courses on the edX website.[4]

How can it be "founded' after its first course? --Surfer43_¿qué pasa? 18:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The "prototype course" began under "MITx", then edX was formed shortly after. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.133.228.126 (talk) 12:22, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

While I'm on the talk page, I'll respond:

I came up with the concept for edX in around 2005 or 2006, while working in Nigeria. I first proposed it to MIT in 2007, and I developed many of the concepts nights / weekends. It began as an MIT project in November 2011, but wasn't announced until December. We launched to MIT students for the spring semester (so start-of-February 2012), and to MOOC students start-of-March. Harvard came on around April / May, when the initiative was renamed to 'edX' and incorporated. Curiously, now looking at propublica and GuideStar, I'm seeing tax-exempt status as only having been awarded in 2014. I'm not quite sure if that's an error, or what's up with that.

Any of those (and many more dates) could be picked as the starting date, but for a variety of reasons (mostly having to do with keeping Harvard happy and having both institutions appear as co-equal partners), May 2012 was generally used in all the corporate PR. Pmitros (talk) 00:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Users of EdX

The wiki article states that EdX has 2.5 million users and provides a source of this information however, when you visit this article it refers to 1.6 million users and nor is it referred to in the podcast. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pinzymalone (talk • contribs) 15:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Good catch. I searched around for a reference, but couldn't find a good one. I left a note on User:RpEdu's talk page (who added the current number), and in the meantime, inserted a citation needed note. --Eekim (talk) 20:16, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

No Longer Free

EDX charges $50-100 per course for a "verified certificate." They also pretend to offer a free audit version with access to all the materials, but that's a lie. Many (or most classes) restrict access to many of the materials in the audit version. For instance, in Finding Hidden Message in DNA, from UC San Diego, most of the instructional material is on Stepic, but it only allows access to Stepic for the "verified" version, not for auditors. However, the same course is available on Coursera with a truly free audit version, including ALL the materials including Stepic. EDX has become a rip-off. RayEstonSmithJr (talk) 01:56, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Shenzhen, China?

Maybe the relation to China, Shenzhen should be mentioned here, although it is not clear on website but you can see sth on Edx. Mahengrui1 (talk) 23:36, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Acording to this reddit thread (EdX Student Community on reddit.com) the Shenzen reference 深圳市恒宇博科技有限公司 粤ICP备17044299号-2 is due to EdX beeing accessible from mainland China. In order for that to be possible the site has to be hosted in China and|or requires verification by the Chinese authorities. I think it would be great if someone who knows more about that topic could update (maybe) under EdX#Participating_institutions. DanielLebier (talk) 03:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Outdated sections

Some of this information is from 2014, a considerable amount of time in the edtech world. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 19:19, 3 October 2023 (UTC)