Google joins Harvard, MIT online venture

BOSTON – Google Inc., owner of the world’s largest search engine, is joining the EdX online venture with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to allow teachers to create new education software, Bloomberg News reported last week.
Google will develop Open EdX, which will enable educators to innovate and experiment with the existing teaching technology, which delivers advanced courses to any student around the world with access to the Internet, EdX said today in a statement.
Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, Tsinghua University near Beijing, and other members of the nonprofit EdX network will collaborate with Google on the effort to create the open-source learning platform, EdX said. Google will also help the venture create a site, called MOOC.org, that will allow institutions outside the network to develop their own courses, according to the statement.
“We have long admired Google’s commitment to open access to information, and we believe they will be a perfect partner to work with as we shape the next generation of open education and learning,” EdX president Anant Agarwal said in the statement.