Sunday, November 18, 2012

EdX to Offer Exams at the End of Their MOOCs - Technorati Technology

EdX to Offer Exams at the End of Their MOOCs - Technorati Technology:


EdX to Offer Exams at the End of Their MOOCs

Author: Adi Gaskell
Published: November 18, 2012 at 7:15 am
learning at workI'm a massive fan of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that are taking the world by storm.  Around a million people have already signed up for free courses from leading universities via the likes of Coursera or edX.
Something that was considered a drawback of the MOOCs however was that whilst they made it easy to acquire knowledge, they didn't come with any certification to prove that fact.
That may now be changing.  Leading MOOC provider edX have teamed up with Pearson VUE to offer students the possibility of taking a certified exam at the end of their short course.
edX, which offers courses from universities such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced the partnership today via their website.
"Our online learners who want the flexibility to provide potential employers with an independently validated certificate may now choose to take the course exam at a proctored test site," said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. "This option enhances the value of our courses in the real world, helps us maintain our goal of making high-quality education both accessible and practical and thus is a natural evolution of ed's core philosophy of transforming lives through education."
Pearson VUE are already a global leader in computer-based testing, and run testing facilities