Close of the edX/2U transaction

Dear colleagues,

I write with an update on the edX sale transaction following President Reif’s June announcement regarding a new future for edX. Today, 2U announced it finalized the sale after receiving approval from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month. 

Faculty and instructional staff with MITx massive open online courses (MOOCs), please visit openlearning.mit.edu/mitxfaculty for guidance and more information.

As of today, the nonprofit successor to edX is also up and running, albeit with a small starting staff. Its primary job in the immediate term is to maintain the Open edX platform and support the platform’s users. 

In September, Chair of the Faculty Lily Tsai, Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma, and I charged two faculty groups: the Ad Hoc Committee on MITx and MITx Online is developing an Institute-wide process for consulting with faculty and departments on how online education can effectively contribute to MIT’s education and research mission. The Nonprofit Entity Working Group is developing recommendations on how best to update the nonprofit entity’s mission, activities, and governance to advance its founding goals in ways that support the values and expectations of MIT’s community. These groups are hard at work, and we will report on their progress in the coming months.

Sincerely,

Martin A. Schmidt
Provost