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This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.

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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Google, edX Partner on MOOC.org

Google is jumping onto the massive open online course (MOOC) bandwagon in a partnership with edX to create an open-source learning platform to be called mooc.org. The companies will work together to develop the Open edX learning platform for professors to use to conduct courses online and will make it available to students, teachers, institutions, businesses, and governments worldwide.

The partnership allows Google to expand on its Course Builder open-source platform for creating online courses that it launched last year. The site is expected to go live early next year.

Google also announced a partnership with Udacity to form the Open Education Alliance, a project focused on teaching skills needed to find jobs in the tech industry.

These partnerships could signal a Google move into the education market.

“We support the development of a diverse education ecosystem as learning expands in the online world,” Google Director of Research Dan Clancy wrote in a blog post. “Part of that means that educational institutions should easily be able to bring their content online and manage their relationships with their students. Our industry is in the early stages of MOOCs, and lots of experimentation is still needed to find the best way to meet the educational needs of the world. An open ecosystem with multiple players encourages rapid experimentation and innovation, and we applaud the work going on in this space today.”