The online titan Western Governors University is experimenting with an open-source learning platform. So are Verizon and the Indian government. And the platform’s leaders want to help community colleges take the plunge on competency-based education.
Open edX was created in 2012, and later powered edX, a groundbreaking online learning venture managed by MIT and Harvard University. The edX platform was a key player in the MOOC movement, which influenced online learning in higher education and may have accelerated its acceptance.
The online learning company 2U bought edX in 2019 for roughly $800M. The two universities used that money to create a foundation, the Axim Collaborative, which runs the Open edX project. The nonprofit philanthropy is focused on driving economic mobility and increasing access to high-quality learning opportunities.
The Open edX platform inherently supports self-paced learning, and offers several features that make it a good fit for competency-based education and skills-forward learning, says Stephanie Khurana, Axim’s CEO.
“Flexible modalities and a focus on competence instead of time spent learning improves access and affordability for learners who balance work and life responsibilities alongside their education,” she says.
Yet it seems surprising that one of the nation’s largest online universities—and by far the most successful CBE-based institution—would find value in an open-source platform. Part of the draw, says David Morales, WGU’s CIO and senior vice president of technology is Open edX’s modular data architecture.
“We are able to track student events and actions at a much more granular level,” he says. That means Open edX “delivers real-time data to our faculty and staff—ultimately improving student support.”
WGU has used the platform for years. In February, the university announced a deeper partnership, offering guidance and a team of engineers to help shape the project and deepen its reach. Open edX expects to partner with other universities for similar roles.
The platform offers self-paced course structures, comprehensive content management, forums, integration with proctoring systems, and more, says Courtney Hills McBeth, the chief academic officer and provost at WGU.
“It was built specifically for online education with a flexible schedule,” she says, “instead of being based on or locked into a fixed structure of courses, semesters, or academic years.”
Workforce-Aligned and Affordable: The platform’s flexibility can be an accelerator for competency-based education, says Lisa McIntyre-Hite, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Competency-Based Education Network.
“Plus, being open-source means institutions and organizations can collaborate to build and share CBE-specific tools and features,” she says, “which could lower costs and speed up innovation across the field.”
Axim thinks Open edX’s ability to scale affordably can support community colleges in reaching working learners across an underserved market. The foundation is seeking to work with a handful of community colleges in the next few months to help them meet rising demand for skills-forward credentials and certifications. For this project Axim has partnered with C-BEN and Unicon, an ed-tech consulting firm.
The foundation also wants to make it easier for two-year colleges to work with local employers, by offering tailored and AI-focused curriculum, for example. Other potential uses through the platform include creating microcredentials from existing courses, remixing manufacturing courses, and co-creating content with industry partners.
“Our broader intention is that community colleges will see the Open edX platform as a way to quickly launch and scale new workforce-aligned programs, in response to local employer needs and rapid technology disruption, without incurring significant license or technology support fees,” Khurana says.
Gone Global: Roughly a quarter of the 2K or so organizations that currently use Open edX are corporate partners, some of which tap the platform for upskilling and reskilling workers.
For example, Verizon uses it to help deliver Skill Forward, a free skills training program that features 250 courses across 84 professional certificate tracks. Those certs are aimed at high-demand jobs in AI, business, coding, communication, finance, and IT, among others. Axim says the platform’s lack of a per-user license fee is helpful for the partnership with Verizon.
IBM uses Open edX as the core platform for its Skills Network, a global upskilling and reskilling project. Beyond standard courses, the company customizes Open edX to offer hands-on lab environments, AI-powered grading tools, and a competition management system that enables massive-scale events like a hackathon including 176K employees.
On the government front, a public-private venture in India has developed a national learning management system built on the Open edX platform. The Skill India Digital Hub seeks to boost the employability of people across the country—even in the smallest villages—with mobile-first online courses offered in 14 languages.
More than 13M verified users in India have registered through the platform, across courses ranging from basic literacy instruction to advanced technical training.
Looking forward, Khurana says Open edX will continue to lean into helping competency-based learning models deliver on their promise.
The Kicker: “CBE’s emphasis on practical skills and workforce readiness can help underserved learners gain the credentials they need to secure meaningful employment,” she says.