What does a typical BerkeleyX course look like?
You can check out any course for free by visiting our BerkeleyX catalog, creating an edX account, and enrolling in any course as an auditor for free. We strongly encourage anyone interested in MOOCs to explore a few sample courses. A typical course includes video content, text or readings, discussion forums, and quizzes. The design and use of course materials vary widely depending on the topic, approach, and goals of the instructor.
Courses available on BerkeleyX are actively being taught as self-paced or instructor-led courses. No content will be available as archived and open for public read-only access. Once the course has completed its run/teaching, it will be removed from the public BerkeleyX catalog. When the protocol for rerunning a course has completed, it will be available for a maximum of one year on the BerkeleyX page and open for enrollments.
What does it cost to develop and run a course on edX?
There are substantial upfront costs to the sponsoring division, department or center for (1) course content production (2) accessibility training, testing, audio/video transcription, and quality assurance (3) content remediation for accessibility if needed and (4) recruiting, hiring, managing and paying the mandatory "course facilitators." Sponsoring divisions, departments, and/or centers should consider these substantial investment costs to determine if they want to pursue producing and delivering MOOCs.
What support is there for developing a BerkeleyX course?
Based in Digital Learning Services, the BerkeleyX program provides support for the launch and operations of edX courses. There is a clear and mandatory process that includes training, quality assurance, and final approval of instructor's content for accessibility purposes prior to publication. Instructional facilitation of courses as well as verified accessible content is mandatory for a course to launch and continue to run on the platform and employed/managed by the sponsoring department/program. To learn more, please contact digitallearning@berkeley.edu.
Can I make money with an edX course?
Very few programs have the potential to generate revenue from learners who enroll in the edX paid certificate courses that actually can cover the division, department, or center's investment and maintenance costs. Being realistic about the available market for your content is very important. EdX takes 40% of the overall gross revenue. Of the 60% of the overall gross is shared with campus, 60% is passed on to the sponsoring division, department, or center, who then determine how to split revenue with instructors and other stakeholders. The sponsoring division, department, or center must run an analysis of costs versus realistic potential revenue for a MOOC in order to ensure there is clear understanding of the ROI.