MIT to offer labs, certificates to virtual students

(Reuters) - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is developing technology that will allow students taking courses online to use simulated labs, interact with professors and other students, and earn certificates.

"The driver is to reach everyone out there who can't be here," MIT Provost Rafael Reif said on a conference call with reporters on Monday.

MIT is already known for its OpenCourseWare program, which offers some 2,100 courses online for free.

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From MIT news
MIT today announced the launch of an online learning initiative internally called “MITx.” MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses through an online interactive learning platform that will:

organize and present course material to enable students to learn at their own pace
feature interactivity, online laboratories and student-to-student communication
allow for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allow students who demonstrate their mastery of subjects to earn a certificate of completion awarded by MITx
operate on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational institutions.

MIT expects that this learning platform will enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences. MIT also expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world.