Open edX 2018 Conference

In May 2013, Georgia Tech together with its partners, Udacity and AT&T, announced a new online master’s degree in computer science delivered through the platform popularized by massively open online courses (MOOCs). This new online MS CS— or OMSCS for short — costs less than $7,000 total, compared to a price tag of $40,000 for an MS CS at comparable public universities and upwards of $70,000 at private universities.
 
The first-of-its-kind program was launched in January 2014 and has sparked a worldwide conversation about higher education in the 21st century. President Barack Obama has praised OMS CS by name twice, and over 1,000 news stories mentioned the program. It’s been described as a potential "game changer" and "the first real step in the transformation of higher education in the US.” Harvard University researchers concluded that OMSCS is “the first rigorous evidence showing an online degree program can increase educational attainment” and predicted that OMSCS will single handedly raise the number of annual MS CS graduates in the United States by at least 7 percent.
 
To ensure program quality and rigor, Georgia Tech started in 2014 with small enrollment of 380; in January 2017 enrollment exceeded 6,360; about 7500 are expected to enroll in the Fall.  So far 895 students have graduated from OMSCS; over 300 will graduated in May. The program has also paved the way for a number of similar, MOOC-based MS programs.
 
The talk will describe the OMSCS program, how it came about, its first four years, and what Georgia Tech has learned from the OMSCS experience. We will also discuss its potential effect on higher education.