Stanford University will team with a nonprofit founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to develop an open-source Web platform for free online college courses. The Washington Post says the Stanford alliance with the nonprofit venture edX signals a new twist in the push to open up the highest levels of higher education to the world. Stanford has been central in the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Two Stanford computer scientists launched the for-profit MOOC platform Coursera, and Stanford offers several courses on that site. Another Stanford professor founded the for-profit MOOC provider Udacity.
