CERTIFIED SKILLS: Massive open online course (MOOC) platform edX today announced another addition to its digital learning offerings: Professional Certificate programs, which entail a series of courses centered around specific career skills in fields such as digital marketing, data science and virtual reality. With the launch, edX is offering 15 Professional Certificate programs from 13 universities and companies, including UC Berkeley, Dartmouth College and Microsoft.
EdX already offers packaged courses catered towards specific skillsets via the website’s MicroMasters program, which usually take about two to six months to complete. According to a company announcement, the Professional Certificate programs will be shorter than MicroMasters, lasting from about one to eight weeks, and “are designed to provide learners with a more immediate path to re-skill or up-skill quickly.”
Similar to MicroMasters, the Professional Certificates aren’t free; costs range from $25 to as much as $585 per course.
