«Collaboration is how we build and maintain a platform in a sustainable way»

#1 First of all, how do you think the conference has been going so far? Any feedback from the participants?

I think it's been going very well so far, except it's been very hot. [laughs] The keynotes this morning [July 2nd] were very interesting in terms of talking about the potential future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I think there were some interesting ideas about how we can integrate tools in the Open edX ecosystem that will help us get ahead of some of the maybe more negative consequences of AI and focus on some of the positive pedagogical impacts that we can have and making it easier to learn.

#2 How are these annual meetings important for the Open edX community?

I think that as an international community, it's really important to bring everybody from around the globe together for these sessions so that we can learn from each other, know what people are working on, learn what's important in different regions and align on projects together. I was just talking in the last session with three organizations that are all interested in working on the same project. And to be able to bring those organizations together to work on these projects, having these in-person events is really important for that.

#3 One of the buzzwords we've been hearing a lot across this year’s conference is "collaboration". Do you think open access and collaboration are still relevant for the future of online education?

I think they're not only relevant, but they’re also essential for the future of education. Collaboration is how we build and maintain a platform in a sustainable way.

#4 Another common buzzword and hot topic of this year's edition is "Artificial Intelligence". How do you personally see this skyrocketing rise of AI and how do you think it will impact the community long term?

In terms of platform strategy, the goal is that we want to have a platform that is extensible for AI tools rather than trying to bring AI into the core. Since AI is constantly changing and constantly evolving, we want to make it very extensible and easy for people to develop plug ins in the ecosystem so they can plug into the platform. There's sort of endless opportunity to innovate in that space.

#5 Any plans for the future? Maybe insights into next year's edition? Or is it still very much a secret?

You mean in terms of location? It's not a secret because we don’t know yet. [Laughs]

#6 But overall, what do you think will be the next big topics? Will we continue this trend of AI?

Yes. I think AI is not going away. Annie Cellini and I just gave our talk on Axim’s next steps. The line of actions will focus on Axim’s mission of driving social and economic mobility for learners and connecting learners to opportunities that will help them to make a better life. So we're focusing on workforce development, upskilling and reskilling features. That’s going to be Axim’s focus for sure. And I think there was quite a bit of enthusiasm from other folks as well. There's quite a bit of providers already who are working in that space. So I think collectively, if we can work on features that are going to help drive the platform forward and make it more modular, extensible and focused on that customization and personalized approach to credentials, both degree and non-degree pathways, we will be able to move the needle on helping learners to find better outcomes.

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Axim Collaborative is a joint endeavor by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is the successor to edX, the online learning platform launched by the two universities in 2012. It is also responsible for the development of Open edX, the open source software behind Plataforma NAU. Discover more about the Open edX Community and its yearly conference at https://openedx.org/.