Controversy surrounds an online class on the edX learning platform, which was co-founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 with the mission of increasing access to university courses globally. The course is called “Introduction to Computer Science,” but it has been criticized for its lack of rigor — a criticism that some say reflects how many students are not prepared for computer science courses. As edX attempts to increase access to high-quality education, many educators feel it must increase its efforts to ensure both the quality, and lack of political bias, of its courses.
Controversy surrounds an online class on the edX learning platform, which was co-founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 with the mission of increasing access to university courses globally. Several Harvard professors have alleged that the course, “Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought,” taught by an associate professor of Tsinghua’s School of Marxism at Tsinghua University, represents a particularly biased perspective on history, influenced greatly by the Chinese Communist Party’s official historical account of Mao’s life. As edX attempts to increase access to high-quality education, many educators feel it must increase its efforts to ensure both the quality, and lack of political bias, of its courses.