Press Release: IMF and edX Join Forces to Pilot Online Economics and Financial Courses

IMF News, June 19, 2013

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Canonical URL: Press Release: IMF and edX Join Forces to Pilot Online Economics and Financial Courses

Press Release No.13/221
Date: June 19, 2013
Issued by: IMF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT, Media Relations
Purpose: Announce collaboration between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and edX to extend IMF training courses in macroeconomics and finance via the edX online learning platform.

First two online courses to be piloted:
- Financial Programming and Policies
- Debt Sustainability Analysis
Rollout plan:
- Pilots rolled out to small groups of government officials in the coming months (from June 19, 2013).
- Plans to open access to the general public during 2014.
Delivery model:
- Interactive education provided free of charge via edX where there is internet access.

Primary aims:
- Strengthen economic expertise worldwide.
- Increase capacity of officials to analyze and formulate sound macroeconomic and financial policies.
- Broaden access to IMF training beyond its traditional participant base.
Target audiences explicitly identified:
- Government officials (central bank, finance ministry, and other officials)
- Students and teachers
- The financial services industry
- Members of parliament and civil society
- The general public (planned opening in 2014)

IMF:
- Will move policy-oriented courses to edX’s online platform to reach many more government officials and the general public.
- Current training scope: offers policy-oriented courses to officials from its 188 member countries.
- 2012 activity: provided training to about 7,800 officials through its global network of eight training centers and programs.
edX:
- Described as a not-for-profit enterprise composed of 20+ leading global institutions, the xConsortium.
- Chosen for its cutting-edge online learning environment, educational expertise, and global reach.
- edX President Anant Agarwal emphasized platform flexibility, feature-rich capabilities, and massive scalability.

Course design:
- Policy-oriented economic analysis combined with workshops incorporating real world applications reflecting experiences of IMF global membership.
Pedagogical modalities cited:
- Online, on-campus, and blended teaching and learning models.
- Examples of platform uses: blended learning, flipped classrooms, richer on-campus learning experiences.

Sharmini Coorey, director of the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development:
- “We are delighted to join with edX in this new initiative, which will allow us to respond to the demands for more training from our member countries.”
- “The training we provide is aimed at increasing the capacity of officials to analyze and formulate sound macroeconomic and financial policies. We look forward to being able to offer online access to a broader audience through future massive open online courses. We hope that these short courses will be useful to students and teachers, the financial services industry, members of parliament and civil society, and many others, thus promoting greater understanding of economic policy issues.”
Anant Agarwal, edX President:
- “This collaboration with the IMF demonstrates another innovative use of the edX platform. We have seen universities use our platform to deliver educational content in ever-evolving ways – from blended learning to flipped classrooms to richer on-campus learning experiences. It is a natural progression for us to work with a variety of other institutions seeking a flexible, feature-rich and massively-scalable platform to deliver their own educational programs.”

IMF:
- Alistair Thomson — AThomson2@imf.org — (+1) 202-623-6312
- Media Relations general: media@imf.org — Phone: 202-623-7100
edX:
- Dan O’Connell — oconnell@edx.org — (+1) 617-480-6585

IMF Press Release No.13/221, June 19, 2013.