 My name is Wim von Pittgen. I come from the University of Leupham. And I used to be the Vice President Research of Eden. I'm happy today to be here with Tracy Tan, who came all the way from MIT to this conference. Tracy, welcome here for this interview. Maybe you can first introduce yourself. Sure. Thank you, Wim. And a big thanks to the Eden conference for inviting me. It's a great pleasure to be here. Conference is fantastic. Thank you. So my name is Tracy Tan. I'm the director of MicroMasters at MIT, MIT Open Learning. OK, maybe you can first tell us a little bit. What is MicroMasters? What does that mean? So I can tell you more about what MIT acts MicroMasters. So MicroMasters at MIT is a series of master's level content taught online by the MIT faculty. So the credential is designed to be a standalone for career development. And also, there's a unique feature of MicroMasters is its pathway to credits. So learners with a MicroMasters credential can accelerate their graduate study at MIT or other pathway schools. That's something new in MIT? MicroMasters is certainly very new, not only to MIT, but to the world. So we actually created a concept back in the fall of 2015, and the programs are running on edX, and they trademarked the MicroMasters term. And now there are 48 MicroMasters programs in the world. OK, what kind of programs are that? In what kind of fields or topics are you offering programs? So we offered the world the very first MicroMasters in supply chain management. And then we offered the world the very second one in data economics and development policy. And this year, we launched a new MicroMasters in principles of manufacturing. And we are going to launch a new MicroMasters in statistic and data science this fall. OK, thank you. Students taking these MicroMasters in these kind of topics, what is the link for them then with the other master programs that you're offering in MIT? I suppose that a MicroMaster is like a very small one, and they can go for a full master afterwards. So how does that go? Good question. So MicroMasters itself is not a degree program. It's a credential, it's an online credential. And at MIT, it's basically half of professional master's content online. So once learners complete our MicroMasters credential online and they apply to the corresponding blended master's at MIT, their MicroMasters credential will be granted credits towards their master's study at MIT. OK, does that mean that they get waived for certain courses in the full master programs? Or how does that go? Similar, absolutely. So when we design the MicroMasters, we actually basically taking half of the content for our master's program. Oh, half of the content? About, yeah, 40% to 50% of our content. Then we put online. The form is not exactly the same because it's digital learning. We add additional exams, assessment to ensure the quality. Yeah, that's what actually what I'm interested in. What kind of extra support do you provide for the students taking these MicroMasters? Because it's online and you're used to have the on-campus master programs. What is extra for the students in these MicroMasters? Well, first, we have audit track and the verified track. Verified track means learners pay to obtain a credential. So for the audit track, learners can take the content, the assessment at their pace. And then for the verified track, we actually provide additional support, as you mentioned. So we have faculty run live webinars. We have a community teaching assistant. And we have a course teaching assistant who engage with our learners with content questions on the edX discussion forum. So they sort of get full support like you're offering the on-campus students, but it's online? Yeah, because the number of learners we have, I wouldn't say the way we offer it exactly can replicate the support we have on campus, such as students' success or career support. I don't, that's not supported for MicroMasters learners. But in terms of content study, we do our best to provide support as fast as we can. OK. Is there any, the courses that you are offering in the MicroMasters program online, is that the same sort of courses that you're also offering in your on-campus programs? Or is that different courses? Or is it just the same topic? Yeah, basically it's a half of the topics of a full master's we put online. And but we. It's not similar, but exactly the same. The content, a lot of materials in our MicroMasters also used in the residential master's program. But we created additional materials, case studies, and assessment to make it absolutely. OK. That sounds very interesting. And I was just wondering, this is now in MIT. But how does that relate to the rest of the world, let's say? Do you have similar initiatives, are you aware of similar initiatives in other universities, or you are cooperating with other universities on these MicroMasters? Well, for MicroMasters creation, so there are 48 MicroMasters topics offered by 24 global schools on the edX platform as of today. So out of the 48, MIT is offering four MicroMasters as the topics you asked me earlier. And besides MicroMasters creation, and we also work with the global universities on pathway to credits. So we have an internal pathway at MIT where runner can apply and accelerate their master's study. And then we also build an ecosystem of universities in the world to actually recognize our MicroMasters credential for credits towards various of their master's programs. OK, but that means that the, well, I have actually two questions. In MIT, the masters that the students can take after this, they are in the same subject as the MicroMasters. They are called same sort of program. Is that the same for the other universities in the global world? Or are they just integrated in their programs? I mean, if you were talking about supply chain management, this might be part of a business management program or so? Or how does that go? Yeah, surprisingly, we have built links beyond the field of MicroMasters. So for supply chain management, Purdue University is recognizing our credential towards their supply chain management master's. And we also have universities like Dome University or Curt University in Australia recognize it to their business degrees. And then we also link into other universities like Deakin and the Rick and Vic universities to their other kind of master's programs. So it's not necessarily a direct topic connection. Yeah. OK, good. Why are you doing that, working together with all these other universities? I'm interested in what is the win-win in that. I suppose MIT has an advantage in doing this. I can also imagine that the other universities are very happy to do that. But what is according to you, the win-win in this story? That's a great question. For MIT, when we design the MicroMasters, one of the unique features is passed with credits. And after several rounds of our MicroMasters, we have over 1,000 learners have completed the credential. And numbers continue to go up. But at MIT, our blended master's has a capacity limit. Every year, we can only accept 40 students in supply chain, 20 students in the economic department, and 15 from the manufacturing. So it's only a minority. Very, very small number. So then we have thousands of learners have completed, where can they go? We surveyed them, and many said that they want to get their first or second master's degree. So that's the motivation behind MIT to create these global pathways. OK, so do you mean that you also want to make sort of global network of MIT alumni, although they haven't been on the campus at MIT? When you say alumni, what do you mean? Well, graduates from MIT. Or do you not consider them as graduates? It's a certificate. It's not a bachelor or master program. Currently, the credential holders from MicroMasters at MIT are not alumni of MIT. They can consider alumni for the MicroMasters, but they are not officially MIT alumni. But it's still something valuable on their CV, I guess. Absolutely. Absolutely. We already have feedback on that. Absolutely. We already do service all the time. We have seen learners got job promotion, or raise, or successful career transition after receiving the MicroMasters credential. And some learners even find that one or two courses are super helpful for them for career improvement. Was that one of the reasons that you started with this, that there is maybe a demand from the labor market for this kind of certificate? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because as you know, MOOCs is such a popular offering after the open education, open courseware. And as the online learning space getting crowded with offerings, it's hard for learners in industry to differentiate offerings and find a match. So and also at that time, a couple of years ago, there is this high unmet demand of MIT, for MIT graduate level content to be online offered for professionals. So that's why we did the MicroMasters. Does that mean that the labor market also has a sort of impact on what kind of MicroMasters you're offering, or is that your own choice? Very good question. At least for MIT, when we design our MicroMasters topics, we look at many factors. And the industry perspective and job prospects are very important for us to consider topics. Good. We are about to end this interview, but I still have two questions for you. And when is the more philosophical one? How do you think that this evolution of MicroMasters, it's not just in MIT, like you said, it's happening in other universities as well. And so how will that change, let's say, higher education in the global world? Do you have any idea? Will we have more and more of this happening? Or how do you see the future of this? Yeah, this is a very big question. I mean, the role of higher education has changed because of open education. We're not a traditional place for people just to get undergrad or graduate degrees. We're a place for learners for lifelong learning. Or the term I learned from Eden, life-wide and also life-deep learning. And the MicroMasters, it's additional innovation from open education because it added quality assessment to show the rigor. And also because the offering school is granting credits for the credential, actually guarantees the value and the credibility of the value. Which is the biggest you're in open education. So that is important to the learners and also to the industry. OK, and a very final question then. You're here at the Eden conference. And do you have any particular message for the Eden community related to your MicroMasters story in MIT? I think the Eden community is doing fantastic work in exploring in this new era. It's a very, higher education entering is a very, very interesting era. And it's time for us to consider change and innovation. I think we can all work together, share our best practices and look forward together to see how we can innovate to the way that can tailor the next generation and the existing generation that can offer the lifelong learning, life-wide and life-deep learning. OK, Tracy, that's a nice message to end with. Thank you very much for your wise answers. And maybe we can meet again at the next Eden conference in Bruges. Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you, Will. Thank you.