Serendipity35

At the end of the school year in the U.S., students who are taking accelerated advanced placement courses (ones designed to be similar in content to general education courses in colleges) take the Advanced Placement (AP) exams. These exams are important factors for admissions to most elite universities. Those terms are registered trademarks of the College Board, but high schools create their own AP classes. There has long been a market for test prep materials and courses for those exams,  and teachers who do tutoring outside the classroom often focus on those courses.

Now, edX is offering more than 40 high school and Advanced Placement® preparation courses. This massive open online course (MOOC) provider and online learning platform hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide audience, some at no charge. EdX was founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in 2012 during the peak of MOOC frenzy. More than 60 schools, nonprofits, corporations, and international organizations offer or plan to offer courses on the edX website and edX has more than 500 different courses online.

Their offerings let students around the world prepare for college and also for AP exams. They can also be used to supplement AP coursework by student or teachers.

The edX model is to allow you to take any course free, or pay for a Verified Certificate to share with teachers or college admissions. 

The College Board was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, these offerings. This is not an offering that other test prep companies or individuals might welcome. But it is a logical, and I think welcome, application of the MOOC model. It is another move forward in the [r]evolution of offering large (if not massive) open (if not always fully open) online courses to learners.