The platform's main focus is to manage a variety of offerings, including elite brand bootcamps.

Gerry Sussman, Anant Agarwal, Chris Terman, and Piotr Mitros taught the first edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, drawing 155,000 students from 162 countries.

[9] In April 2015, edX partnered with Arizona State University to launch the Global Freshman Academy.

[12][13] In January 2018, edX partnered with Microsoft and General Electric to provide subsidized online courses and guaranteed job interviews.

The programs offer undergraduate level courses which can lead to university credit for degree seeking students.

[20] According to Anant Agarwal, when 2U acquired edX, it “made a legally binding commitment to preserve and advance edX’s founding mission..." Jefferson D. Pooley, a Muhlenberg University professor and Harvard graduate said “The whole sale itself was a betrayal and a fundamentally misguided choice by Harvard and MIT to betray, in my view, the trust that faculty and students put into it when they signed onto the platform.” [21] In November 2023, 2U found itself in financial peril.

Whether or not a college or university offers credit for an online course is within the sole discretion of the school.

[26][31][32][33] A team of researchers at Harvard and MIT, led by David Pritchard and Lori Breslow, released their initial findings in 2013.

[25] EdX member schools and organizations also conduct their own research using data collected from their courses.

In late 2013, several countries and private entities announced their adoption of the edX open source platform to launch new initiatives.

Ten Chinese universities joined to form an online education initiative in China, called XuetangX.