This set of questions and answers accompanies MIT’s February 13, 2012, announcement regarding MITx’s prototype course — 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics.
We will have a link to a form where you can sign up for our database and mailing list shortly. Please check back in the next two weeks to this website for further instruction.
Courses will begin again in the Fall Semester (September). We anticipate offering 4-5 courses this Fall, one of which will be 6.002x again. The additional classes will be announced in early summer.
The system only allows each username to be used once. Probably, someone else already signed up with that username. Try a different, more unique username. For example, try adding a random number to the end.
The log-in form will have a link to reset your password once the course opens.
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You should also confirm you have a current version of Flash installed. While our player supports YouTube's HTML5 API (which allows playback without Flash), this support is experimental.
6.002x is the pilot course for MITx. While we plan to offer a range of courses in the future, at present, 6.002x is the only course available. Specific future offerings will be announced later.
The course will start on March 5. Check the website mitx.mit.edu as the date approaches. A login button will appear on the course website 6.002x.mitx.mit.edu on or slightly before March 5 so you can login, begin to get familiar with the site and start the course.
You will not be able to log into the course until either the starting date, or shortly before. If you have problems logging in once the course has started, please verify that you are using the latest version of either Firefox or Google Chrome, and have JavaScript and cookies enabled.
The lectures are on-line videos, and may be watched at your own pace and schedule. The course will have fixed deadlines for homework assignments and exams.
You should receive a single activation e-mail. If you did not, the most common issues are:
If you run into issues, try recreating your account. There is no need to do anything about the old account, if any. If it is not activated through the link in the e-mail, it will disappear later.
You do not have to do anything. You can simply stop working on the course at any time you choose to do so.
For the prototype course, learners achieving grades of "A," "B," or "C" will receive an electronic Certificate of completion with the learner's name and grade on it. If you receive a grade below a "C" or do not complete the course, you will not receive a Certificate and no grade record attaching your name to your participation in the class will be disclosed outside of MITx. You can also choose to opt for a no record at any time. However, the posts you make while enrolled in the class will remain visible.
MIT seeks through the development of MITx to improve education both on the MIT campus and around the world.
On campus, MITx will be coupled with an Institute-wide research initiative on online teaching and learning. The online learning tools that MITx develops will benefit the educational experience of residential students by supplementing and reinforcing the classroom and laboratory experiences.
Beyond the MIT campus, MITx will endeavor to break down barriers to education in two ways. First, it will offer the online teaching of MIT courses to people around the world and the opportunity for able learners to gain certification of mastery of MIT material. Second, it will make freely available to educational institutions everywhere the open-source software infrastructure on which MITx courses are based.
Since it launched OpenCourseWare 10 years ago, MIT has been committed to using technology to improve and greatly widen access to education. The launch of MITx represents a next step forward in that effort.
At MIT, each course is assigned a number. All courses in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) start with the number 6, and 6.002 (also known as Circuits and Electronics) is one of the introductory courses for EECS undergraduates. MITx’s 6.002x is modeled on the on-campus version of 6.002.
The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications.
6.002x is built on the content created collaboratively by MIT professors Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey H. Lang for 6.002.
To enroll, visit http://mitx.mit.edu and sign up.
6.002x will become available online on Monday, March 5.
In this pilot course of MITx, learners seeking a certificate will have weekly deadlines for homework and labs. Similarly, the midterm and final exam will be given within a specific range of days. However, faster-paced learners can proceed multiple weeks ahead if they choose.
Students should expect to spend approximately 10 hours per week on the course. However, the time taken by individual students might vary considerably depending on background and skill.
There are four instructors for 6.002x: Anant Agarwal, Chris Terman, Gerald Sussman and Piotr Mitros. The team also includes several teaching assistants (TAs).
Students taking 6.002x will have weekly video lectures, readings from the textbook, practice exercises and homework; design and laboratory exercises are also significant components of the course. The course will also provide additional tutorial material. There will be a midterm and a final exam. An interactive laboratory playground will also be made available for students to experiment creatively.
In general, for any given week, learners are expected to work through a couple of lecture sequences containing a few videos (each 5 to 10 minutes in length) and a few interactive practice exercises. Learners can also read appropriate parts of the textbook linked to the videos. Lab and homework exercises will round out the week. Tutorials are also provided as additional reference material.
The course will include a discussion forum for learners to ask questions, to post answers, and for discussions. Several helpful documents, FAQs, tutorials and videos on using the various components of the course will also be provided.
Yes. 6.002x will offer modest support for collaborative work through a prototype wiki and discussion forum.
While MITx courses are open to all, there are some skills required to succeed in taking the course.
In 6.002x, students are encouraged to have the knowledge obtained from a college-level physics course in electricity and magnetism (or from an advanced secondary-education course in electricity and magnetism, as with an Advanced Placement course in the United States). Students must know basic calculus and linear algebra, and have some basic background in differential equations.
Since more advanced mathematics will not show up until the second half of the course, the first half of the course will include an optional remedial differential equations component for students with weaker math backgrounds.
All of the courses on MITx will be free of charge. Those who have the ability and motivation to demonstrate mastery of content can receive a credential for a modest fee. For this prototype course, the fee for a credential will be waived.
Any learner who successfully completes 6.002x will receive an electronic certificate indicating a grade. This certificate will indicate that you earned it from MITx’s pilot course. In this prototype version, MITx will not require that you be tested in a testing center or otherwise have your identity certified in order to receive this certificate. MITx certificates are not planned to count towards MIT course credit.
MITx courses will use automated technologies to check student work including practice exercises, homework assignments, labs and exams.
Grading schemes for each course will be announced with the course. 6.002x will be graded on an absolute scale. The components affecting a student’s grade and the grade thresholds will be posted on the course website when the course comes online.
The course uses the textbook Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits, by Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey H. Lang. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005. Relevant sections will be provided electronically as part of the online course. While the textbook is recommended, it is not required. The electronic text is provided for personal use in connection with this course only. The copyright for the book is owned by Elsevier. The book can be purchased on Amazon.
No, you do not need special software to access 6.002x, as you will access the online interactive course through your browser. The course website was developed and tested primarily with the current version of Google Chrome. We support current versions of Mozilla Firefox as well. The video player is based on Youtube, and is designed to work with Flash. We provide a partial non-Flash fallback for the video, but this uses Google's experimental HTML5 API, and hence we cannot guarantee those will continue to function for the duration of the semester. We provide partial support for Internet Explorer, as well as other browsers and tablets, but portions of the functionality will be unavailable.
Additional courses will be announced on mitx.mit.edu as they become available. We expect this will happen in fall 2012. We also have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.