Question

What is the difference between EDX and the OCW?

Answer 1

AIUI OCW is simply the course material from various MIT courses made available online. edx is similar to Coursera in that it is actually run as a course and you can get graded. Not an actual MIT grade, but a certificate of some kind. Go to their web site and read it up.

Answer 2

Indeed, you can receive a MITx (notice the 'x' at the end) certificate of attendance in case you'll finish the course successfully. The edX course just use all course materials of OCW.
For further information: https://www.edx.org/faq

Answer 3

OCW is just a collection of a bunch of materials and media that is dumped with little to no organization. there is no type of interactivity, grades, or anything like that. It is just things like videos and course notes, and most of the times course are not complete with everything. OCW is like a database of these "courses" from mostly MIT and other smaller schools.

edX is a new platform that MIT created with Harvard. These are actual courses where everything is set up so you can easily move through the course, they include notes, videos, and if I am not wrong, there are automated assignments that you actualy have to turn in. At the end of the course, you can get a certificate of completion. edX has very few fully developed courses for now, as the rest are under developement. OCW has the same material as MIT open course ware, but instead they added some other material from other schools. edX is more like a full course, OCW is just a bunch of unorganized, cluttered, uncomplete, and non-graded nor certified courses.

Answer 4

My two cents: Yes as our partners here state OCW is study material towards personal enrichment but edX is an online education alternative that can benefit both from their material and OCW's (yes there are differences and sometimes they can use the same material but sometimes not everytime). edX can grant you a digital certificate too (with future plans for physical ones for a fee), if it is just like the MITx 6.002x , the certificate will also include a digital signature and will be signed by proper univerity authorities (Eric Grimsom , Dean of Online Education at MITx for that case), and may or may not offer both graded and non-graded ones. Of course as of now none of these ones will count for university credit, but trust me they are not easy to achieve you need to pass a lot of tests and exercises, Cheers! hope this info is helpful