The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the global technical standards organization for the Web, announced today that it has joined edX, one of the world’s leading online course platforms, as a new member and will offer its first course on HTML5 on 1 June, 2015. Registration is now open.

Under the name of W3Cx, the W3C will develop a number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), showcasing its authority and expertise across a range of courses on core Web technologies.

“W3C’s partnership with edX expands opportunities for Web developers to take courses specifically created for them by W3C,” said Dr. Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. “These W3Cx courses will help them increase their skills and empower them to become the next leaders and innovators on the Web.”

“We are honored to welcome W3C to edx.org,” said Anant Agarwal, CEO, edX. “As an international community, focused on leading the Web to reach its full potential, W3C’s global scope, expertise and collaborative ethos will help edX learners from around the world reach new heights in their technical knowledge and abilities.”

W3Cx courses start with HTML5-part 1

The first W3Cx course will be HTML5-part 1 and will focus on Web design fundamentals at an intermediate level. HTML5 is the standard language of the Web, and W3C and the Web community have developed it. It is widely recognized that HTML5 is and will be the essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms.

Taught by Michel Buffa, Professor at the University of Côte d’Azur (UFR Sciences), HTML5-part 1 will enable participants to master and practice the new features in HTML5 and learn to create rich Web sites and applications. See Professor Buffa’s course intro video and read the course description for more information.

W3C continues its developer engagement

For almost 14 years, the W3C has been developing and hosting open-source tools used every day by millions of Web developers and Web designers. According to Marie-Claire Forgue, Director of Training at W3C, the W3C partnership with edX represents an important new area of support for developer engagement opportunities with W3C.

“W3C has a long and rich history of providing support and services to the developer community,” said Dr. Forgue. “The W3Cx courses mean that thousands of developers around the world will have greater access to high quality training programs developed by W3C.”

In addition to W3Cx, W3C also runs traditional e-teaching on its W3DevCampus platform, hosts online documentation for developers via WebPlatform.org, and maintains open-source validator tools.