[HN Gopher] MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech fir...
___________________________________________________________________
MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U
Author : rolandm
Score : 358 points
Date : 2021-06-29 11:35 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| I guess we're sticking to youtube university then..
| kerkeslager wrote:
| If Julius Caesar had taken Alexandria in 2021, he'd have sold the
| library to a for-profit corporation.
|
| What a terrible loss.
| ludamad wrote:
| Why now? Is online learning not a big opportunity, or not the
| opportunity for them?
| lstmemery wrote:
| This really feels like the end of an era. I got my start going
| through the MITx computer science and probability courses. I
| wouldn't be a data scientist today if I didn't have those
| resources available.
|
| I now understand how to self-learn difficult subjects with
| textbooks and online lectures but I really appreciated MITx's
| commitment to making rigorous courses freely available.
| brutus1213 wrote:
| This seems like terrible news :( After the focus on monetization
| of platforms such as udemy and coursera, edx seemed to give me a
| sliver of hope that education will be open. Given the immense
| trust funds held by Harvard and MIT, I had hoped money would not
| be a factor and these institutions would be able to develop their
| platform in the open.
|
| I'd like to add .. non-profit does not mean free to end users.
| There are many good non-profits and there are many terrible ones
| (highly paid execs, insane amount of money spent on marketing).
| dalbasal wrote:
| Time will tell.
|
| Honestly, what I think is missing is a good destination. What
| is edX trying to be?
| benrbray wrote:
| I tried to use edX for the first time recently to take a "food
| science" course, but was disappointed to see that they've
| resorted to the same dark patterns as Coursera and others, such
| as:
|
| * Removing your access to course materials when the class is
| done, and disallowing access to past versions of the class.
|
| * Pressuring you into joining as many courses as possible, due
| to fear of missing out. When you visit the site, every course
| says "Course began ($TODAY-5)" to make you feel like "wow, I
| got here just in time! I better sign up for everything!".
|
| * Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant
| unhelpful quizzes. I really just want to hear the lecturer
| speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if
| I'm listening while doing dishes etc.
|
| * An unsettling UI that feels less like it's about presenting
| information in a compact and/or digestible way and more like
| it's tracking my every move and waiting for an opportunity to
| pounce. Everything is a button or clickthrough menu that
| requires interaction.
|
| Thankfully MIT OpenCourseWare still has plenty of lecture
| videos / course materials available. But I'm quite afraid for
| the future.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| >useless 2-minute chunks this is what keeps turning me off of
| moocs tbh. so many seem like they're designed specifically
| for people with no attention span... and no one else.
| maayank wrote:
| > * Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and
| constant unhelpful quizzes. I really just want to hear the
| lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted,
| especially if I'm listening while doing dishes etc.
|
| That's actually one of my favorite things when taking online
| courses...
| benrbray wrote:
| That's cool, do what works for you! I just wish I had the
| option to disable the quizzes/breaks and see it all in one
| go. I personally like to watch talks / lectures while I'm
| doing dishes, but I can't click on the quizzes with my
| soapy hands.
|
| I'm frustrated that tools that are meant to be _empowering_
| actually prevent people from customizing the course content
| to suit their own learning style / constraints.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Not surprised a cooking class doesn't lend itself to an easy
| online port! But the lecture content from Harvard's Science
| and Cooking with El Bulli's Ferran Adria is still as you
| mention freely available online for all to enjoy. I recently
| had a free week pass to Masterclass. And though I found the
| content more entertaining than enlightening (How to be a Boss
| with Anna Wintour). There is something to be said about
| educational content that is given a Hollywood production
| budget. I think it was always inevitable institutes of higher
| education would seek auxiliary revenue streams from MOOCs.
| And an influx of capital could result in lecture videos that
| are Netflix quality, and that enjoy near 100% levels of
| retention ;)
|
| Science and Cooking: A Dialogue | Lecture 1 (2010)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9av8-lhJS8
| drran wrote:
| Watching of a movie about agent 007 will not make you a
| super spy.
|
| To learn something, you need to watch a lecture, then
| receive a task, perform the task and provide a result, then
| receive feedback, and, finally, _learn_ from the feedback.
|
| Harvard video lectures are just another form of TV. They
| are mostly useless without Harvard.
| benrbray wrote:
| Those are actually exactly the lectures I watched before
| attempting to join the very disappointing EdX course by the
| same professors :).
|
| The lectures on YouTube were evening lectures meant to
| summarize each week of class, but the actual in-person
| students learned more about the actual chemistry involved,
| and did guided experiments to test different properties of
| food. I was hoping the EdX course by the same professors
| would give me an approximation that experience, but I was
| really disappointed. Technically there's a lot of good
| information still there, but the main problems were that
| the lectures were split into 2-minute chunks and the EdX UI
| constantly gets in the way of actually absorbing the
| content. I decided to buy a couple books on the topic
| instead.
| geodel wrote:
| You have made excellent points. So many of these courses feel
| that they are out to make one feel like shit if they decide
| to do free audit instead of paying. And this is despite
| telling multiple times the one is not interested in
| certificates which now can be attached on Linkedin.
| threatofrain wrote:
| > MIT OpenCourseWare still has plenty of lecture videos /
| course materials available.
|
| Hmm, I'd disagree. For example, Analysis 1 is a very desired
| course for many technical majors. Go look at OpenCourseWare's
| offerings for Analysis 1, perhaps peruse some of the videos.
|
| Then go look for other desired courses -- missing content is
| characteristic and not the exception.
| benrbray wrote:
| I guess I see it from this perspective: I don't start my
| search for learning materials at OCW, but I often end up
| there through a Google search! Sometimes, it's for a
| surprisingly advanced / specific topic, too.
| turadg wrote:
| This is a dilution of the meaning of "dark pattern".
| darkpatterns.org which coined the term (and Wikipedia cites)
| says, "When you use websites and apps, you don't read every
| word on every page - you skim read and make assumptions. If a
| company wants to trick you into doing something, they can
| take advantage of this by making a page look like it is
| saying one thing when it is in fact saying another."
|
| I don't see any of that in your observations. Moreover, what
| you attribute to some nefarious purpose is better explained
| by effective curriculum design. I haven't used edX lately but
| I worked at Coursera and I can tell you that the people who
| make that product have a passion to support learning in the
| world.
|
| * Removing access to course materials: it's a course, not a
| content library. When you can access it anytime, you're less
| likely to do the work of learning. You also won't be part of
| a learning cohort, which is a valuable learning activity.
|
| * Encouraging you to sign up for courses: this is a problem?
| Wouldn't someone who wants you to learn encourage you to sign
| up for courses? "Course began ($TODAY - 5)" that would be
| deceptive. Are you claiming that edX or Coursera does this?
|
| * Breaking courses into chunks and quizzes. How the heck is
| this deceptive? This design decision is backed by learning
| science. Listening while doing dishes does not get you the
| best learning outcomes; it's a university-level course not a
| podcast.
|
| * "Unsettling UI" "opportunity to pounce" I really don't know
| what to make of this one.
| cstejerean wrote:
| EdX definitely shows "Starts $TODAY" on courses with self
| paced start any time schedules. I know it does this and it
| still gets me every time by creating this false sense of
| urgency that I must enroll today lest I miss the
| opportunity.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| "Dark pattern" is getting way too popular.
| benrbray wrote:
| > I haven't used edX lately but I worked at Coursera and I
| can tell you that the people who make that product have a
| passion to support learning in the world.
|
| I don't doubt that there are people working at EdX /
| Coursera with a passion for education. I just think maybe
| these companies are moving in a direction that is at odds
| with the goal of providing free education, everywhere, to
| everyone, at any stage in their life.
|
| I enrolled in some of the earliest MOOCs. Sebastian Thrun's
| original ai-class.com which now redirects to Udacity. I
| took the first iteration of Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning"
| on Coursera, as well as Geoffrey Hinton's original NNML
| course. Back then, everything was open. Course materials
| were shared freely, and the archives were available for
| years after the course concluded. There was an autograder
| for coding assignments that didn't get in your way too
| much.
|
| Slowly, more and more roadblocks were put in place.
|
| What was your experience like at Coursera? Did you get a
| chance to see how decisions about the UI and structure of
| courses were made? Did you get a sense of how much the
| marketing / business side of things interfered with the
| education side?
|
| > better explained by effective curriculum design.
|
| For who? Maybe these sites have created a product that
| works well for a certain niche of people, and they've
| hyper-optimized for that. Great. But that's not really the
| dream we all had for it ten years ago.
|
| Like I said in a sibling comment: I've already been through
| school, and already know my own learning process. I find
| that the practices Coursera / EdX actively get in the way
| of my learning.
|
| > darkpatterns.org which coined the term
|
| Language changes. Most people include in their meaning of
| "dark pattern" things like "artificially restricting you
| from performing actions that the website is fully capable
| of performing, with dubious or justification or malicious
| intent".
|
| I don't think EdX is malicious, just that their reasons for
| restricting usage of course materials are dubious, and
| conflict with their stated mission.
|
| > Removing access to course materials: it's a course, not a
| content library.
|
| Why can't it be a content library? I learn a lot at
| libraries!
|
| > When you can access it anytime, you're less likely to do
| the work of learning.
|
| This structure helps some people, sure. But some people
| like me are not full-time students. Some weeks I have lots
| of time to dig in, other weeks I don't have time to even
| watch a lecture. Moreover, I'm learning for myself, not for
| credentials, so why should I care what a website thinks of
| my progress?
|
| > "Course began ($TODAY - 5)" that would be deceptive. Are
| you claiming that edX or Coursera does this?
|
| I don't have definitive proof, but every time I visit the
| EdX or Coursera sites it _just so happens_ that the _exact
| course I was searching for_ started within a week of the
| current date. Maybe I 'm being paranoid.
|
| > "Unsettling UI" "opportunity to pounce" I really don't
| know what to make of this one.
|
| This was mostly a joke :)
|
| > Breaking courses into chunks and quizzes. How the heck is
| this deceptive? This design decision is backed by learning
| science. Listening while doing dishes does not get you the
| best learning outcomes; it's a university-level course not
| a podcast.
|
| Again, I'm not a student. I trust my own learning process,
| which is impeded by constant quizzes. I'm doing this to
| broaden my knowledge. I don't have time to enroll in a
| college class, but I have time to listen to a few lectures
| when doing dishes, and read a couple book chapters per
| week.
|
| Coursera and others are technically capable of opening up
| their service to this use case -- it doesn't cost them
| anything -- so why not do it?
|
| In a certain sense, online education is thriving! There are
| tons of video lectures on YouTube available for free and I
| can easily pirate any textbook I want to with a quick
| Google search. It's just that Coursera / EdX / etc don't
| really fit into that for me. I really wish they did.
| bobobob420 wrote:
| "but I worked at Coursera and I can tell you that the
| people who make that product have a passion to support
| learning in the world."
|
| lol, no one will take your points seriously with your clear
| bias. Coursera is utter shit and it is sad to see edX go
| down the same path. I guess because the people at Coursera
| are passionate it means the business does not have a desire
| to make money as much as a bank and thus the original OP's
| points are not valid.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| I think it's funny that you mention learning science.
| Actually, all of these patterns go against everything we
| know about teaching anyone anything.
|
| * Removing access to course materials is horrible! I use
| old courses and books for reference all the time. When you
| can access the course any time, you refresh your learning.
| That's the key to long term retention.
|
| * FOMO to force people to work at your pace rather than
| their pace is just as terrible. We know that students
| working at their pace, with encouragement, is what really
| works. Pushing people into courses when they aren't ready
| is terrible.
|
| * Constant quizzes are a lazy version of what we know
| works, which is engagement like
| https://icampus.mit.edu/projects/teal/ Yes, quizzes are
| part of it, but a small part, the focus is on making
| courses interactive with meaningful work instead of boring
| 1-out-of-n choices. Making such courses is hard, so they
| take the easy and boring way out.
|
| * If users find the UI unsettling, like it's too focused on
| tracking and too little on actual learning, that's a
| legitimate and important complaint. Education is not about
| getting arbitrarily high scores on some random online
| quizzes. You want people to actually learn something for
| the long run.
|
| It really looks like edX and Coursera are taking the exam-
| driven horrors that are being inflicted on K-12 students
| all the time and translating them to the web. This is no
| way to teach. And you can see that with their extremely
| poor retention rates.
| threatofrain wrote:
| > Removing access to course materials: it's a course, not a
| content library. When you can access it anytime, you're
| less likely to do the work of learning. You also won't be
| part of a learning cohort, which is a valuable learning
| activity.
|
| Uh huh.
| chaosbutters314 wrote:
| why is food science in quotes? you wouldnt put physics course
| in quotes. As someone that works as an engineer in the food
| industry, our work is just as rigorous as other fields. When
| working with vendors that support different domains, they
| always get excited to work with us since we have some of the
| craziest and most challenging problems that are not straight
| forward. While the work we do may not be critical to saving
| the world and solving some critical problem, it does make a
| difference in the grand scheme of things.
| benrbray wrote:
| I didn't mean it that way at all. They were intended more
| like title-quotes than belittling-quotes. Everything I have
| read / watched on the topic tells me that food science is a
| really deep and interesting topic that demands expertise in
| many different areas of chemistry, physics, and engineering
| all at once! It's why I was so interested to take a course
| in the first place!
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Science and cooking is well known as a blowoff course
| @Harvard.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Food engineering, maybe. It's not science or even applied
| science.
| kilroywashere wrote:
| something many don't know: you can torrent these courses.
| redgrange wrote:
| Maybe their internal research shows significant benefits to
| the short chunks of lecture content.
| hackermailman wrote:
| OCW started doing the same annoying 10m chunks with their
| scholar versions but so far have always still provided the
| full unedited lecture as an option.
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| The pushback you're getting on this is.... I mean i struggle
| to find the words. If someone wants to not stare at a screen
| during a lecture this is 100% ok and I literally cannot
| fathom the idea that someone is "doing it wrong" if they do
| not.
|
| If someone does this and they don't absorb the material
| they..... watch the lecture again in a more focused manner.
| It really is ok!
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant
| unhelpful quizzes. I really just want to hear the lecturer
| speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially
| if I'm listening while doing dishes etc.
|
| I disagree. If you're doing dishes you are not taking a
| college level course. One of the best things about digital
| courses is that you don't have to spend an hour zoning out to
| a professor talking and then spend a day doing exercises, but
| the two can be intertwined and knowledge can be cemented.
|
| Of course it can be done terribly. But the best online
| courses I've taken have split things up into small chunks
| with relevant exercises.
| yarky wrote:
| > If you're doing dishes you are not taking a college level
| course.
|
| It sounds like you assume everyone suffers ADHD and that's
| no the cause, not everybody learns the same way and the
| dish washing strategy always worked for me in college.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| > If you're doing dishes you are not taking a college level
| course
|
| Relatively mindless tasks to occupy my hands frees up my
| brain to focus. If I'm not doing dishes, I'm doodling or
| playing with a coin or, or...
| lmohseni wrote:
| > If you're doing dishes you are not taking a college level
| course.
|
| Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture 2 or 3 or even more
| times. Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture when I'm
| going for a run. Sometimes I like to listen while I'm doing
| chores. Seems presumptuous to say I'm "not taking the
| course" when we know that learning styles vary so much
| between individuals.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture 2 or 3 or even
| more times._
|
| YouTube has a ton of lectures, for free, that you can
| view and/or listen to in this manner.
|
| But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to
| what they are trying to achieve with remote learning, and
| isn't the use case they should be catering to.
| benrbray wrote:
| It's not really catering to _disable_ a feature. You can
| call it "audit" mode and offer no credential.
| jhbadger wrote:
| The problem with "audit" mode is that it is more than
| just not getting a credential (which I like most people
| who already have their educations don't need) but that
| often you can't take the online exams either. I still
| want to know if I've learned the material properly!
| ncallaway wrote:
| Sure they could do that. You're essentially asking them
| to implement an additional feature to handle a new use
| case--a totally reasonable thing to ask.
|
| But it seems like it's _really_ a stretch to say "it's a
| dark pattern to not implement this feature that covers my
| use case". If not implementing a desired feature is a
| "dark pattern", then I'm not really sure I know what
| constitutes a dark pattern
| benrbray wrote:
| The behavior I'm describing is how the website _used to
| work_. The put in _extra work_ to prevent users like me
| from using it this way.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to
| what they are trying to achieve.
|
| They are trying to exclude large swathes of the
| population?
|
| It is extremely common for people with ADD to focus
| better when they keep the part of their brain that
| distracts them busy. In college I folded origami in
| lectures so that my brain wouldn't go off on tangents
| that would lead to me tuning out significant sections of
| the lecture.
|
| Some people combat the tangents by being busy, and some
| people embrace the tangents (which can be valuable for
| understanding) by listening to lectures multiple times.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _It is extremely common for people with ADD to focus
| better when they keep the part of their brain that
| distracts them busy._
|
| They should cater to those people as opposed to other
| people for whom bite-sized learning works better? When
| did we become a society that expects everyone else to
| cater to our specific needs? No one is being "excluded".
|
| If that's the way you need to learn, fantastic. There are
| options out there for you. It wasn't that long ago when
| none of this existed.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > They should cater to those people as opposed to other
| people for whom bite-sized learning works better?
|
| I didn't say that. The claim was made that learning in
| this method is incompatible with taking a college level
| course. I was demonstrating how that attitude is both
| blatantly false and exclusionary.
|
| > When did we become a society that expects everyone else
| to cater to our specific needs?
|
| The value of accessibility and inclusivity in education
| has long been recognized. Why does online learning get a
| pass from considering this?
|
| Edit: There is no problem with one person saying "I learn
| better this way" and someone else saying "I learn better
| this other way". The problem is when people say "the way
| you learn is inferior and not suited to college level
| material" because that is exclusionary.
| wpietri wrote:
| The notion that there's a single concept of the purpose
| of remote learning and a single concept of how students
| learn is exactly the problem.
|
| It baffles me that people expect to take a process
| optimized for a neurotypical 20-year-old subsidized
| enough to devote 100% time to study and apply it to
| everybody else on the planet. I get how physical
| universities ended up the way they did. But software is
| infinitely soft and the internet is basically everywhere.
| Insisting that everybody must learn the same way a bunch
| of well-off youth did in 1950 is grossly exclusionary and
| wasteful.
|
| In short, I don't care what the _universities_ are
| _trying_ to achieve with remote learning. I care what the
| _students_ _succeed in achieving_. Let 's focus on that.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Insisting that everybody must learn the same way a
| bunch of well-off youth did in 1950 is grossly
| exclusionary and wasteful._
|
| No one is saying "everyone must learn the same way". They
| are teaching a specific way, and are under no obligation
| to ensure that "your" unique needs are met.
|
| I mean, you say yourself there's no single concept of how
| students learn. So maybe explain how you'd expect them to
| to do it?
|
| There are all kinds of models out there. Udemy, Coursera,
| good old recorded lectures on YouTube. Find what works
| for you and use it.
| kesselvon wrote:
| In undergrad I'd listen to lectures while doing chores
| all the time, especially when the concepts are
| theoretical and it's more about just listening to the
| information.
|
| It won't work for a calculus lecture, but for a lot of
| topics it works just fine.
| nobrains wrote:
| Well, it depends on the kind of a learner you are. Some
| learners prefer to listen to long lectures and some short
| (and some might prefer interactivities, and others might
| prefer one-way communication). This is where personalized
| learning comes in, which is something in its infancy and
| being explored by academicians and especially companies
| focused on e-learning delivery. (I work in tech at an
| online / blended learning higher education institution).
|
| Now this comment by OP (benrbray) and you (wodenokoto)
| gives me an idea that courses can be designed in a way that
| the learner can mention how much hands-free time they have
| to spare now, depending on which the platform can hold off
| any interactivities / quizzes until then (or something like
| that), to make the learning process more personalized.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The problem with this "personalized learning" approach is
| that, outside of MIT OCW, everyone seems to have skipped
| implementing the normal, long lecture in front of
| blackboard to watch method straight to interactive laden
| content.
| benrbray wrote:
| > I disagree.
|
| That's something we have in common :). My disagreement
| spans a few dimensions:
|
| * I've already been through school. An undergraduate and
| graduate degree already taught me how to learn. I have good
| habits, and I know how to buckle down and study when
| needed. For me, I find that having something to do with my
| hands while listening to a lecture actually helps me stay
| more focused on the topic. Before and after watching, I
| like to review the slides, do some reading, and take notes.
|
| * I already have degrees. I'm not looking for extra
| credential. I'm just looking to learn something new from
| someone qualified to teach me who can filter out what's
| important and what's not. It would be nice to have the
| opportunity to listen without necessarily jumping through
| all the hoops of a normal college class.
|
| * Sometimes I already have background knowledge that
| overlaps with the course content. In these cases, it's
| _really_ frustrating when a course won 't let me skip
| around and focus on the topics that I want to learn. The
| quickest way to get me to drop an online course is to make
| me sit through lecture content that I've already learned
| before somewhere else.
|
| * Different students learn in different ways. You might
| like that the frequent quiz interruptions hold you
| accountable. That's great! For me, I don't find it too
| helpful. Usually the mid-lecture quizzes are simple "are
| you listening?" questions that don't really test your deep
| understanding. I'd rather go through a set of exercises all
| at once after listening to the lecture.
|
| Basically, I see no reason online courses can't be
| structured to give us more choices about how we want to
| consume the content!
| dataflow wrote:
| Nothing wrong with what you want, but I'm thinking you
| might not be the target audience?
| myhrvold wrote:
| A target audience is a good broader point about MOOCs and
| online education. (I took edX courses during the "glory
| days" of 2012 and 2013 -- and also tested out Udemy,
| Coursera, and Udacity at the time.)
|
| The one-size-fits-most nature of online education goes
| against the "customize your education at scale to learn"
| which was an earlier anticipated advantage about MOOCs.
| Specifically, adaptive learning and being able to
| accommodate a variety of learning behaviors and styles.
| "Learn at your own pace, in your own way, on your own
| time but still within bounds to the rest of the class"
| kind of thing.
|
| I remember when Stanford launched online CS courses in
| the mid 2010s, that it was thought they'd have the best
| of both worlds and their in-person, offline course
| offerings wouldn't be affected. (Diluted down to the
| lowest common denominator of student, which now included
| online learners who weren't Stanford students per se.)
| Well, over time, turns out double duty-ing course
| material for online and the "regular" classes crept into
| all education for instructors. Which meant the courses
| with online equivalents became easier across the board.
| Thus, the target audience for everything shifted.
|
| Again, with acknowledged intentionality, I don't really
| have an issue with this (which you could crassly
| summarize as "dumbing down" the course offerings for
| convenience's sake) -- except that from my vantage point
| it was an unforeseen consequence of part of the online
| and MOOC push.
|
| Obviously, I benefited from online courses in my mid 20s
| and so I look at their rise with nostalgia and through a
| rosier lens than many. However, I also can't help but
| think that they ended up being not quite what was
| promised at the outset, which was better targeting in
| addition to expanded educational access around the world.
| Especially for students who thought they'd signed up for
| the more challenging materials and didn't want to be part
| of a grand new experiment.
|
| Interesting that MIT OpenCourseWare will outlast edX,
| which for a few years truly did look like it was the
| future of university level education and beyond.
| edgeform wrote:
| > "This product that isn't aimed at me isn't aimed at
| *me*, and that makes me stamp my feet in anger."
|
| > Sometimes I already have background knowledge that
| overlaps with the course content.
|
| I used to think like you, all the time. "Oh, I already
| know this." and while I'm sitting there being all smug
| and self-satisfied that I'm the _smartest person in the
| room_ I realized:
|
| * The content is good for a refresher. "Background"
| knowledge is just that, you're admitting you want to hear
| an expert speak on a subject yet want to throw out what
| they have to say because you "already know it from before
| this class".
|
| * The content often provides context. Just like the
| "Previously on..." segment of TV shows that will recap
| specific plot points so the viewer understands the events
| of the new episode they're about to watch, discussing
| what you term "prior knowledge" will help contextualize
| the new content that you _don 't understand_ properly.
|
| > Basically, I see no reason online courses can't be
| structured to give us more choices about how we want to
| consume the content!
|
| OK, but that's not edX/Corsera's job lol
|
| They don't have to cater to every single whim of every
| type of education personality. It's all well and fine
| that you, a multiple degree holder, would love to skip
| around content that you find boring/tedious/whatever
| while saying you want "someone qualified to teach me who
| can filter out what's important and what's not".
|
| Like it or not, these websites are just simply not aimed
| at you, a large-brained Multiple Degree Holder. They're
| aimed at people who are behind you in education.
| truth_ wrote:
| Exactly. When I find overlapping content in MOOCs, it
| becomes very annoying. I don't want to miss out a
| valuable insight I might gain listening to a different
| instructor speaking for a different point-of-view. The
| RoI is quite low. But it has happened in the past, so I
| don't want to skip overlapping content. So listening to
| it while tidying up or cleaning the desk makes sense.
|
| And for new content, I never watch lectures with other
| things. I never did. And I still find 2-4 minutes videos
| annoying as hell.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > If you're doing dishes you are not taking a college level
| course. One of the best things about digital courses is
| that you don't have to spend an hour zoning out to a
| professor talking
|
| Strong disagree - as you point out in the next sentence,
| slightly distracted is the standard model of consumption
| for in person.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| What works best for me is to watch the lecture multiple
| times with different amounts of intensity/focus. Listening
| to a lecture while on a walk or doing other errands is a
| fantastic primer for when I rewind the lecture and watch it
| again with my pen and notebook in front of me.
|
| I picked this up from Mortimer J. Adler's "How to Read a
| Book". There's lots of other techniques discussed in it,
| but the idea of "skim the content first to know what's
| coming up, so you have an idea of what each chapter (or
| lecture) is building towards" improved my retention
| massively and works well for things that aren't just books.
| montroser wrote:
| As someone who has spent many, many hours deep in the guts of
| the edX codebase, this news does not bother me.
|
| For what it does, the codebase is extremely sprawling, with
| layers upon layers of abandoned architectural directions. A lot
| of code for not a ton of functionality, and very basic
| functionality at that.
|
| Of course that all is secondary to the actual success it has
| found, and good for the the project for making it happen. But,
| if this move ends up being a catalyst for investing in
| alternatives, that will not make me sad.
| willyg123 wrote:
| > (highly paid execs...)
|
| EDX's IRS Form 990 for 2020 shows five executive making over
| $800k [1]
|
| [1]
| https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...
| stonogo wrote:
| Not bad for an hour a week, eh?
| pizza234 wrote:
| Coursera and Udemy are two radically different platforms.
|
| Udemy has a very standard pricing model. You pay what you use
| (=courses), so I don't see any way this can significantly
| change either way. The teachers are private and not
| institutions, so it would likely be unprofitable to adopt a
| "significantly-free" freemium model.
|
| Coursera, Edx and so on apply instead the freemium model, which
| could be under theoretical threat (eg. reduce availability of
| free material, introduce ads, etc.). However, I've been using
| them for a while, and I didn't really experience any impact due
| to this supposed monetization orientation - the courses are
| still free, and there's no pressure to pay for them. I actually
| pay each course.
|
| To be honest, I'm much more annoyed by the terrible, terrible
| UX of their products. There are also certainly some dark
| patterns, which I find dishonest, but at the end of the day,
| courses are free, and one can take them without interruption.
|
| A personal note: I actually find negative the association
| between well-known institutions and learning platforms. For
| example, Harward and EdX- the certificates are stamped as
| HarvadX, which is an intentional disassociation. This is fair,
| however, customers/students tend to associate prestige with the
| MOOC, which is misleading. There's a lot of people around who
| think that MOOC certificate have formal value.
| porknubbins wrote:
| Yes I use Udemy a lot but I never even thought to compare it
| to online MOOC platforms. Udemy is great for short how to
| series on a particular technology, not for broad academic
| topics.
| pc86 wrote:
| Having a highly paid executive (even multiple) doesn't make a
| non-profit "terrible." People deserve to be compensated for
| their work and you'll have a hard time arguing that running a
| large non-profit successfully isn't challenging, demanding, and
| deserving of good compensation.
| wpietri wrote:
| It isn't necessarily so, but there's a correlation. A lot of
| terrible nonprofits are excellent at funneling money to
| execs.
|
| A lot of the work at nonprofits is challenging and demanding.
| Everybody deserves good compensation. But as with large for-
| profit companies, it's often only executives who get that.
| Take a look at CEO compensation over the decades. It has
| risen massively compared with worker pay:
| https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
|
| Maybe CEOs have gotten 940% better at CEOing in the last 40
| years. But I think the more likely answer is executives have
| gotten much better at skimming a larger slice of pie.
|
| One could argue that if investors want to grossly overpay
| for-profit execs, that's between the investors and the execs.
| But that's definitely not true in not for profits, which get
| all sorts of legal and social leeway because they're in
| theory doing good for society.
|
| So yes, it's fair to argue that having very highly paid
| executives in a non-profit is terrible. Does that mean execs
| who are in it for the money will stick with fleecing
| investors? Probably. But I'd say that's better for the
| nonprofits, as then they're likely to end up with people who
| are there for the mission.
| mattferderer wrote:
| Unfortunately this is not just a non-profit issue. This is
| an everyone issue.
|
| One popular trending reason is that boards ask an outside
| firm what an average CEO makes at a similar size company.
| Then they decide to pay them slightly above average if they
| like them. Over 40 years this tends to sky rocket the
| salary of CEOs to where everyone wants an MBA just so they
| can get paid crazy amounts of work compared to what they
| put.
|
| Of course the salary of the CEO doesn't even tell the whole
| story when you bring in tax perks of shares vs W-2 wages.
| Plus the CEO will probably get many other company "perks".
| wpietri wrote:
| Oh, sure, I think it's also terrible in for-profit
| companies. I think it's a source of vast economic
| inefficiency. But the usual excuses for it don't apply at
| nonprofits.
| narraturgy wrote:
| I disagree. It seems unreasonable to hold not-for-profits
| to such an extreme ethical standard. They're already
| doing charitable work, why must they also be expected to
| lead the charge on unrelated social matters besides the
| one they chose?
|
| I agree that executives are paid too much, but I don't
| expect a Soup Kitchen to be posting on social media about
| how they are fighting against discrimination of purple
| elephantfolk in Norway.
| mattferderer wrote:
| This needs to be said more often! Having worked at & with
| many non-profits, if you don't have competitive wages your
| top talent keeps leaving. That crushes small non-profits
| because top talent wear multiple hats & are very difficult to
| replace. Anyone who has had to replace talent knows the pain
| of having to hire & then get a new person up to speed.
|
| As for marketing, spending lots of money on marketing isn't
| bad as long as it's working.
|
| People need to quit judging non-profits just by looking at 2
| numbers without understanding the entire scope. This is a
| huge issue for non-profits.
|
| I know of non-profits that have been forced to setup multiple
| entities. One for "public" where they can say 100% of
| donations go to the cause & one for people who understand
| running a business where they can get private donations that
| help pay people salaries, building expenses & everything
| else.
| murgindrag wrote:
| In abstract, no. In practice, in this case, yes. This was an
| odd way of channeling money into private pockets of well-
| connected people at MIT.
|
| Anyone know of a good way to reach a good investigative
| reporter?
| clintonb wrote:
| I worked at edX for a few years as an engineer, but left
| 3.5 years ago.
|
| There isn't much of a story here. Of the top 10 officers
| listed on page 7 of the 990, only two--Anant and Adam--work
| directly for edX. The directors are MIT or Harvard
| employees.
|
| This transfer values edX, Inc. at $800M. Would anyone be
| complaining if the board and execs of a for-profit near-
| unicorn made $500K-$1M per year? I highly doubt it.
| narraturgy wrote:
| >highly paid execs, insane amount of money spent on marketing
|
| I don't understand how not-for-profit orgs are supposed to
| succeed when they are constantly hampered by being expected to
| pay theirbwmployees low wages and not market themselves or
| spread the word because if they spend too much money doing
| these things then they are suddenly "bad" organizations. If
| not-for-profits are not allowed to compete in the market with
| for-profit organizations by offering competitive wages and
| utilizing competitive marketing budgets, then it's no wonder
| that charity is generally so ineffective. I suspect that the
| average armchair marketing executive might not be a good judge
| of what an "appropriate" marketing budget is.
| wheaties wrote:
| The way they structure this is that it continues to be a non-
| profit where users have to pay a fee. The non-profit licenses
| content and things from 2U at rates that are mutually agreed
| upon by all principals. It just so happens that 2U will be
| negotiating with itself on what a sustainable fee should be...
| mumblemumble wrote:
| FUN (https://www.fun-mooc.fr) is another good option that seems
| to be keeping it together. I haven't counted, but I think that
| most the courses are available in English.
| wrycoder wrote:
| A quick survey - I see French being used.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Hmm. Yes, you are right.
|
| For what it's worth, the ratio of English language seems to
| be higher for the programming MOOCs than it is for most the
| other subject areas.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I bookmarked the site, fwiw! Thanks.
| slim wrote:
| Thank you for this link
| sokoloff wrote:
| One of the problems of the current structure (at least as of
| five-ish years ago) is that most of the EdX employees are on
| the MIT payroll and benefits system (meaning the benefits are
| pretty great, but the pay bands are incompatible with competing
| [financially] for engineering talent against the actual tech
| market). If this breaks that logjam, it could be good for EdX
| in this one, small regard.
|
| Fundamentally though I agree with your summary; I trusted EdX a
| lot more _because_ it was tightly affiliated with MIT and
| Harvard. Spun out into an arms-length institution, it seems
| like it will now be more likely to be driven into the ground by
| its leadership at some point in the next 100 years because of
| the lack of enough stabilizing "keel" provided by the
| affiliation with world-class universities.
| sanjiva wrote:
| edX has been my go-to recommendation for people in my side of the
| world (I live in Sri Lanka) to get quality education at no cost.
| This is the end of that - they might have some protections but
| its no longer going to be focused on quality content delivered in
| a highly learnable manner.
| adnmcq999 wrote:
| Download or get a textbook and read it yourself + find some
| lectures on YouTube with a high rank that you also feel you are
| getting something from. This is and always has been the best way
| to learn most subjects.
| jasonharris555 wrote:
| This is also how I do it but I would also like some sort of
| computer based tools to help learn.
| ibdf wrote:
| I agree that you can find resources else where but these
| courses have already a structure, have tests and deadlines...
| that makes you study! At least for me, a good structure is
| essential.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| So the universities have decided to monetise their own great
| reputations by simply selling it to a bidder?
| JadeNB wrote:
| > So the universities have decided to monetise their own great
| reputations by simply selling it to a bidder?
|
| I think that this is a terrible decision and regret it, but
| there's not much surprise: this monetisation of their
| reputation is kind of the business of modern universities.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Well, patents and degrees work that way too. Universities are
| businesses first... extracting value from students and faculty.
| It's uncool when it becomes the primary focus.
|
| It's not like Harvard and MIT don't have enough money already,
| so it's curious why they need obscenely more.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This happened a long time ago with Harvard Extension School.
| etempleton wrote:
| I suspect it was just not a sustainable program from a revenue
| perspective for either school and has the risk to lower the
| schools reputation and suck away resources.
|
| 2U is one of the biggest for-profit higher education companies
| and seemingly one of the most successful ones, often partnering
| with other colleges and universities.
|
| I am suspicious of any of the for-profits being able to sustain a
| business. Most end up failing because, as it ends up, education
| is not very profitable if done correctly.
| extra88 wrote:
| > I am suspicious of any of the for-profits being able to
| sustain a business.
|
| Blackboard has been around a long time and seems to do okay.
| Instructure (makers of Canvas) has done very well. Both sell
| Learning Management Systems (LMSes), not educational content
| itself. Big textbook publishers, like Pearson, have been
| managing incorporating online educational materials.
|
| But yeah, don't expect a unicorn to come around and "disrupt"
| education.
| cbozeman wrote:
| > But yeah, don't expect a unicorn to come around and
| "disrupt" education.
|
| The easiest way to get a bright-eyed SV entrepreneur to try
| to take something on is to tell them, "That industry is non-
| disruptable."
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Well people have been saying that for decades around
| education, so my intuition is that this represents decades
| of bright-eyed failure.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The people most in need of education have the least
| money. Monetize that. Education is a public good that
| requires social subsidy and personal interaction.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Monetize not having money? Pray tell your easy solution.
| realreality wrote:
| Create some sort of entity that hands out money to people
| who agree to pay the money back in the future, plus some
| percentage interest.
|
| If anybody figures out how to do this, they could make a
| lot of profit.
| hogFeast wrote:
| I would do some more research on 2u, they do not have a good
| reputation (indeed, almost no for-profit education companies
| do...the sector is very fashionable because a bunch of Chinese
| companies have made tens of billions in this market...but it is
| replete with frauds).
| switchb4 wrote:
| One of the news among many for which I don't give a damn
| kobiguru wrote:
| I am so happy that NPTEL NOC[1] and NPTEl Lectures [2] and
| Swayam[3] exists. These are indian government funded Moocs on
| almost everything engineering
|
| [1] https://nptel.ac.in/noc/noc_course.html [2]
| https://nptel.ac.in/course.html [3]
| https://swayam.gov.in/explorer
| truth_ wrote:
| Quality of most of the courses is horrible, and nowhere nearly
| comparable to what you get from a Harvard or MIT course. The
| professors use very old PowerPoint slides and they themselves
| are not interested in teaching.
|
| Programming problems are dull and boring.
|
| However, there are exceptions. The Discrete Math course taught
| by IIT-Ropar is among the most amazing introductory DM course I
| have ever seen- taken in person or online.
|
| There's also a 40 lecture Japanese course which is also quite
| good.
|
| Indian schools are highly credentialist, so it is worth
| checking the backgrounds of the Professors beforehand. Do they
| have degrees from abroad? Are they interesting persons? And so
| on.
|
| Only then enroll in an NPTEL course.
| xNeil wrote:
| Second this. They're genuinely amazing, with IIT professors
| teaching their subjects (for engineering).
|
| It's basically Indian OCW.
| Arun2009 wrote:
| I have surveyed these, but in general, they simply don't come
| anywhere close in quality to that of courses offered by edX.
|
| An example that readily comes to mind are the courses on
| manufacturing processes offered by both MITx and NPTEL. The
| MITx course was clearly a class apart - you actually got to see
| the processes in question and how they were applied in the real
| world factories. When speaking about how a product was made,
| the lecturer actually bothered to bring samples of those
| products, sometimes dismantled them, and showed us how they
| could have been put together. I only audited this a few months
| ago, and to this day I remember the concepts vividly.
|
| On the other hand, in the videos I watched, the NPTEL course
| lecturer simply read out from powerpoint slides, which he
| prepared from a standard textbook. You were better off reading
| the textbook directly than watching the video alternating
| between the slides and the lecturer's face. It was a very
| uninspiring, depressing experience.
| loughnane wrote:
| This is a huge bummer. edX was the prime example I would hold up
| when people said "remote learning is terrible". Several of the
| courses I took on there ranked among some of the best classes
| I've ever taken, in-person or otherwise.
|
| I agree with another commenter in that I had hoped it would
| persist since 1) education is ostensibly the business of Harvard
| and MIT and 2) Their pockets are deep enough to think long-term.
|
| I will admit that I haven't used it much in the past few years.
| Had been getting turned off by the credential chasing and access
| disappearing after some time.
|
| Tough to see an excellent path forward from here. I've never
| heard of this 2U firm.
| wrycoder wrote:
| _" MIT will continue to offer courses to learners worldwide via
| edX, as well as on a new platform now known as MITx Online.
| MIT's Office of Digital Learning will build and operate MITx
| Online as a new world-facing platform, based on Open edX, that
| MIT is creating for MITx MOOCs.
|
| MIT faculty may choose to continue to offer their courses
| through the new edX after the transaction is completed, or move
| them to MITx Online."_
|
| It's worth reading the article - there is much more that's not
| being addressed on HN.
| rantwasp wrote:
| yeah. edX was stellar compared to other platforms. like really
| really good. sad that it's uncertain what is going to happen to
| it now
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| So can I get a bachelor degree in CS/CE for 5k or less purely
| online?
| ncfausti wrote:
| Like others, this worries me. Does anyone know of a platform or
| service that backs up quality educational content (think
| Coursera, edX, YouTube lectures, etc.) forever, so that its open-
| access is not at the whim of a for-profit corporation?
| clintonb wrote:
| Note that the content belongs to the professors and university
| partners, not edX or 2U.
| hashhar wrote:
| I'm sad that all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit
| and then the goals get misaligned.
|
| Produce as many courses at as minimum cost as possible. Enroll as
| many people as possible without regards for completion
| percentage. Create an economy where random people are
| incentivised to create courses and then the course quality tanks.
|
| I wish this turns out differently.
|
| Even Udemy and Coursera have become commericialised with edX the
| last major standing.
| hatware wrote:
| > education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the
| goals get misaligned.
|
| There are companies trying to battle the problems that come
| with a single bottom line, like Guild Education.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I just cannot fathom the worldview that leads one to believe
| a for-profit company can solve the problem of for-profit
| education.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| My previous post was a bit too glib, so here's an
| explanation:
|
| There's a common belief on Hacker News which verges on
| mental illness, that the best solution to any problem is
| free market capitalism. This belief is false because free
| market capitalism doesn't solve problems when the customer
| isn't the person with the problem.
|
| The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's
| hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to
| get an education without money.
|
| For-profit education _cannot_ solve the problem, because
| for-profit education _is_ the problem. If the customer is
| the student, then that means people without money can 't be
| students. If you start letting people without money be
| students, then the customer is someone else, and the
| customer's incentives will always be misaligned with the
| student's interests in some ways. There simply isn't a way
| to fix this which makes any sense and still includes for-
| profit education.
| Joky wrote:
| > The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem:
| it's hard to get money without an education, and it's
| hard to get an education without money. > For-profit
| education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit
| education is the problem.
|
| Have you seen school that only gets paid after you start
| working (and based on a percentage of your salary), for
| example: https://www.holbertonschool.com I like the
| concept in that these school are somehow "investing" in
| the student: they only get as successful as the student
| is.
| rattray wrote:
| At least there's still Khan Academy. Very different niche,
| though - I sure wish they'd been the new homes of edX's
| content...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Udemy and Coursera were entirely commercial from their start,
| were they not?
| nosianu wrote:
| Originally Coursera only wanted money for the - for the vast
| majority of people useless - _verified_ completion
| certificate. You had access to all course content including
| all the tests and could access course content long after the
| course had ended. So if you did not see any value in that "
| _verified_ certificate " there was no reason to pay anything.
| You got a free certificate either way.
|
| I saved all certificates I ever got from edX and from
| Coursera as PDFs to remember which courses I took. They
| actually look quite fancy.
|
| - Example certificate that was free at the time:
| https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png
|
| - The course was part of a series, which these days is
| available here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-
| data-science#co...
|
| - Here is an R-Markdown document I created for another of the
| courses in that series, which used peer assessment where we
| had to evaluate each others results:
| https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191
|
| At the start everything was free, including all these
| exercises, all the assessments, and even the certificates. I
| knew it would not last and used the opportunity, over three
| years of heavy course taking, over 50 completed courses. I
| did not have much to spend at the time, I could definitely
| not have spend the current amounts.
|
| I took over a dozen courses on Coursera alone, medicine and
| statistics, it was good. I just checked my (long unused)
| login just now, they only list two courses under completed
| and "forgot" the other well over a dozen others. Good thing I
| saved those completion certificates, although there probably
| is little use in remembering what courses I took - either I
| remember what I learned or I don't.
|
| .
|
| Just for fun, this was one of my favorite courses, great
| professor too, great content:
| https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience Don't
| know if it still is as complete, at the time it was almost 25
| hours of videos alone, never mind all the reading and all the
| tests and exercises. It wasn't complicated though, you just
| had to invest the time but not nearly as much brain as for
| other "STEM sciency" courses.
| lvs wrote:
| > all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then
| the goals get misaligned.
|
| I'm fairly certain we've been watching that mission creep in
| all corners of education, higher and otherwise, over the past
| couple of decades.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| fuck completion percentage, it is more than just that. consider
| the QUALITY of completion.
|
| e.g. Did you show up 30% of the time? yer a graduate!
| foolmeonce wrote:
| I think good goal posts are even further away.. If you
| complete 100% of calculus I and then delete all access to it
| instead of solidifying it by going to calculus II, you will
| need to learn calc I again within months and the cognitive
| dissonance that creates will cause most people never to learn
| calculus.
| jasonharris555 wrote:
| Mastery based credentialing is the future. Employers only
| care what you actually know and can do.
| adolph wrote:
| > Employers only care what you actually know and can do.
|
| That seems to fly in the face of "who you know is more
| important that what you know" conventional wisdom.
| MR4D wrote:
| This makes no sense. They could do a simple transaction
| transferring it to a 401c3 entity and be done with it.
|
| The idea of a public company, a public benefit company, a
| university, a nonprofit, and 800 million dollars changing hands
| in this complicated of a transaction seems incongruous.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| Harvard and MIT are selling the right to use their name-marks
| in a limited context for $800mm, which they will now invest in
| becoming leading institutions in AI teaching/tutoring. They
| also get to divest themselves of something that was (perceived
| as) cutting-edge and world-changing 20 years ago but is no
| longer particularly hot/novel.
|
| Doing MOOCs was good business for Harvard/MIT like 10-15 years
| ago when designing and delivering MOOCs constituted "thought
| leadership". Now, MOOCs are ubiquitous and AI teachers are the
| hotness.
| MR4D wrote:
| FTA: " _...2U will transfer $800 million to a nonprofit
| organization..._ "
|
| While that org is led by Harvard and MIT, the institutions
| are not getting the money. Which begs the question - why
| didn't the edX organization just sell off the IP to 2U? would
| have been much cleaner.
| neovive wrote:
| From 2U's press release [https://2u.com/latest/industry-
| redefining-combination/] it's clear that they benefit
| significantly from associating themselves with the MIT, Harvard,
| and EdX brands. At $800M, I assume they have a well-planned
| monetization strategy for EdX.
|
| My personal experience with EdX over the years is mixed. I
| audited a few EdX courses (CS50, Linear Algebra) and generally
| enjoyed the quality and pace of the courses, but was never
| compelled to purchase a verified certificate since these were
| more for leisure. I recall hitting up against the paywall and
| losing access to the exams. Although, I understand the need to
| monetize, it was a bit demoralizing.
|
| Overall, I feel EdX helped define massively open online education
| and I hope they continue to support this mission in the future.
| murgindrag wrote:
| Everyone at edX who helped define the future of education left
| about a half-decade ago. A third of the staff, including
| everyone who cared about learning, poor people, open, or much
| of anything else.
|
| edX was overmonetized. If you want to see corruption on a
| grander scale, see where this $800M goes.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| Will this help the moodle ecosystem?
| sriram_sun wrote:
| Oh no! Should I start downloading videos?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Hypothesis: MIT and Harvard had enough experience in distance
| learning by now to realize that it is NOT going to be the wave of
| the future in education. They don't want to exactly say this out
| loud and take flak for it, so they're just unloading this (for
| significant $$) primarily in order to refocus on in-person
| education, since they've realized that distance learning has been
| around for decades and nothing about the Internet has really made
| much difference in how well it works. For a few people, it could
| be significant, especially if they are in a remote location and
| don't have the option of attending in person, and have an iron
| will to remain motivated when not in a school environment. It is
| not what most students need, does not give the networking bonus
| that is a big part of MIT and Harvard's value, and is not going
| to be the future of education.
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| I don't agree that the Internet hasn't made much difference in
| how well distance learning works, but I agree with a weaker
| version of your hypothesis applied to educating young people.
| An indispensable feature of their university experience is
| building personal and professional connections that will last a
| lifetime, and that can't be built through distance learning.
|
| On the other hand, distance learning makes a huge impact on
| mature learners. Whether they need to "reskill" to improve
| their job prospects, or simply cannot attend a university in
| person because they juggle many adult responsibilities,
| innovations and improvements in distance learning is extremely
| important to them and is beneficial to society. I also think
| this group is often ignored/pushed to the side in these
| debates.
| dentemple wrote:
| Seems like an overly negative take. I see no reason not to take
| the article at face-value here, namely, that MIT & Harvard saw
| the growing gap between for-profit and not-for-profit online
| education--and decided to take steps ensure that the latter
| doesn't fall behind.
|
| It's also pointed out in the article that MIT & Harvard will be
| investing money into a new non-profit to explore the "next
| generation" of online learning, which is literally the opposite
| of "[refocusing] on in-person education", as you hypothesize.
| nightski wrote:
| The problem with MIT's online courses is that while the content
| itself was fantastic they refused to treat it like an online
| course. They wanted to have it run on a schedule, strict no-
| compromising deadlines, and large fees for full access.
|
| That's fine and all but it's forcing the university model they
| know into an online format and it doesn't work so great for the
| audience that wants to take online courses imho.
|
| The value proposition on it's Micro Masters course was that you
| could use it for credit at full universities. The problem is it
| was extremely unlikely one would get the opportunity to use it
| at MIT, and the rest of the partners were universities that I
| had never even heard of before. Not necessarily places I'd
| probably want to go to further my studies.
| martincmartin wrote:
| The facts are a little different.
|
| For the math & physics classes, the deadlines are 3 weeks
| after being assigned, whereas when you take the class in
| person, there's a strict 1 week deadline.
|
| Part of the advantage of taking an online class, as opposed
| to self study, is the motivating factor of deadlines. I have
| a lot of textbooks I've started reading, then said "I'll get
| back to this" and never have.
|
| Another advantage of class over just textbook is discussions
| with classmates and TAs. Having a schedule helps with that
| too, since there are others working on the same material at
| the same time.
| nightski wrote:
| I do agree, but fortunately having the course online means
| one should be able to choose how they learn best. Want to
| sign up for a scheduled online class with available TAs?
| Neat, now you can pay for that separately. Want to just
| consume the material at your leisure and not require any
| outside assistance other than maybe a forum? Pay a smaller
| fee or even get it for free depending on the needs of the
| content creator and get access at any time without
| deadlines.
|
| Personally I have a study friend and we motivate each
| other. But we don't necessarily move as fast as MIT's
| deadlines because we are professionals with deadlines that
| take priority. So it's completely lost on me which is
| frustrating because the material is great!
| lisper wrote:
| To paraphrase Tom Lehrer [1]: education is like a sewer; what
| you get out of it depends on what you put into it. This is true
| regardless of the medium. Some people will get value out of
| distance learning, others won't, just as some people will get
| value out of in-person learning and others won't. The only
| difference is the cost. Distance learning can be provided for a
| lot less money, so you can afford to be less selective on who
| you provide it to, and so your failure rates are likely to be
| higher. This does not reflect at all on the actual
| effectiveness of the process.
|
| [EDIT] Reference added, because today's youth are apparently
| not well-versed in the classics:
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/w8d0GwzY6cA?t=2210
| ms4720 wrote:
| Up vote for user name
| inputvolch wrote:
| Education is like a sewer? No matter what I put into a sewer,
| my guess is that it's going to come out covered in shit.
| lisper wrote:
| It is an allusion to an old joke. Here is the original
| source: https://youtu.be/w8d0GwzY6cA?t=2210
| dkarl wrote:
| Maybe the point is that what you get out of it depends a
| great deal on what everybody around you puts into it, a
| depressing fact that online learning can hopefully mitigate
| at least a little bit for people who have access to it.
| fullshark wrote:
| It's not the future for the elite institutions, why would you
| try and saturate the market with degree holders who can claim
| they graduated from Harvard/MIT? But it is the future in terms
| of replacing third rate degrees that charge too much and return
| too little ROI. Maybe they've decided they don't want to
| compete in this space anymore given that reality as colleges
| shut down, and it's no longer seen as an altruistic endeavor,
| but merely a market share war.
| [deleted]
| acomjean wrote:
| I work at Harvard and take classes at the "Extension School"
| (Classes are good, and as en employee discounted). A lot of the
| classes are "Remote" or "Hybrid", (even before the pandemic).
| There have been classes with 40 people with just a handful
| showing up physically. Oddly they didn't use EdX as the online
| platform for these. It was "Canvas".
| itsbenweeks wrote:
| I was originally worried at how dishonest seemed to faculty and
| TAs who have spent years creating many textbooks' worth of
| content for edX. Something akin to MIT Press selling their
| catalog to Elsevier or Pearson wouldn't be tolerated by the
| faculty. But, in the press release they do mention that MIT
| faculty can opt-out and operate in a MIT-only instance & fork of
| the Open edX platform:
|
| _" MIT will continue to offer courses to learners worldwide via
| edX, as well as on a new platform now known as MITx Online. MIT's
| Office of Digital Learning will build and operate MITx Online as
| a new world-facing platform, based on Open edX, that MIT is
| creating for MITx MOOCs._
|
| _MIT faculty may choose to continue to offer their courses
| through the new edX after the transaction is completed, or move
| them to MITx Online. "_
|
| With that in mind, it seems that Open edX development will be
| under a new non-profit held by MIT and Harvard. I hope this new
| non-profit will be less at odds with itself in respect to
| maintaining openness while creating profitable pay2play courses.
| nverno wrote:
| MIT is the gold standard of education. Most of their computing
| classes already give you full access to all the course
| materials, videos, labs, readings, handouts, etc. directly from
| the course page. These direct resources are far better than
| typical edX/Coursera courses.
|
| The same is not generally true of Harvard courses (with a few
| exceptions like cs50), which hide all materials behind
| paywalls.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > MIT is the gold standard of education
|
| A complete tangent, but its somewhat amusing that this idiom
| remains popular when the literal gold standard itself is no
| longer generally considered a figurative gold standard of
| anything.
| oceliker wrote:
| I didn't know where the term "gold standard" came from up
| until a couple of years ago. I thought it simply meant top
| standard (and there would be a silver standard, bronze
| standard, etc)
| nverno wrote:
| Orwell says something along the lines of never use outdated
| idioms in his Politics and the English Language. I'm
| withholding judgement on the extinctioness of this one
| until we see how the whole debt bubble plays out though :)
| tsjq wrote:
| MIT and Harvard did this for 800million? Don't these two
| universities have multi hundred billion dollar endowments ?
|
| Squeezing every single drop of money from every single brick of
| the university : great work, MBAs . Slow clap
| henvic wrote:
| It's a shame how academy ends up being unaccessible for many
| people, even though they receive a lot of endowments... while
| there are a lot of ways to make them more accessible!
|
| Like: online courses... or... What about the white elephant in
| the room? The cost of social events and Ivy League
| athletes/sports.
|
| I don't have anything against those, but if I were in a
| position of power in one academic entity, I'd definitely make
| sure sports is not a cost center, as it is today for many.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You don't need to do anything regarding Ivy League sports to
| be involved with the academy, how is this relevant?
| Finnucane wrote:
| No, they do not have 'multi-hundred billion dollar endowments'.
| Harvard's is around $40 billion, which is a lot, but income
| from the endowment only covers about a third of operating
| costs. It is all already budgeted for other purposes. Even for
| Harvard and MIT, $800 million is a non-trivial amount of money.
| colllectorof wrote:
| Good. Less cognitive dissonance for me. I can now more
| confidently and accurately say that the higher ed in US is dead
| and produces little more than fake credentials and political
| propaganda.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| "I am glad that something I perceive as negative occurred, so
| that I don't have to be wrong about my assumptions".
| colllectorof wrote:
| More like "I'm tired of anticipating the inevitable, while
| being relentlessly gaslit about its probability". Whether or
| not edX is sold to a third party, the underlying problems are
| already in the system. It's the effect, not the cause.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| _We have this new, open-source water fountain system that
| properly prevents overconsumption and resource depletion. It was
| just sold to Chevron for 100 megabucks and they intend to
| monetize them... $1 per sip._
| laptop-man wrote:
| I have a friend who works for 2u. the bootcamps just pump out bad
| devs. everything is taught way to fast, everything is glossed
| over, they are expected to learn the majority on the own
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| This ia unfortunate but not altogether surprising.
|
| I think it can even be deemed benefocial as follows:
|
| If they manage to increase offering, enrollment and completion by
| say 3x, a big chunk of those students may be coming from paid
| physical colleges, which means huge savings in education dollars
| overall.
|
| I guess my point is, losing nonprofit edX to paid education is
| not a negative if on the whole it chips away at students paying
| full sticker price and lowers the overall avg cost of education.
| maxFlow wrote:
| The key to online learning's sucess is counter to the current
| system's goals. What these big-name universities could do to make
| online learning go mainstream is lower the barrier to entry by:
| i) lowering tuition fees in accordance with mass production
| practices and ii) provide real credits and degrees without the
| pomp. But both these actions would water down the "good" name of
| these legendary institutions (a legend built on exclusion and
| cronyism). In other words, they themselves are the ones holding
| on-site education as superior, lest the system collapses. No
| matter, it's just delaying the inevitable.
| pcranaway wrote:
| Apparently Bono is into academia now
| user_7832 wrote:
| I am an assistant and help handle an edX course at a <fairly well
| known EU university>, so from my perspective there were a few
| things that I thought might be interesting to share (though I am
| quite a few hours late to this thread).
|
| > Nearly 10% of the students have paid for a certificate. I do
| not know how much server hosting costs, but given the cost of a
| certificate being several tens of Euros, I wouldn't be surprised
| if this covered costs (though I'm not aware if the uni gets a
| cut).
|
| > Apparently the main issue with Coursera (which is why our uni
| chose edX) was over copyright - edX material remains owned by the
| creating uni and not edX itself. I wonder how this will be
| impacted by this change.
| antoviaque wrote:
| Note that the benefits of the sale ($800M) will all go to a non-
| profit dedicated to the development of the Open edX project. This
| just gave the project one of the largest warchests of any open
| source project, and freed it from the sometimes conflicting needs
| of monetization edx.org had.
| murgindrag wrote:
| Author of Open edX left a long time ago due to corruption at
| edX / MIT. See commit log for who built the platform. See press
| releases for who got the credit. MIT promised all open courses,
| all open platform, all open everything.
|
| The $800M will be used to line the pockets of privileged MIT
| professors. It will be as effective at closing equity gaps as
| supply-side (trickle-down) economics. 60% will go to overhead,
| which will fund faculty clubs and yachts. From there, a ton
| will go into generous salaries and benefits packages. And so on
| down the line.
|
| I am willing to bet that this will be equivalent to giving
| maybe $10M to an HBCU, in terms of benefits to the poor.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Anecdote: MitX's science and math classes (QM, molecular bio,
| general bio, materials, Diffeq etc) are outstanding. I wish they
| didn't have to move to a paid model for exams etx a few years
| back. The classes I tried from other universities on EdX seemed
| to be of lower quality.
| nobody0 wrote:
| I feel pretty disturbing about this.
|
| One of the determining feature of edX is it is backed by MIT. And
| that's also the reason why I trust the platform to give out
| information.
|
| I don't want to be machine learnt on the Internet.
| jp0d wrote:
| I'm doing my Micromasters in Statistics from MIT on EDX. Enjoying
| the amazing content and recognition of certificate. I'm not sure
| what this means for enrolled students like me. Is anyone else
| doing MicroMaster or similar course from a university and worried
| what this means?
|
| "MIT faculty may choose to continue to offer their courses
| through the new edX after the transaction is completed, or move
| them to MITx Online."
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| i had never heard the phrase "micromasters". Wikipedia suggests
| it is unique to EdX.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroMasters
| Y_Y wrote:
| I think it's just a standard use of the prefix "micro-" to
| denote something with a value of one-millionth of the
| original thing.
| ecshafer wrote:
| They are basically graduate certificates, which are a normal
| university thing. You take 3-5 graduate courses, they give
| you a certificate saying that you did this, you give them
| money. Not a full blown masters, thus the micromasters
| branding, but it can open the door to changing a career or
| entering a specialization.
| itsbenweeks wrote:
| Its even less than that. This micro masters is sold as an
| entry point for a full-fledged masters program. The order
| of operations is something like:
|
| 1. Complete the micromasters courses at your speed.
|
| 2. Get a passing grade in a proctored exam.
|
| 3. Get accepted to a masters program with 1/2 of your
| credits taken care of.
|
| 4. Finish the masters degree on-campus.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Has anyone actually transferred from a Micro-Master to a
| real masters at Harvard/MIT?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| i don't know if that's "less" or "more" than a graduate
| certificate. Certificates don't usually give you half the
| credits toward a masters program at the same university,
| do they?
|
| I can see this being great "marketing" for the university
| too though -- once you got the "micromasters", the only
| way to get half your credits toward a degree is to go to
| the _same_ university that gave you the micromasters (if
| you can get accepted, they took your money for the
| micromasters without promising that) -- they 've kind of
| locked you in.
| itsbenweeks wrote:
| That fair. I suppose its about the same as a graduate
| certificate until you take the extra steps to get a
| degree.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Micromasters is a trademarked credential. Each of the
| different online learning platforms has their own, normally
| leaning on/leeching off established and recognised
| credentials as in this case the Masters. They could have made
| it an entire category, open to use by others and instead
| chose to TM it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > i had never heard the phrase "micromasters". Wikipedia
| suggests it is unique to EdX.
|
| Coursera has something similar called MasterTrack; there's
| not a generic cross-platform name for it, though if it is
| successful for multiple platforms and graduate institutions
| that will probably change over time.
| ibdf wrote:
| I just recently found out about EdX and signed up because even
| when paying for the course, you get a good deal.
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