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MOOCs seemed like a good idea at the time until everyone realized you go to college for the rubber stamp. The actual knowledge is an illiquid thing available on

MOOCs seemed like a good idea at the time until everyone realized you go to college for the rubber stamp. The actual knowledge is an illiquid thing available on YouTube/Google or wherever. It is most definitely not a business. What's surprising is that people who've been professors for 18 years at Stanford or frickin heads of a Ivy League university didn't realize this until 5 more years into the business side of education. Shows how narrow academic's wheelhouse is.

xeniak 10y ago
What about in the web/startup world? Although not a real meritocracy, proving you can program/hack/design gets you a lot further than a piece of paper with a stamp in it.
- hashnsalt 10y ago
  Agreed. The tech/CS world is more open to these alternative credentials. But a decent majority of the jobs are outside web/tech where traditional degrees hold a lot of value. It's not as easy to get a good mechanical engineering degree online because it requires a fair amount of lab work. Similarly for other forms of engineering and science.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Don't conflate the webdev world with the rest of the tech industry. Most programming jobs are controlled by companies who do care what credentials you have, and the companies you describe are in such high demand by applicants that they have more qualified applicants than slots to fill.
    - XenophileJKO 10y ago
      On the higher end of the market, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Uber, etc.. You can definitely leverage MOOC learning and credentials. I leveraged MOOCs and their credentials as part of my personal brand to offset not having any degree. It helped me move into a software engineering role at a top tier company. It isn't just the top of the market either.. many employers are learning that there is a significant pool of talent available by including candidates with alternative educational backgrounds.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        You missed a key part of what I said: > the companies you describe are in such high demand by applicants that they have more qualified applicants than slots to fill That applies to every company you named. It's great that you managed to get one of those slots. There are plenty of people who don't, though, and they can end up in a much worse position if they spend their time on learning that the majority of companies don't recognize.
- ghaff 10y ago
  The value of the piece of paper will vary, but evidence that you can do Job X is important in lots of cases--especially as experience accumulates and time from degree (or non-degree) increases. The issue is that if all MOOCs were was another way to view lectures and do some exercises in an online setting for free/cheap, they wouldn't have been viewed with any particular excitement. But that's pretty much what they turned out to be. I'm sure they've been a useful way of learning for some. But they haven't fundamentally changed anything.
ghaff 10y ago
That seems excessively cynical. That said, the market [EDIT: from a $ revenue opportunity perspective] for online ongoing professional education for motivated people who don't care about certifications isn't a huge one. There are things like the Great Courses, Lynda, and of course books. But these are neither VC-sized opportunities nor anything especially disruptive. Leaving aside a few useful tools like online code evaluators, MOOCs largely solved a problem that was long-ago solved. Namely, access to quality broadcast-style lectures and other course content. At the same time, peer interactions and any genuine coaching pretty much didn't work with MOOCs.
- hashnsalt 10y ago
  Do you think part of the problem with "online education" lies in defining what an education is really supposed to achieve? Should I be guaranteed a job at the end of this series of courses? Should I learn for leisure? Why try to build a one-size-fits-all university on the web anyways?
  - ghaff 10y ago
    I'm not sure it was so much "guaranteed a job at the end of this series of courses." But I do think that there was a suggestion, hope, even promise that MOOCs could replace traditional classroom education and degrees under some circumstances. The issue is that, to a large degree, they mostly solved the easy thing. Making videos of university lectures widely available isn't hard. Neither is making other broadcast aspects of the syllabus available (e.g. in MIT OCW). A lot of good material was made available through Coursera and edX. But, frankly, a Wordpress blog with embedded videos and links would have worked nearly as well for a lot of this material. Yes, CS somewhat uniquely benefits from the opportunity to reasonably evaluate code written for problem sets. But, for the most part, evaluation is at the multiple choice level.
  - visarga 10y ago
    I believe what is missing from MOOCs is personal coaching. People do better when they are observed by other people than in a void. The educational coach doesn't need to be an expert in the domain, just an expert in education. Maybe MOOCs would do better to be coupled with local study groups and educational coaches that make recommendations about what to learn next and supervise the progress of the student.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Huh? All of the MOOCs very early made it clear that their business model was selling certifications, drive that's where the marketable value was. It didn't take anyone involved 5 years to recognize that.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Yes, they knew that the business model was to sell certifications--not sure what else it would be. However, that Coursera certifications would be valued (presumably by employers) on a mass scale was always an aspiration without an awful lot of evidence behind it. (Yes, there are certifications that people pay a lot of money for but they're essentially all focused on a very specific set of skills and tied into some sort of ongoing program.)
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  Yeah and how well do those certifications sell? Again, doesn't take a ivy leaguer to know not very well.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > All of the MOOCs very early made it clear that their business model was selling certifications No, at the beginning another model was seriously discussed: Giving employers access to people who love to learn new things on their own. Cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12311744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12311744
ramblerman 10y ago
Ridiculous, I've learned a great deal from MIT Open Courseware. I agree that Coursera has it's problems, with the insistence to stick to class start and end dates as one example. But to extrapolate that therefore online learning doesn't work as a medium is absurd.
- drfloob 10y ago
  Not so say Coursera doesn't have problems, but the start and end dates don't mean much as of earlier this year, when they rolled out their new platform. There's no penalty for late assignments[0], and you can switch to a later session of the course whenever you want[1]. [0]: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279866 https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279866 [1]: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279776 https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279776
- untilHellbanned 10y ago
  Entirely missed my point. It works, it's just not a business.
michaelt 10y ago
everyone realized you go to college for the rubber stamp. College also provides a bunch of other things: * Face-to-face contact with professors. * Face-to-face contact with classmates, with the possibility of forming in-person study groups and suchlike. * A structure to help your self-discipline; lectures follow a strict schedule so you don't fall behind, thinking "I'll watch it later", then never get caught up. * An environment where your peers are doing the same thing you are - rather than being the one guy in your office who watches coursera videos at lunchtime, you see hundreds of your fellow students every day. * A widely understood and non-stigmatised social status when pursued full time. You're not "unemployed for 4 years and not even looking for a job" a.k.a. lazy freeloader. You're a "student" a.k.a. future member of the middle class. * Clubs and societies where you can make friends. Friends who are close to your age, with similar backgrounds to yours, and with similar interests to you, and who are looking for new friends at the same time you are. * Networking opportunities (at least if you're doing an MBA or something where other people want to network) * Parties full of nice young people of your preferred gender. * Etc etc Now granted, the rubber stamp is important too, but to say college is only a rubber stamp is IMHO an over-simplification for a lot of people's college experiences.

xeniak 10y ago

What about in the web/startup world? Although not a real meritocracy, proving you can program/hack/design gets you a lot further than a piece of paper with a stamp in it.

hashnsalt 10y ago
Agreed. The tech/CS world is more open to these alternative credentials. But a decent majority of the jobs are outside web/tech where traditional degrees hold a lot of value. It's not as easy to get a good mechanical engineering degree online because it requires a fair amount of lab work. Similarly for other forms of engineering and science.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Don't conflate the webdev world with the rest of the tech industry. Most programming jobs are controlled by companies who do care what credentials you have, and the companies you describe are in such high demand by applicants that they have more qualified applicants than slots to fill.
  - XenophileJKO 10y ago
    On the higher end of the market, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Uber, etc.. You can definitely leverage MOOC learning and credentials. I leveraged MOOCs and their credentials as part of my personal brand to offset not having any degree. It helped me move into a software engineering role at a top tier company. It isn't just the top of the market either.. many employers are learning that there is a significant pool of talent available by including candidates with alternative educational backgrounds.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      You missed a key part of what I said: > the companies you describe are in such high demand by applicants that they have more qualified applicants than slots to fill That applies to every company you named. It's great that you managed to get one of those slots. There are plenty of people who don't, though, and they can end up in a much worse position if they spend their time on learning that the majority of companies don't recognize.
ghaff 10y ago
The value of the piece of paper will vary, but evidence that you can do Job X is important in lots of cases--especially as experience accumulates and time from degree (or non-degree) increases. The issue is that if all MOOCs were was another way to view lectures and do some exercises in an online setting for free/cheap, they wouldn't have been viewed with any particular excitement. But that's pretty much what they turned out to be. I'm sure they've been a useful way of learning for some. But they haven't fundamentally changed anything.

ghaff 10y ago

That seems excessively cynical. That said, the market [EDIT: from a $ revenue opportunity perspective] for online ongoing professional education for motivated people who don't care about certifications isn't a huge one. There are things like the Great Courses, Lynda, and of course books. But these are neither VC-sized opportunities nor anything especially disruptive. Leaving aside a few useful tools like online code evaluators, MOOCs largely solved a problem that was long-ago solved. Namely, access to quality broadcast-style lectures and other course content. At the same time, peer interactions and any genuine coaching pretty much didn't work with MOOCs.

hashnsalt 10y ago
Do you think part of the problem with "online education" lies in defining what an education is really supposed to achieve? Should I be guaranteed a job at the end of this series of courses? Should I learn for leisure? Why try to build a one-size-fits-all university on the web anyways?
- ghaff 10y ago
  I'm not sure it was so much "guaranteed a job at the end of this series of courses." But I do think that there was a suggestion, hope, even promise that MOOCs could replace traditional classroom education and degrees under some circumstances. The issue is that, to a large degree, they mostly solved the easy thing. Making videos of university lectures widely available isn't hard. Neither is making other broadcast aspects of the syllabus available (e.g. in MIT OCW). A lot of good material was made available through Coursera and edX. But, frankly, a Wordpress blog with embedded videos and links would have worked nearly as well for a lot of this material. Yes, CS somewhat uniquely benefits from the opportunity to reasonably evaluate code written for problem sets. But, for the most part, evaluation is at the multiple choice level.
- visarga 10y ago
  I believe what is missing from MOOCs is personal coaching. People do better when they are observed by other people than in a void. The educational coach doesn't need to be an expert in the domain, just an expert in education. Maybe MOOCs would do better to be coupled with local study groups and educational coaches that make recommendations about what to learn next and supervise the progress of the student.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Huh? All of the MOOCs very early made it clear that their business model was selling certifications, drive that's where the marketable value was. It didn't take anyone involved 5 years to recognize that.

ghaff 10y ago
Yes, they knew that the business model was to sell certifications--not sure what else it would be. However, that Coursera certifications would be valued (presumably by employers) on a mass scale was always an aspiration without an awful lot of evidence behind it. (Yes, there are certifications that people pay a lot of money for but they're essentially all focused on a very specific set of skills and tied into some sort of ongoing program.)
untilHellbanned 10y ago
Yeah and how well do those certifications sell? Again, doesn't take a ivy leaguer to know not very well.
wolfgke 10y ago
> All of the MOOCs very early made it clear that their business model was selling certifications No, at the beginning another model was seriously discussed: Giving employers access to people who love to learn new things on their own. Cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12311744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12311744

ramblerman 10y ago

Ridiculous, I've learned a great deal from MIT Open Courseware. I agree that Coursera has it's problems, with the insistence to stick to class start and end dates as one example. But to extrapolate that therefore online learning doesn't work as a medium is absurd.

drfloob 10y ago
Not so say Coursera doesn't have problems, but the start and end dates don't mean much as of earlier this year, when they rolled out their new platform. There's no penalty for late assignments[0], and you can switch to a later session of the course whenever you want[1]. [0]: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279866 https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279866 [1]: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279776 https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/208279776
untilHellbanned 10y ago
Entirely missed my point. It works, it's just not a business.

michaelt 10y ago

everyone realized you go to college for the rubber stamp. College also provides a bunch of other things: * Face-to-face contact with professors. * Face-to-face contact with classmates, with the possibility of forming in-person study groups and suchlike. * A structure to help your self-discipline; lectures follow a strict schedule so you don't fall behind, thinking "I'll watch it later", then never get caught up. * An environment where your peers are doing the same thing you are - rather than being the one guy in your office who watches coursera videos at lunchtime, you see hundreds of your fellow students every day. * A widely understood and non-stigmatised social status when pursued full time. You're not "unemployed for 4 years and not even looking for a job" a.k.a. lazy freeloader. You're a "student" a.k.a. future member of the middle class. * Clubs and societies where you can make friends. Friends who are close to your age, with similar backgrounds to yours, and with similar interests to you, and who are looking for new friends at the same time you are. * Networking opportunities (at least if you're doing an MBA or something where other people want to network) * Parties full of nice young people of your preferred gender. * Etc etc Now granted, the rubber stamp is important too, but to say college is only a rubber stamp is IMHO an over-simplification for a lot of people's college experiences.