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I have a bit of a problem with this. I am not sure why it does not sit right with me. The college needs $75k of donations to be able to put the curriculum on

I have a bit of a problem with this. I am not sure why it does not sit right with me. The college needs $75k of donations to be able to put the curriculum on edX?

ahmedalsudani 7y ago
Watch the video. The instructors want to put it online for free—not the university. They have already made courses and made them available online. It was a massive undertaking. It is not too much to ask for their effort to be funded at the modest level they have requested.
- cliffy 7y ago
  I think there's an argument to be made that a public university should be putting content like this online for free anyway.
  - solveit 7y ago
    There is, and it might even win eventually, but students could use the material now.
  - ahmedalsudani 7y ago
    You are free to make that argument, and you are free to change the system. That said, it is counterproductive to make that case in the instance where someone is trying to use public money to provide a public good. The correct place to protest is when the university sends you your tuition bill or when they decline you admission. The instructors have no access to or control over the billions in their university’s endowment fund. Right now, our options are to either fund this effort or not to fund it. I hope that we fund it.
    - craftyguy 7y ago
      > The correct place to protest is when the university sends you your tuition bill or when they decline you admission. Your "protest" over a (1) tuition bill or (2) admissions rejection is not going to matter. You'll be sent to collections in the case of (1) or ignored in the case of (2). Publicly funded universities should contribute _something_ back to the public. Generally it's fucking football or basketball (assuming you pay for the right TV service). You are barking up the wrong tree.
      - ahmedalsudani 7y ago
        > You are barking up the wrong tree. :)
  - kirsebaer 7y ago
    Yes. We should have high-quality videos for the entire STEM and med school curriculm. It wouldn't cost that much as a % of public education costs. Khan Academy claims to be doing this, but their videos are not particularly high quality.
- gibba999 7y ago
  No. If the instructors wanted to put this up for free, they could build the course on Open edX, and put it up for free with any of the hundreds of free Open edX providers. They could license under an open license. There's nothing stopping them (including their university). They're asking us to crowd-funded a crappy profit-making scheme. The course will be of questionable quality. You don't learn math without doing math. That's a scientific fact. Their "free" offering is "audit videos." I'd encourage anyone to look up the mass of literature about interactive engagement versus passive learning. You feel like you're learning, but you're not. People basically would waste their time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jammygit 7y ago
How long does it take to produce a course? Probably 4:1 hours prepared per hour of content, with 33h of material in undergrad courses. Say 200 hours of high quality focus? Let’s add 80 hours of technical nuisance to make the videos work nicely too. That means that the effort would be worth $268/h roughly. If the course was very good, I’m not against a teacher making that for a particular project. Calling it donations is weird though, I guess another commenter said it was the university that was requiring it
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  I would be more inclined to donate if it was not associated with the University, and was simply the professors creating the content offering. The amount of money floating around in higher ed., it seems in poor taste to need a ‘donation’ to make this available to the public at large, from a public university, funded by taxpayers. It could be marketed better.
sigjuice 7y ago
Also edX now requires payment for the ability to submit and check homework.

I have a bit of a problem with this. I am not sure why it does not sit right with me. The college needs $75k of donations to be able to put the curriculum on edX?

ahmedalsudani 7y ago

Watch the video. The instructors want to put it online for free—not the university. They have already made courses and made them available online. It was a massive undertaking. It is not too much to ask for their effort to be funded at the modest level they have requested.

cliffy 7y ago
I think there's an argument to be made that a public university should be putting content like this online for free anyway.
- solveit 7y ago
  There is, and it might even win eventually, but students could use the material now.
- ahmedalsudani 7y ago
  You are free to make that argument, and you are free to change the system. That said, it is counterproductive to make that case in the instance where someone is trying to use public money to provide a public good. The correct place to protest is when the university sends you your tuition bill or when they decline you admission. The instructors have no access to or control over the billions in their university’s endowment fund. Right now, our options are to either fund this effort or not to fund it. I hope that we fund it.
  - craftyguy 7y ago
    > The correct place to protest is when the university sends you your tuition bill or when they decline you admission. Your "protest" over a (1) tuition bill or (2) admissions rejection is not going to matter. You'll be sent to collections in the case of (1) or ignored in the case of (2). Publicly funded universities should contribute _something_ back to the public. Generally it's fucking football or basketball (assuming you pay for the right TV service). You are barking up the wrong tree.
    - ahmedalsudani 7y ago
      > You are barking up the wrong tree. :)
- kirsebaer 7y ago
  Yes. We should have high-quality videos for the entire STEM and med school curriculm. It wouldn't cost that much as a % of public education costs. Khan Academy claims to be doing this, but their videos are not particularly high quality.
gibba999 7y ago
No. If the instructors wanted to put this up for free, they could build the course on Open edX, and put it up for free with any of the hundreds of free Open edX providers. They could license under an open license. There's nothing stopping them (including their university). They're asking us to crowd-funded a crappy profit-making scheme. The course will be of questionable quality. You don't learn math without doing math. That's a scientific fact. Their "free" offering is "audit videos." I'd encourage anyone to look up the mass of literature about interactive engagement versus passive learning. You feel like you're learning, but you're not. People basically would waste their time.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jammygit 7y ago

How long does it take to produce a course? Probably 4:1 hours prepared per hour of content, with 33h of material in undergrad courses. Say 200 hours of high quality focus? Let’s add 80 hours of technical nuisance to make the videos work nicely too. That means that the effort would be worth $268/h roughly. If the course was very good, I’m not against a teacher making that for a particular project. Calling it donations is weird though, I guess another commenter said it was the university that was requiring it

dillonmckay 7y ago
I would be more inclined to donate if it was not associated with the University, and was simply the professors creating the content offering. The amount of money floating around in higher ed., it seems in poor taste to need a ‘donation’ to make this available to the public at large, from a public university, funded by taxpayers. It could be marketed better.

sigjuice 7y ago

Also edX now requires payment for the ability to submit and check homework.