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One that I didn't find on the list, Coursera makes it really difficult to take ("audit") a course for free: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science/blob/master
by ibraheemdev 5y ago
One that I didn't find on the list, Coursera makes it really difficult to take ("audit") a course for free: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science/blob/master/FAQ.md#are-coursera-courses-free-to-access https://github.com/ossu/computer-science/blob/master/FAQ.md#...
- melomal 5y agoGlad I'm not the only one that noticed this. The link itself to 'audit' is basically as small of a clickable link as possible. I am honestly surprised they didn't just hyperlink 'a'udit at this point.
- anticristi 5y agoGeeez. I didn't even know that was an option. Very disappointing Coursera!
- g_p 5y agoIs the phrase "audit" a specific Americanism, or is it more widely used? I've never encountered it (beyond the context of American colleges referring to sitting in on lectures in the US system of building credits yourself towards a major) - in other countries with different (perhaps more regimented) university education, I've never encountered the phrase. And personally I haven't encountered the concept either really. I'm wondering if the phrase itself is also designed to be understood by the fewest number of people possible, in addition to being hidden?
- leoc 5y agoIt’s a standard expression, not an Americanism.
- taneq 5y agoI’ve never heard it in Australia in this context.
- chrismorgan 5y agoI’m Australian, and have heard this sense of “audit” approximately once before in my life, from Americans.
- com 5y agoWe used it at the University of Western Australia back in the ‘80s when I’d attend lectures and tutorials for a course without formally enrolling (bureaucratic issues meant that that was often impossible). Some academics were very positive about it, they got good participants in the room, rather than just check-the-box degree mill students.
- kcartlidge 5y agoNot in regular use in that sense in the UK either. I've heard it very infrequently and usually with some US context in the conversation.
- perl4ever 5y agoThe first reference on the Wikipedia article is to a Australian university page, but then again, the link's broken.
- Anthony-G 5y agoIt’s not standard in Ireland or Britain. I figured it was more of a MOOCism rather than an Americanism as this is the only context I’ve seen it used to refer to trying out a course for free.
- magnusmundus 5y agoI'm not sure about the "free" aspect, but I've seen it used to mean "attending classes without being enrolled in a course" in other places, that is, in the offline university context.
- ectopod 5y agoKind of. To audit means to assess the quality of. This is true in British English, but hiding free access to a course behind the pretence that the student is auditing, not studying, is wholly American.
- jacobolus 5y agoAudit is Latin for "I hear" (think "auditorium", "audience", "audition"). If you think about it an audience with a lord, a legal "hearing", and an academic lecture are in many ways similar. Later the meaning of audit branched/changed, and one common modern sense of the word is to do a thorough examination of something, comparing results against specification. I speculate that it first became a technical specialized legal term (in a context where it was originally still about a hearing in court), and then mutated as it filtered back out to people who didn’t know the word’s origin. The "audit" in "audit an academic course" (meaning to attend the course without obtaining a credential) branched from the original sense of the word.
- flotzam 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_audit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_audit