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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 C

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.

maayank 5y ago
> * 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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9av8-lhJS8
- benrbray 5y ago
  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.
- drran 5y ago
  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.
wodenokoto 5y ago
> 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.
- lmohseni 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    >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 5y ago
      It's not really catering to disable a feature. You can call it "audit" mode and offer no credential.
      - ncallaway 5y ago
        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
odessacubbage 5y ago
>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.
chaosbutters314 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  Science and cooking is well known as a blowoff course @Harvard.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Food engineering, maybe. It's not science or even applied science.
threatofrain 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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.
- hackermailman 5y ago
  For analysis lectures this guy is hard to find in the Youtube algorithm but has the best analysis lectures you'll ever find https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22w63XsKjqxqaF-Q7MSyeSG1W1_xaQoS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22w63XsKjqxqaF-Q7MSy... many go well with Terence Tao's book or whatever analysis text you're currently doing. As for OCW it is missing a lot of content that you can find if you look at the class page on stellar for prev semesters, for whatever reasons they're not allowed on there but you can still find full lectures (until they lockdown that access too)
turadg 5y ago
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.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  > 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.
- cstejerean 5y ago
  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.
  - musicale 5y ago
    It's the false time urgency trick, aka "today only!" Similar to the false inventory scarcity trick "only 1 left at this price!" Note to MIT and Harvard: when you start adopting the deceptive sales tricks of used-car salesmen and dubious infomercials, you're probably doing it wrong.
geodel 5y ago
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.
kilroywashere 5y ago
something many don't know: you can torrent these courses.
redgrange 5y ago
Maybe their internal research shows significant benefits to the short chunks of lecture content.
4ec0755f5522 5y ago
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!
hackermailman 5y ago
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.
xtiansimon 5y ago
> “Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes.“ In my previous experience this was determined by the instructor(s). Is this no longer the case? (Somehow determined by the platform?)

maayank 5y ago

> * 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 5y ago
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 5y ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9av8-lhJS8

benrbray 5y ago
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.
drran 5y ago
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.

wodenokoto 5y ago

> 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.

lmohseni 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  >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 5y ago
    It's not really catering to disable a feature. You can call it "audit" mode and offer no credential.
    - ncallaway 5y ago
      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

odessacubbage 5y ago

>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.

chaosbutters314 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
Science and cooking is well known as a blowoff course @Harvard.
wrycoder 5y ago
Food engineering, maybe. It's not science or even applied science.

threatofrain 5y ago

> 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 5y ago
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.
hackermailman 5y ago
For analysis lectures this guy is hard to find in the Youtube algorithm but has the best analysis lectures you'll ever find https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22w63XsKjqxqaF-Q7MSyeSG1W1_xaQoS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22w63XsKjqxqaF-Q7MSy... many go well with Terence Tao's book or whatever analysis text you're currently doing. As for OCW it is missing a lot of content that you can find if you look at the class page on stellar for prev semesters, for whatever reasons they're not allowed on there but you can still find full lectures (until they lockdown that access too)

turadg 5y ago

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.

threatofrain 5y ago
> 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.
cstejerean 5y ago
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.
- musicale 5y ago
  It's the false time urgency trick, aka "today only!" Similar to the false inventory scarcity trick "only 1 left at this price!" Note to MIT and Harvard: when you start adopting the deceptive sales tricks of used-car salesmen and dubious infomercials, you're probably doing it wrong.

geodel 5y ago

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.

kilroywashere 5y ago

something many don't know: you can torrent these courses.

redgrange 5y ago

Maybe their internal research shows significant benefits to the short chunks of lecture content.

4ec0755f5522 5y ago

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!

hackermailman 5y ago

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.

xtiansimon 5y ago

> “Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes.“ In my previous experience this was determined by the instructor(s). Is this no longer the case? (Somehow determined by the platform?)