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What is the general sentiment in the community about endeavors like this? Only anecdotes, but usually when I see an article like this find it's way to Hacker Ne

What is the general sentiment in the community about endeavors like this? Only anecdotes, but usually when I see an article like this find it's way to Hacker News I'll see a few posts from people describing themselves as part of the academic community discussing the cons of the way these are being rolled out and implemented.

_delirium 14y ago
I would say mixed opinions, but considerable skepticism. Some of the skepticism is of how university administration will handle it; there is some suspicion there is no real plan and this is being done for purely "brand" reasons, so the university president can talk about "cutting edge" initiatives. Some of it is of the concept in general. Some of it is that it's a for-profit company, not a nonprofit with clear charitable goals. Worse, it's a for-profit company whose business plan is still unclear, so one doesn't know what their long-term intentions are. But a lot of people are just undecided, waiting to see how it'll pan out. Probably not a lot of outright enthusiastic professors, except from the relatively small number who are actively looking to either jump to one of these startups themselves (like Sebastian Thrun), or at least co-found one (like Daphne Koller). The Chronicle of Higher education's occasional guest op-eds are probably a decent representation of the range of opinion. Here are a cautiously positive and a somewhat negative take, respectively: http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/07/11/moocs-arent-a-panacea-but-that-doesnt-blunt-their-promise/ http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/07/11/moocs-arent-a-pan... http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/whats-the-matter-with-moocs/33289 http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/whats-the-matter-with...
- objclxt 14y ago
  My understanding (I used to do some work in distance education) is that one of the reasons Harvard/MIT founded eduX rather than partner with Coursera or Udacity is they were unable to get past the 'for profit' model, and there was some unwillingness to discuss how the 'profit' was going to be made. I think a lot of the academic scepticism does come from the for-profit - not to say for-profit education can't work, just that it is somewhat new territory for many institutions.

_delirium 14y ago

I would say mixed opinions, but considerable skepticism. Some of the skepticism is of how university administration will handle it; there is some suspicion there is no real plan and this is being done for purely "brand" reasons, so the university president can talk about "cutting edge" initiatives. Some of it is of the concept in general. Some of it is that it's a for-profit company, not a nonprofit with clear charitable goals. Worse, it's a for-profit company whose business plan is still unclear, so one doesn't know what their long-term intentions are. But a lot of people are just undecided, waiting to see how it'll pan out. Probably not a lot of outright enthusiastic professors, except from the relatively small number who are actively looking to either jump to one of these startups themselves (like Sebastian Thrun), or at least co-found one (like Daphne Koller). The Chronicle of Higher education's occasional guest op-eds are probably a decent representation of the range of opinion. Here are a cautiously positive and a somewhat negative take, respectively: http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/07/11/moocs-arent-a-panacea-but-that-doesnt-blunt-their-promise/ http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/07/11/moocs-arent-a-pan... http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/whats-the-matter-with-moocs/33289 http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/whats-the-matter-with...

objclxt 14y ago
My understanding (I used to do some work in distance education) is that one of the reasons Harvard/MIT founded eduX rather than partner with Coursera or Udacity is they were unable to get past the 'for profit' model, and there was some unwillingness to discuss how the 'profit' was going to be made. I think a lot of the academic scepticism does come from the for-profit - not to say for-profit education can't work, just that it is somewhat new territory for many institutions.