You're dead on. Whether or not MOOCs reach the standards we want today, they allow far more scrutiny than the closed courses they'll end up replacing. Over time

You're dead on. Whether or not MOOCs reach the standards we want today, they allow far more scrutiny than the closed courses they'll end up replacing. Over time, this will help them improve, a great boon to everyone. I like to think of Khan Academy, Coursera and Udacity as raising the lower bar for everyone. If your course / institution / whatever is worse, you can easily draw on them materials as a supplement. It you can find better, well, no harm done.