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Some of these courses have "certificates" awarded for fees; and said certificates are the entry point to some businesses; just like the steep steps in front of

Some of these courses have "certificates" awarded for fees; and said certificates are the entry point to some businesses; just like the steep steps in front of the building.

hga 12y ago
And if you read the PR release carefully, no where does it specifically say one of those courses isn't properly captioned. The examples it gives of non- or poorly captioned items aren't even courses at all (http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimination-public-online-content http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... which is a really nasty piece of work). Without looking at the lawsuit (waiting for lawyers like the Instapundit to tear into it, he's big on non-traditional learning like this), I suspect the mention of MOOCs is bullshit, confounding perhaps a MIT Open CourseWare (OCW) offering with the edX ones you're talking about, which others in this discussion have ensured us are properly treated.
- aldordeah 12y ago
  I am deaf and I specifically remember about MIT OCW from a couple years ago that, whenever I found something that seemed interesting and had video lectures available, the lectures didn't even have a transcript, much less captions. I went to their website again and literally the first course I picked lacked captions,[1] unless you count the YouTube-generated "love with a system age to have an with a system" as captions. It wasn't very hard to find another seemingly interesting course that doesn't have captions either.[2] Admittedly, after further inspection, more courses seem to have captions than before. [1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-processing-spring-2011/video-lectures/lecture-2-discrete-time-signals-and-systems-part-1/ http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-proces... [2]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-theory-spring-2013/video-lectures/lecture-3-field-redefinitions/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-the...
  - hga 12y ago
    For better or worse, OCW's remit was to publish materials about MIT's courses that would be useful to other teachers. Anything beyond that, like what you tried to do, is gravy. Now if edX, contrary to everything we've heard in this discussion, doesn't do the right thing, they have a much stronger case. But that's not the case they're making in the PR thuggery, and I thank you for confirming one part of what I suspected. And just to be crystal clear, OCW is pretty much out of money and mandate, it's mostly in maintenance mode (already past its budgeted life, now begging for cash). The best outcome of this is that such lectures will be picked up by edX and properly captioned. The more likely one is that they'll be pulled altogether, although we hope copies will be captured before that happens. Is a dog in the manger outcome one you favor?
- fpgeek 12y ago
  I took a look at the press release. At the top it I found: "Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content." I understand how that happens, but, given the subject of the lawsuit, it's still very ironic.

Some of these courses have "certificates" awarded for fees; and said certificates are the entry point to some businesses; just like the steep steps in front of the building.

hga 12y ago

And if you read the PR release carefully, no where does it specifically say one of those courses isn't properly captioned. The examples it gives of non- or poorly captioned items aren't even courses at all (http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimination-public-online-content http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... which is a really nasty piece of work). Without looking at the lawsuit (waiting for lawyers like the Instapundit to tear into it, he's big on non-traditional learning like this), I suspect the mention of MOOCs is bullshit, confounding perhaps a MIT Open CourseWare (OCW) offering with the edX ones you're talking about, which others in this discussion have ensured us are properly treated.

aldordeah 12y ago
I am deaf and I specifically remember about MIT OCW from a couple years ago that, whenever I found something that seemed interesting and had video lectures available, the lectures didn't even have a transcript, much less captions. I went to their website again and literally the first course I picked lacked captions,[1] unless you count the YouTube-generated "love with a system age to have an with a system" as captions. It wasn't very hard to find another seemingly interesting course that doesn't have captions either.[2] Admittedly, after further inspection, more courses seem to have captions than before. [1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-processing-spring-2011/video-lectures/lecture-2-discrete-time-signals-and-systems-part-1/ http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-proces... [2]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-theory-spring-2013/video-lectures/lecture-3-field-redefinitions/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-the...
- hga 12y ago
  For better or worse, OCW's remit was to publish materials about MIT's courses that would be useful to other teachers. Anything beyond that, like what you tried to do, is gravy. Now if edX, contrary to everything we've heard in this discussion, doesn't do the right thing, they have a much stronger case. But that's not the case they're making in the PR thuggery, and I thank you for confirming one part of what I suspected. And just to be crystal clear, OCW is pretty much out of money and mandate, it's mostly in maintenance mode (already past its budgeted life, now begging for cash). The best outcome of this is that such lectures will be picked up by edX and properly captioned. The more likely one is that they'll be pulled altogether, although we hope copies will be captured before that happens. Is a dog in the manger outcome one you favor?
fpgeek 12y ago
I took a look at the press release. At the top it I found: "Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content." I understand how that happens, but, given the subject of the lawsuit, it's still very ironic.