Slashdot Mirror
Open Courses at MIT
An anonymous submitter was the first to point out this New York Times article - MIT is planning a major project to put most of its coursework up on the Web over the next ten years. The article is a little short on details - probably because there aren't many yet - but there's an MIT factsheet that has some more information.
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However, if you go to MIT and you want to have a good knowledge of the humanities, you can get it. I majored in political science and minored in women's studies, and I thought the classes I took in those programs were excellent (and, in case you're wondering, the instructors in the women's studies program were not pushing a militant feminist "party line"). A friend of mine graduated with a double-major in physics and computer science. Heck, one of my freshman-year suitemates graduated with a degree in creative writing.
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Why is it that the lowest bandwidth communications channel that humans have - the auditory channel - is used as a primary channel for delivering educational information? The whole concept of a "lecture" amazes me - one person stands and effectively reads from notes (no matter how well he's memorized them over the years) while N people sit and write down what he's saying. This has to be some kind of strange sociobiologically-rooted phenomenon related to herding behavior, but do we really need it nowadays? I'm not saying there shouldn't be face-to-face communication and Q&A's, but "lectures"? Maybe once every now and then, when someone like Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln has something to say, but other than that...
The same thing happens in government - I was watching the music copyright hearings on CSPAN, with people like Don Henley and the RIAA testifying. Sen. Hatch starts out warning about how little time they have, after which all those testifying each in turn proceed to read their prepared speech. Sheesh! And people wonder why government is slow and inefficient???
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As an MIT student, a couple quick notes:
1) Someone pointed out that a lot of the courses materials are currently already on the web, and this is VERY true! I'm surprised that people are so excited about seeing this happen from the standpoint that it's largely already happened.
2) Many people noted that this would be great for the people who can't "afford" to go to MIT. Well, at the risk of raising 1000 flames, what about the quality of the students you work with? Now I'm not about to judge MIT's admissions policies at all (that could easily start a 1000 message flame...heh), but I will say that personally, I have learned more from working with my fellow students of amazing initiative and intelligence, than from any course materials. IMHO, that would be the key thing missing from an "Open course". Not to say that there aren't capable people who aren't at MIT....again, that's an admissions issue. For example, I feel I've read far more interesting comments in Slashdot discussions than in the rote news article links posted... don't you? Would you be able to have the same levels of cooperative interaction with fellow students via the web of the same caliber of that of MIT students? I think it's doubtful, if due to no other reason than current constraints of the medium.
3) In reply to: "students would be able to view previous examinations, learn exactly what questions professors ask, and learn only those questions." Well, many many already do, as MANY classes have past exams already on the web for review. Guess what? It doesn't work.
4) The amount of work required to make these courses actually potentially credit worthy may be HELLISHLY massive. A couple people mentioned this already, and I just want to re-iterate that a number of the professors I've heard talk about this have mentioned that. Having to suddenly grade 5100 tests instead of 100?...eek! There goes any sort essay tests or anything similar. In any case, I have the feeling that that isn't going to happen any time soon, but it will stick to informative materials only.
5) Javac the great is ridiculously un-informed. "MIT lacks a strong fundamental general education curriculum. CS students start doing CS from day one." What nonsense. First, CS students do not even remotely start doign CS from day one...I don't even know what that means it's so ridiculous. I took one CS class in the second half of my freshman year. ONE of 8 or 9 freshman year classes were CS. Also, MIT has an amazing humanities department. Currently, for example, I'm double majoring in Computer Science AND a humanities (Film & Media Studies), and both departments are top-notch.
Just a couple quick notes...
But you can do more.
What if MIT (and possibly other schools) were free? Once you're in, you don't pay anything. Could this possibly be done? How much money would it take? Less than you might think:
In round numbers, MIT collects $25,000 (a good share of which is already covered by financial aid) from 4000 undergraduates every year. That's $100 million per year. How large of an self-sustaining endowment is necessary to generate this kind of cash each year? For a 5% return, 2 billion dollars is required. For a 2% return, the figure is 5 billion.
That's a lot of money, but it is the same order of magnitude that Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and other schools are raising in just a few years time (Harvard raised 2.somthing billion in it's recent capital campaign). There are quite a lot of very rich entrepre-nerds who got their start at MIT (and many other schools). I'd bet that many of them would be willing to give generously if they knew that enrollment at their university would be free of charge.
This could kick off a revolution: free (and therefore universal) college education. The fact that a top university would be free would force other universities to do the same. The result would be many more minorites, poor kids, and kids from rural areas going to college. Now that is a realization of the American Dream. It would be to the benefit of MIT, as well; their annual crops of bright, young freshmen would be even more diverse and talented.
If you think that this idea is crazy, I'll remind you that most of Europe has free post-secondary education.
-Andrew Howard (class of '98 @ MIT -- physics)
...the best professors that is. There is nothing more valuable than a good teacher. Frank Pfenning , in my opinion, is one of those great teachers. I am not a student of the university that he teaches at, but I can still follow along his courses, read his class notes and do his homework. I highly recommend his courses to any computer scientist who is interested in the foundations of computer science (constructive logic and the lot).
;-)
After following through Prof Pfenning's material, I have given allot of thought to going to CMU... I just need more money
Anyways, thanks CMU and thanks Prof Pfenning!
Someone decides to give away their intellectual material to the entire world, to no real benefit to themselves, and what do you hear from the /. peanut gallery? A bunch of posts pissing all over the idea, all trying to look insightful doing it.
Good ideas:
- Those who cannot afford to go to MIT can still learn their courses.
- Current students of MIT can get an example of what to study, intensifying their skills leading to higher learning.
- Other universities can adapt to the higher levels (not saying other uni's are substandard) of teaching.
Bad ideas:- Students may be able to cheat on exams.
- Teachers may slack off on their intensity since students can just go online to learn.
- Students can skip more classes referring to the web and how they already "learned" something.
- Learning something with the assistance of a vocal teacher is not the same as reading it.
- MIT can lose students since they could go to other universities and still learn at their level.
- Upkeep may be hellish
As with anything though there are pros and cons, but for the most part I think its a good idea for those who are willing to go the extra mile and learn something new, or for others to keep refreshed. Governments should give look into giving universities with plans like this free or highly reduced incentives, such as working with companies to provide free bandwidth to provide these services (which is what they are) for its citizens, after all in the U.S. your supposed to be entitled to a free education, so why not make it feasible for universities to follow MIT's move by providing added incentives.In the end the best case scenario would be, more people learn at a higher level, earn more, become more productive citizens, as opposed to being restricted because of things like race, levels of income, etc., thereby there'd be less welfare and dependancy on government to solve problems. While the worst would be.... (keep holding while I think of this)
Ghost in the Shell hiding your data
360 degrees of Karma
Students would be able to view previous examinations, learn exactly what questions professors ask, and learn only those questions. This will lead to focused studying instead of the broad studying necessary for a real education.
.doc format. No problems there because the papers were so different every time.
You mean you were never given past papers at University? Wow. You must have some really unimaginiative and lazy professors and lecturers. I studied at UMIST Computation and all past papers for all courses including a large amount of the notes were freely available internally, both in paper and Word
Professors will have extra work to do in keeping the web page up-to-date.
Ummm... what do you think they write their lecture notes and exam papers on? A typewriter? No, all this means is that Word and Powerpoint files just have to be linked to on a departmental web-site. If they want to convert to (bad) HTML, that's not really a problem in Office is it?
Students would grow mad at professors who do not keep their site up-to-date, leading to lawsuits pertaining to fair education, etc.
Only in America would somebody sue a professor for not keeping his course notes up to date. How brain dead are you people? It's your job to learn and to go and find information - if all you're going to do is read just the notes for the course the night before the exam, you can't really expect to be able to sue when you fail, can you?
Students with computers at home (i.e., financially stable students) will have access at all times, while others (minorities, etc) will not, leading to an even bigger gap between upper- and middle-class.
I think you'll find that the course notes will still be made available to the students on paper. If not, I'm sure there are some computer labs somewhere with printers.
This project is not about under-mining MIT. It's not about replacing notes with HTML. It's not about giving professors extra workload. It is however, about a 15-year old who has above average intelligence getting free access to professional materials that match his ability from anywhere in the world. You're just angry because you put yourself in debt going to college and seem to think that this proposal will replace a degree. It won't, but I suspect you don't have one anyway, huh?
I have to say, I think this is a great idea. I'm sure UMIST would do this at some point themselves, but I understand the main problem is with copyright retention and Universities stealing each other's materials. MIT is showing the rest of the world the way it should be done from now on.
This line intentionally left here to annoy you.