Get a Free MIT Education

dhollm writes "Well, at least the course materials will be online, for free, for all. The article gives a brief description of the program (evidently costing MIT $100M over 10 years) and the key drivers behind it. So start reading up!"

Comments

Free as in beer?

[SpanishInquisition]

Or free as in boring?

My question...

[Green Aardvark House]

Where was this when I went to college?

I had to settle for CUNY instead.

Re:My question...

[nomadic]

Hey, CUNY's not so bad. Got to go to school in Manhattan for about $4k a year, and graduated debt-free.

Old News

[NineNine]

This was annouced about a year ago.

Re:Old News

[saridder]

Yes it was. And it's no big deal. It's just the course outline, not the education, not the interaction between the student and profesor, not the heated lively debates, which is what constitutes good education.

Re:Old News

[jeff67]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/04/114122 8

Re:Old News

[Anonymous Coward]

Heated and lively debates?!? You've never been an MIT student have you?

Ballsy Move

[baronben]

becuse they are saying that its not the meterials that you are shelling out many K's for, its the teachers who explain it. A few other schools have been doing this for a while, St. Thomas Aquanis school (though I could be wrong, but I know a school like this exists) has had their entire 4 year ciriculam based on the Birtainca Great Book Series for a while. Any one can pick up a set for about 200$, but the other 28,800$ a year is for the teachers to explain it.
I supose this would be interesting if I'm interested in a certen subject and want a bibliogaphy or some slids on it, but only an idot would try to get a real education by only reading the course meterial

Re:Ballsy Move

[shepd]

>but only an idot would try to get a real education by only reading the course meterial

There was (and all too often, still is) the time that the only way to be informed was to teach it to yourself. I know that because that's how I learned computers! I was the only person on my block (actually, within most of the school) for over a decade that could do anything with a computer. 100% self taught from books. Now I help others use computers.

The problem with learning by being taught is that you only learn what the teacher has to tell you. And unless your teach has a photographic memory, that means you end up with less of an education. I always tell anyone I help who wants to fully comprehend the subject to read books on it. I make mistakes even when I teach people how to do things. I don't think that makes me a bad teacher -- I think it just proves I'm still learning how to do my job.

I believe a "real" education comes neither by rote, nor by hearing example cited. It comes from trying, doing, and being. You lean the "real" answer by correcting your mistakes. If you don't make mistakes, you aren't learning difficult enough subject matter.

Just my two cents.

Re:Ballsy Move

[Anonymous Coward]

thats St. John's University in Annapolis and Albequerque. They refer to it as thier great books education.

Re:Ballsy Move

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots try to get an education by NOT reading course material!

But does it count ?

[oldzoot]

It is wonderful that a motivated person could actually learn high-quality usefull stuff ( I assume ), but will it count with any potential employers ? It is very difficult to break through the "paper culture" which exists to support the requirement of expen$ive educations. No matter how clever one might be - as demonstrated by actual past performance, there is always that suspicion of anyone undocumented as a fraud.

Re:But does it count ?

[Drakula]

I think you are right. Without the paper it is not equivalent. However, it is a great advantage for those who just want to supplement their existing knowledge or those who are trying to keep up with new developments in a given field. I think its great for that.

I still think employers would look upon this in a positive way. I know people who graduate putting all kinds of crap on the resume that they never really did or don't really know anything about. I guess they don't get called on it much because I haven't heard many horror stories.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:But does it count ?

[cheesyfru]

Of course it counts. Some employers actually care about what an employee knows, not what a piece of paper says they know. There are plenty of people out there who are motivated to continue their education after they've entered the real world, but who don't have the (time|money) to devote to a school like MIT. As one who spends many hours at Barnes & Noble reading tons of computer books in my spare time, I certainly welcome the opportunity to get more free education!

Re:But does it count ?

[The_Unforgiven]

Even if you don't get a degree, it would still teach you, and you could take some sort of an exam or something in the future... still worth the time.

Besides, it's all about the free passage of knowledge, right?

Well, it should be! :)

Re:But does it count ?

[Quizme2000]

as demonstrated by actual past performance, there is always that suspicion of anyone undocumented as a fraud.

Well, there always is the Degree in Photoshop. Commit fraud to prevent being called fruadulant, now thats a great Catch-22.

Re:But does it count ?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> But does it count ?

I'll argue that it counts for personal fulfillment, but not much in the job market. I spent six figures for a fancy undergraduate education over a decade ago. The diploma has served me well, but day-to-day I use the math, communication, and analytic skills I learned in high-school, and not much from college.

Re:But does it count ?

[singularity]

As others have pointed out, while you still may be required to have a degree to be considered, having that extra bit of education can only help things in the job market (unless you are declared "over-qualified").

Take two people, who graduated from the same program a year apart and have relatively similar work experiences. Suppose one can talk intelligently about a subject that does not show up on his transcript, and explains that he was motivated enough to learn it on the web from MIT. The other is unable. Who do you think looks better to the company?

In addition, the web page also mentions that this is a good reference for other colleges and universities. Want to know how MIT teaches a difficult concept? Just look itup on the web.

I applaud MIT's effort; this is truly a move that can only help mankind.

Re:But does it count ?

[dragons_flight]

There is something that a lot of people are neglecting. Having a bachelor's degree is not just about what you have learned. Think about it, many jobs in the real world will spend weeks or more teaching you how to do the job well after you are hired.

Getting through college and having that diploma is also a statement about your ability to get through college. It speaks to time management, ability under pressure, ability to interact with others, etc. In addition to saying something about what you know, that piece of paper tells potential employers that you have the determination to be dedicated to the long hall and aren't just some flaky high school kid.

Getting an MIT education online would be an impressive feat, but there are still other questions. Without grades did you cut corners on your studies? Are you doing it to avoid social interaction? Did you learn to manage long term projects and research?

Clever knowledge isn't the only skill that counts in this world.

Re:But does it count ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I really don't care. What I *do* care about is having better access to material from all the classes I wanted to take while I was there and didn't have time. I'm going to take digital death lab yet!

Re:But does it count ?

[shibboleth]

To the extent that undocumented knowledge of the MIT course materials doesn't count, a market opportunity exists (minus, of course, the cost of setting up ways of measuring the knowledge and establishing credibility) to certify knowledge of it.

Re:But does it count ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously employers like to see proof of a potential employees knowledge, but a piece of paper from a university or college isn't the only possible evidence. After having finished studying some of the MIT courseware one could easily do a project that demonstrates, and is verifyable proof of, the newfound knowledge.

For example, if someone learned all about Comp. Sci then he or she could implement an open source library or something to that affect. If someone had just finished learning all about some science, he or she could write a journal article and try to get it published. Admitedly, this is harder, but certainly possible.

-hgh

Re:But does it count ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you doing it to avoid social interaction?

Have you ever been to MIT? That's status quo...

Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it a little bit disconcerting that I, as an MIT student, am paying tuition to help devalue the very education that I am paying for. The cost will ultimately fall on me to make these materials available to everyone else.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you not, instead, increasing the value of your education by showing that it's the school you attend and not the books you're using?

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[MaxwellStreet]

Actually, student tuition is probably the -last- place the money is going to come from.

MIT ranks right up there with Harvard and other Ivy League schools when it comes to endowments. Basically, alumni give the school lots of money, which gets reinvested in all sorts of things - including projects of strategic importance like this.

Interestingly, MIT also derives significant revenue from the pseudo-business ventures and inventions created there. Inventions that turn out to be revenue-generators, created on-campus using their facilities, must pay a percentage of those revenues right back to the school.

I remember this causing quite a flap with a guy whose last name was Bose - son of the guy of Bose audio fame - who had an invention and was fighting with MIT over these fees.

At big-name schools like MIT, and Ivy League schools, student tuition is just one tiny piece of the financial machine.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but you do make the assumption that the things that had been previously unavailable to non-students - problem sets, course outlines, lecture notes, etc. - do not contribute to the value of the education received.

Even beyond that, there is the simple fact that the costs of the program are being explicitly placed upon the people who receive the least from it: the tuition-paying MIT students. It makes more sense to me for MIT to make the program self-sufficient.

As it is, my tuition money to MIT is going to this program to benefit other people, instead of getting ME a better education.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

That will comfort me quite a bit when I right out that $30,000 check later this year.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[maeglin]

I find it a little bit disconcerting that I, as an MIT student, am paying tuition to help devalue the very education that I am paying for. The cost will ultimately fall on me to make these materials available to everyone else.

Hey, it could be worse, you're paying a premium to attend a quality university *and* to share knowledge with the rest of the world helping inch us closer to Utopia.

I'm at Michigan State where tax money and students tuition are paying a premium to provide a Big Ten athletics program.

I think I'd rather be improving the world.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[j-beda]

When you "rite out" your cheque? That made me laugh.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at Michigan State where tax money and students tuition are paying a premium to provide a Big Ten athletics program.

Gawrsh, Micky, do you mean that a Big Ten athletic program isn't improving the world?

No wonder you didn't put your name on this; the Dean of Students would kick you out if he caught you denigrating their money tree.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[tomknight]

If I were you, I'd get a happy shiny feeling out of that. But then, I'm not a selfish jerk.

Tom.

(Account 190939, having difficulty logging in)

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks, I didn't think that's actually log me in, given the probs I've been having fior the last half-hour. Oh well, I guess that post at +2 will lose me a little more karma then....

Tom.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an MIT alum, I'm disappointed that you have not realized the true value of the MIT education.

Anyone can buy the textbooks for any MIT class. Anyone halfway gifted with Google could get the lecture notes, problem sets, and exam solutions to just about any class since about 1995. Think of those things as the things you get for free as a student.

What you pay for is the opportunity to interact with brilliant minds like yourself (and some undoubtedly more brilliant). Don't believe me? Go to one of Noam Chomsky's lectures on American foreign policy and get in a debate with him. Or head to LCS and have a chat with Ron Rivest. Go to MAS.100 and talk with Michael Hawley (does he still teach that?) after class. That's just a few examples. You can certainly find others interested in whatever you are interested in. And that's just the professors. Don't neglect the opportunity to learn from your fellow students.

Your tuition is only wasted if you waste it. MIT is more than just going to class and reading some books and lecture notes. ;)

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Yokaze]

Depends on how your getting the education.
From the materials or for from the instructors and you fellow students.
In the first case, I understand why you are a bit disconcerted.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Tattva]

Bravo! Also, if someone feels that this will result in more competetion for jobs, it means they are worried that their only advantage over others is the name of the school on their diploma.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[peter303]

The Mellon and Hewitt foundations directly. MS gave a big chunk to improve computing infrastructure.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[tmark]

It's not as simple as critics of these programs make it, though. Athletic programs add immeasurably to the esprit de corps of the student and alumni bodies. They also add to the bottom line in ways that are not obvious or direct. I went to a school with a powerful athletic program and the effect of, say, a contending basketball or football program is amazing. Students and alumni buy tons more athletic jerseys, baseball caps, T-shirts, and bumper stickers - all at HUGE markups - so the school's licensing revenues jump. Alumni see their school name in the news and they donate way more money. And students identify with their school more strongly when they can follow and latch on to their team and track their exploits weekly. They are happier to be there. They have something else to talk about with their friends. And when they become alumni, they will have happier memories of rallying behind their school banner and will be more likely to donate. These effects occur, too, when you are watching a pro basketball or football game and you see that so-and-so played at UCLA or Stanford or Michigan State, which is why these statistics are advertised.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[tmark]

I have to agree with you. The MIT instructors argue - convincingly - that the course materials hardly constitute an MIT education, so I don't think this can devalue your own education. However, I do have to wonder how the MIT Board of Trustees justifies a big expenditure like this. How does this action benefit their own students ? Possibly it could serve some larger good, but tuitions and the like are not paid to MIT in its capacity as a charity. Most alumni are probably not donating money to MIT to benefit people who are not at MIT. It seems like MIT should primarily be concerned with doing right by their own students, and frankly I can't see how this kind of initiative benefits them. If this were an inexpensive project that would be one thing, but we are talking about a tenth of a billion dollars. If I were at MIT, I would think this borders on irresponsibility.

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[callmegracie]

amen to that.

penn state is just as disgusting. anything an undergraduate or graduate student creates or discovers is considered the intellectual property of the university. yet these same people who provide the university with the prestige of technological developments have to strike for something as simple as dental insurance. and our football team is 0-4!

Re:Where is the $100M coming from?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about "write out"?

cool

[austad]

Actually, it may be interesting to find out how many "prominent" intellectuals over the next 10 years gather much of their knowledge from this instead of actually going to school.

Many of the smart people I know found school was not for them and ended up learning what they know on their own. Also, that 12 year old prodigy down the block may not have $100 or more for college level coursebooks, but he sure has internet access...

Re:cool

[Ryan Amos]

I wish something like this had existed when I was 12. I was essentially stuck in public school where the work was incredibly boring and easy, but could not be "skipped" because of district regulations forbidding early promotions after grade 7. If I had access to college level courses over the internet, I probably would have just dropped out, gotten a GED and gone to college.

Also, a prominent school like MIT putting forth an initiative like this is very cool. Not only are you learning things for free, but they're being taught by some of the best minds in the world. I'm not really sure if these online courses are quite the equivalent of in-person classes, but for free, who's going to complain? :)

Re:cool

[The_Unforgiven]

Hey, I can always use that extra edumacation. ;)

Really though, I go to a modest-sized community college b/c I can't afford anything much. Why should I be curesed into not learning because of my financial situation. I'll definatly be looking into this... I mean, even if there's no degree or whatever, I'm still learning, and that's what's important anyway.

Re:cool

[ajna]

Most top-tier schools' admissions programs are need-blind: you get in, and you will get enough aid to let you attend the school. My point is that you can't really use cost as an excuse to not go to a good school, since many good schools are need blind.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Or like in my case where I was told that I could speed-up my completion of the curriculum for an early graduation and quicker credit accrual, only to be told (after completion of an entire years worth of work in four weeks) that I wouldn't be credited after all, because of regulations.

It just comes down to butts-in-seats. They get paid if your butt is in their school seats for at least a certain number of days each year. Early graduation just takes more money away.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the higher schools (Harvard, MIT, etc) are even making moves toward student *grants*... You can't even really use the excuse of crushing debtload to make the excuse.

Re:cool

[laserjet]

I do agree with you, but as most of us know, you could very well be straddled with debt by the time you get out...

A catch 22.

Re:cool

[carlos_benj]

Really though, I go to a modest-sized community college b/c I can't afford anything much. Why should I be curesed into not learning because of my financial situation. I'll definatly be looking into this... I mean, even if there's no degree or whatever, I'm still learning, and that's what's important anyway.

Some might point out that you haven't taken advantage of this web-based learning tool... but I won't....

I am having trouble with the word curesed. I'm not sure if you mean "cursed" or "coerced" (gramatically coerced works better). At any rate, you shouldn't let money be a limiting factor. It's often only a matter of priorities. What do you spend money on? Games? Fast food? Movies? Add it all up and you'll be surprised what it looks like annualized. Some people just like Big Macs and Cokes more than something they bemoan a lack of finances for.

If you're bright enough to go to a place like MIT, finances can be worked out. You may have to "cram" a four year degree into six or eight years by laying out a semester here and there to accumulate more funds. There's more scholarship money out there than you can shake a stick at, some specializing in nearly every kind of sub-group you can think of ($1,500.00 for left-handed eskimos with post-nasal-drip? They probably have a scholarship!).

Re:cool

[The_Unforgiven]

True, scholorships are there, but unless you have good grades, it's very difficult (though not impossible, I know) to get it paid off completely.

And yeah, cursed was too strong of a word.. I was just using it to strengthen my point...

/me stands corrected, feeling retared :)

YOUR DIPLOMA IS WAITINIG!!!

[Abnornymous Howard]

Get a Free MIT Education!!!!

j/k... :)

Guess what my new homepage is?

[N8F8]

MIT OpenCourseWare. I love to learn and if this pans out it could be a real boon to self educated people around the world!

Re:Guess what my new homepage is?

[under_score]

Please consider Oomind.com - an open education community! Much more dynamic, already online (though very very new), and built by a very small outfit (me and one other developer). Come support us!

MIT's got a site up on it.

[bziman]

OpenCourseware from MIT's Web site. They've got a mailing list, a link to the press release, and some other information.

I like it... I can't wait for the Linguistics curriculum to go up.

--brian

Re:MIT's got a site up on it.

[digifuzz]

They've got a mailing list, a link to the press release, and some other information.

the page itself states:

While there is presently no mailing list for MIT OpenCourseWare, we invite you to bookmark this site and keep checking back.

:) Just thought i'd clear that up for ya :)

~ fuzz

Next Step

[aratas]

would be truly free education for everyone... using these means, we could cut down on things like "university campuses", etc. for professions that don't require actual lab environments... cutting costs to the point where government can fund teachers that design and update coursework, providing it freely to the public. (education and defense are about the only things government should be involved in anyway.. ok, tack on justice system... fine...)

Re:Next Step

[John Harrison]

If you read the article you will find that the MIT professors that came up with this disagree with you.

MIT is careful to point out that the OpenCourseWare project is not a distance-learning initiative. Indeed, according to Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science and engineering who served on the committee that developed the idea, OpenCourseWare represents a repudiation of distance learning. "It's a large effort at MIT that says, 'We're not going to do distance education,'" says Abelson. "It really is making a statement about what the university is about and what it's not about."

Also, the government isn't paying for this, since MIT is private.

I am amazed that you think that professions that don't need lab environments don't need campus based training. Would you want to pursue a history/English/law/religion degree without spending actual classroom time with your teacher and fellow students?

I took advantage of the fact that for many of the university courses I took were on-line. Not only were all the course materials on-line, but the lectures were too. So I would often sleep in and then catch class on my Mac Performa while eating lunch. Guess what? I really regret doing that. I wish I could go back and kick myself in the head and make myself go to class. I did fine in my classes but I missed out on lots of interaction, and the ability to ask a question in lecture.

Besides, Prof. Nick Parlante would always wear plaid to screw with the video compression. :)

Re:Next Step

[blisspix]

I'm currently doing a graduate research degree by distance. I had no choice because I live right across the country from my university, and I work full-time.

I hate it. There is no structure, no communication, no activities with other students, no study support online, nothing. I love just sitting and chatting with other people tossing ideas around for a few hours. That's how I work.

now i'm sure it depends on the discipline, because something that is often self-paced anyway like programming is probably easier to do by distance rather than history.

Schools need to do so much more to make distance learning a truly interactive experience. At the moment it's just, "jeewhiz, look what we can do on these newfangled computers"

Nice, but $100 million?

[westfirst]

This is a nice effort, but I don't know where they come up with the $100 million price tag. Most of the work is already done by professors who want to save themselves the hassle of making sure students get all of the handouts, problem sets, answers, etc. MIT doesn't block access to that stuff now and I guess they won't in the future.
My guess is the $100 million figure was dreamed up to shake some cash out of alumni. They're probably hoping that someone will come forward and endow the effort. Perhaps they're targeting Michael Saylor, the MIT graduate who once talked about starting a free university with the cash he was making from MicroStrategy. The dot bomb crash has slowed that dream and perhaps MIT's as well.
Of course, I don't mean to denigrate the entire idea. It just seems like they're taking credit for something they already do. Did I mention that each week, I take out the trash? That's keeping the world cleaner! Call me Mr. Environmentalist!

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is a nice effort, but I don't know where
> they come up with the $100 million price tag.
> Most of the work is already done by professors

So, uh, who do you think pays the professors?

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[tswinzig]

Of course, I don't mean to denigrate the entire idea. It just seems like they're taking credit for something they already do. Did I mention that each week, I take out the trash? That's keeping the world cleaner! Call me Mr. Environmentalist!

Well then, you've successfully learned the first computer science lesson now taught by MIT: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[GrenDel Fuego]

> > Most of the work is already done by professors

>So, uh, who do you think pays the professors?

MIT does of course, but if the work is already done for the classes, it dosen't cost extra to make it available to another medium.

I doubt the professors time tie into this cost much. The web publishing costs make more sense as the other poster mentioned.

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[haruharaharu]

but if the work is already done for the classes, it dosen't cost extra to make it available to another medium.

That depends on who owns the course material. In a lot of places, that would be the prof.

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

The figure is actually $100,000. The letter M is the roman numeral for 1000.

Re:Nice, but $100 million?

[Popocatepetl]

The effort has been endowed - with 11 million dollars. Find out more at http://web.mit.edu/ocw/.

this really isnt *that* great

[BJTiso]

If you know the right place to go, you can get course materials for virtually any school. In all of my classes, the professor puts lecture notes, exam solutions, and homework solutions online. This is just merely a coordination of these efforts put forth by professors. This probably isnt even news-worthy in even slashdot standards.

Re:this really isnt *that* great

[Anonymous Coward]

Most university sites are quite hard to navigate and use. Professors and web maintainers should be surfing for prn more to get an idea.

Re:this really isnt *that* great

[MrResistor]

It really isn't as common as you think that teachers put their materials online, and even if they do you still have to know where to look. From my breif look at the site, what MIT is doing is a lot more than just a prof posting the syllabus on his home page. As for what you describe as the norm at your school, that is exceptional, and I applaud your school and/or it's professors for their efforts. What they are doing really is rare, even in Computer Science.

Great source for supplemental information

[big_cat79]

I'm finishing my degree from the University of Maryland right now, and I see this as a great potential for supplemental information for my coursework. I take a large majority of my classes over the Web so I can work full-time in addition to taking 12-15 credits a semester. Despite the extreme convience of taking my courses on-line, I feel as though I don't recieve as comprehensive instruction as I did in the classroom. These course materials, while certainly not identical, could certainly provide me with another point of view, and quite possibly giving me a better grasp of the material.

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

This screws up one of the best scenes in Good Will Hunting!!

WILL
The sad thing is, in about 50 years
you might start doin' some thinkin' on
your own and by then you'll realize
there are only two certainties in life.

CLARK
Yeah? What're those?

WILL
One, don't do that. Two-- you dropped
a hundred and fifty grand on an
education you coulda' picked up for a
dollar fifty in late charges at the
Public Library.

I look for a reissue of the DVD "Updated for new technology" anytime now.

I feel sorry for you americans

[redhog]

cause here in Europe (at least in my country, which is Sweden), you don't have to pay for education. You pay for books (or lend them frome someone), and you pay for your apt and food, but not for your education as such. And there's a student loan with kinda nice repay-plan (at least partly based on your income) you can get for paying your rent and food. You don't need to be rich, only smart, to get a good education...

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? You don't have to pay for Oxford?

MIT isn't just some vocational school or junior/community college.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[linca]

England is a special case. In France's best universities (l'Ecole Polytechnique and Normale Sup), you are paid during your education...

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[hgavin]

Well, almost. UK residents have to pay around 1000 pounds a year towards tuition fees, which is means tested so poorer students don't have to pay. This is the same regardless of the stature or quality of the university. EU residents have to pay more, and non-EU residents even more.

Nevertheless, a university education at Oxford, Cambridge or the backwater college of your choice is essentially paid for by the education authority. Living expenses are a different matter, hence my large student loan...

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[sql*kitten]

cause here in Europe (at least in my country, which is Sweden), you don't have to pay for education. You pay for books (or lend them frome someone), and you pay for your apt and food, but not for your education as such.

No such thing as a "free education", or free healthcare for that matter. It's all paid for through taxation. Which simply means that those who don't study have no option but to subsidize those who do.

It's all about control. Will the Swedish government (taxpayer) pay for your education at a university that isn't an "approved" part of their system? Of course not... but your 4 years of tuition fees in the US will get you the best education money can buy, anywhere in the world.

When you graduate, you pay the taxes, and you lose control over your future. I mean that quite literally, for example the state-run pension systems throughout Europe are heading for bankruptcy.

European governments are living on borrowed time, just as the dotcom firms were during the bubble, spending money freely without thinking of the future. I will make very sure to move my assets out of Europe and into a "free" (as in speech, not as in beer) economy before the EU governments realise that their vote-winning health, education and pension schemes, or should I say scams, are actually built on sand.

At that time, the American system of "pay for what you actually use" will be proved to be the only sustainable model.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[haystor]

I seem to recall going to school here with some people that didn't test well enough to get into University.

It would seem to me that a select few get to go for free, subsidized by those that don't get to go.

Here, the person receiving all those rewards of a higher education is the one that will incur the bill directly, not the population at large. (kinda)

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Your education may be free, but it's not accessible like it is in the US. Students in most European countries are placed into academic "tracks" at a relatively early age, on the basis of high-stakes exams. If they mess up just once, they're screwed, and can look forward to pumping gas for the rest of their lives, unless they are rich enough to buy their way into a private college (frequently in the U.S.).

In contrast, consider my experience in the US: After dropping out of high school (for reasons I won't go into), I was able to get my GED (a government-sanctioned equivalency diploma), attend community college for a couple of semesters to bone up on high-school level math, and then transfer to the local state university, where I graduated with honors in physics. After graduating, I ended up working at national R&D center where my peers were often graduates from the most elite universities in the country.

Try doing that in Europe!

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[sql*kitten]

What the hell do you mean, "troll"? You might not agree with it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a valid perspective.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Where are they?

'Cause as a female with a high household income I can't get shit for school. At all.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States does the same thing. Instead of spending tax money on healthcare, education and other social services the government in America likes to spend it on the military, military aid to allies such as Israel and Turkey, and keeping 2 million Americans in jail. I would rather have my tax money spent on the socialist healthcare system and education that US politicians love to denigrate rather than war and locking people up.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Those shiny nikes are no good, if you cannot run.
Take a look at MIT grad students and where they come from.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[mrscorpio]

Someone please meta-mod this. Tis no troll!

Chris

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping you might just be a troll but if you really believe that I'm quite sad for you.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Borrowed time? Don't think so. The university system has been around in Europe for a LOT longer than in the US... it ain't going nowhere fast. Someplaces just have their priorities set up right...

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[gowen]

No such thing as a "free education", or free healthcare for that matter. It's all paid for through taxation.

Correct. Many of us do not believe this to be a bad thing, since a reasonable, progressive taxation system results in the rich subsidising the poor. Whilst this isn't the American way, we Europeans kind of dig its naive

Which simply means that those who don't study have no option but to subsidize those who do.

Not necessarily. What it should mean (modulo tax cuts for the rich, and the myth of trickle-down economics) is that this generation of students are subsidised by the previous generation of students, since they're now earning more than their "non-graduate" contemporaries. In fact, the UK govt. has just proposed a "graduate tax" for exactly this purpose.

(Oh, and Cato Institute reports attacking government spending are not exactly impartial sources)

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[waxmop]

I modded your post to insightful after i saw somebody set it to "troll", because it makes me mad when i see moderators injecting their own politics into their mods.

But your garden-variety libertarian logic is flawed: the social security dilemma facing western europe and the US has really nothing to do with subsidized education, and everything to do with an aging work force. Read _Generational Accounting_ by lan J. Auerbach and Laurence J. Kotlikoff if you don't believe me.

And while I'm at it, leaving education to the private sector only makes sense if you believe there are NO external societal benefits to be gained from having an educated populace.

But if society benefits by educating its members, ie people commit less crime and practice healthier lifestyles, then the government has a perfectly logical reason to subsidize education. The market system will fail to provide the pareto optimal level.

Your move.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[pubjames]

Your education may be free, but it's not accessible like it is in the US.

Hmm... Surely it's just a different kind of accessibility. In the US a good education is available to those who have the money to pay for it. In Europe those who want to study in the best universities need the brains and motivation to get in, not the money.

It is different with schools and colleges, and I think the experience you describe wouldn't be considered unusual in Europe - there's free education available to virtually anyone who is motivated enough to seek it.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

You're speaking out of your ass. EU and UK students pay the same amount (1075 pounds currently) per year. Other students ARE charged an arm and a leg though...

Re: I feel sorry for you americans

[Inthewire]

I have an uncle who went to a zero tuition school in India. The professors there had a saying:
"Not free, but at no cost to you or me"

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[snarkh]

European governments are living on borrowed time, just as the dotcom firms were during the bubble, spending money freely without thinking of the future.

Have you ever heard of Social Security? Perhaps you might have even heard the word "lockbox", when it was still used by politicians.

Ignorance is bliss.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Registered Coward v2]

Hmm... Surely it's just a different kind of accessibility. In the US a good education is available to those who have the money to pay for it. In Europe those who want to study in the best universities need the brains and motivation to get in, not the money.

Actually, US universities are real good at price discrimination, they call it student aid. They know what you have available to pay for tuition, and tailor aid to get as much money as is possible for tuition. A poor, but smart student, can get a free ride while a richer one shells out for it.

Come to think of it, it's rather the same in Europe - the gov't knows what you make, and takes what they feel is appropriate. If you're richer, your education costs more.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[joss]

The education system in America is so crappy that it's necessary to import foreigners from ineffective "socialist" countries just to keep the infrastructure from falling apart. The engineers/scientists are mostly second generation Americans or foreigners. Upper echelon natives become lawyers, bankers, or PHBs. Lower echelon Americans become [???] but not engineers. Somehow India and Russia can afford to churn out 100000s of competent engineers a year, but America is too efficient to do that. It's more efficient to let those silly socialists have state subsidised college education. That way the US can keep corporation taxes low, but make sure there are enough techs to keep things running. It's great - the owners get very rich. It leaves ordinary Americans on the slag heap, but who cares about that.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Isle]

Well actually peoply with higher educations make more money and therefore pays more back in taxes. It NO coincidence that average education level, income, standard of living and general happiness is MUCH higher in north europe than in the USA.(and yes the average income IS higher but so are prices and taxes, so we are only really rich when spending out money in less developed countries like the US) As for the best education, well we get more american students at Copenhagen University than we send abroad, becouse students know an american degree might be easily bought, but is often not worth the paper its printed on. As the government wouldnt pay for universities it doesnt approve of, it wouldnt pay for universities that are trying to devalueate the general education to make fast money.

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Lord Omlette]

I thought you weren't allowed to mod and post at the same time? Or was that the old /.?

Re:I feel sorry for you americans

[Anonymous Coward]

After you run one ID to the karma cap, you get another. Moderate with one, post with the other. Not that I'd do anything like that.

~~~

To benefit from free MIT education online

[Spootnik]

There's a few people in here who will need to first take remedial English lessons.

Re:To benefit from free MIT education online

[baby_head_rush]

I am so smart S-M-R-A-T, Doh!

Re:To benefit from free MIT education online

[raresilk]

Oh, thanks for the English tutorial, Mr. Split Infinitive . . .

Re:To benefit from free MIT education online

[SaturnSS]

Obviously you are one of them considering that sentance should have been phrased:

"There ARE a few people in here who will need to first take remedial English lessons"

Re:To benefit from free MIT education online

[Anonymous Coward]

So few of us really know how to phrase a "sentance".

Re:To benefit from free MIT education online

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping that he did that on purpose...

Link to previous slashdot story

[Jish]

As many of you realize this was mentioned before on slashdot. I found the old story (which was not so easy cause searching under slashdot's "older stuff" doesn't return any results for MIT???)

Anyway:

The other story

Check out some of the information/comments from that...

-- Josh

Re:Link to previous slashdot story

[Anonymous Coward]

"Older stuff" seems to be somewhat broken, although it is inconsistent. From what I can tell, Slashdot seems to switch to static pages every once in a while (comment posting is disabled, users appear logged out, etc.) for about 10-20 minutes at a time.

Re:Link to previous slashdot story

[jafuser]

Yesterday, I came across a link somewhere on here to a really nice intro to physics site on colorado.edu's webserver. I spent most of the day going through it, as it has some really good interactive java applications to demonstrate principles of physics.

I just figured I'd point people to this as I found it to be quite entertaining and educational (and somewhat relevant to this topic). I really hope they continue develompent on it (although some of the java applets have copyright 1997 on them).

Of course not!

[scribblej]

Of course it doesn't "count." That's the whole point MIT is making -- just reading the course material is NOT an education, and it's a world different than actually being in class.

If it WERE the same thing, then putting this information out there would instantly put MIT out of business.

Yes it does count ...

[dustpuppy]

Assuming that you read the material and, most importantly, actually understand it and can utilise the knowledge, then I don't see why it can't count.

When I interview people, I certainly look to see if they have a degree, but frankly, as long as they have the right attitude (the dominating factor really), and can answer the majority of my technical questions, then they have an excellent chance of getting employed.

If reading the online material from MIT lets you answer my technical questions, well then that's good enough for me.

Re:Oh Great, Smarter Terrorists

[piersevent]

I'm sure you meant to say Ultra-Radical Islamic Fundamentalism way of life...

Type slower next time, OK?

Is it useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that the site says "all of the materials used in the teaching of..." it does NOT say "all of the meterials used in the learning of...".

Blasted copier machines breaking (/joke)

[sporty]

Well, you know how it goes with those blasted office printer/copier super machines. First you print out 30 pages of your sylybus. Great, there's a typo, gotta reprint them. Great, the printer/copier starts to crease the paper in funny ways. Then it starts to print streaks. Then you have to pay someone to fix them. Now multiply that by the number of departments you have that offer classes. THAT is where your money is coming from. Perhaps we should just sue Canon, Xerox et al for their little.. conspiracy to kill more trees and make money off of it...

Positive, but not really new

[fm6]

The MIT initiative is a very positive thing, and is a refreshing response to the commercialism that has pervaded technical and scientific institutions for that last couple of decades.

But really, they're just formalising and advertising a process that is already well under way. Online course materials are already an important web resource. When I need to teach myself some algorithmic trick, I no longer search for some hard-to-find, hard-to-browse, hard-to-read textbook. I go to Google. If I choose my keywords properly, I'm sure to find somebody's carefully written, example-laden lecture notes, aimed at all the thick-headed freshmen who forgot to come to class.

God, I love the web. For all its flaws, it's an indispensible resource. I know I used to do technical research without it, but I'm damned if I can remember how.

Re: Athletic programs

[Quay42]

I once saw a bumper sticker that said "A University needs a football program as much as a fish needs a bicycle." That says it all. I honestly don't have references to back this up, but as far as I know most athletic programs *lose* money for the school (I'm certain at UNR, where I attend, they do) but nonetheless they give a name for the school that helps attracts quality professors. At least one would hope.

Places like MIT, Caltech, and Harvard are the few places with incredible academic programs but virtually nonexistant athletic programs (the popular stuff I mean, that makes it to ESPN) that can charge large sums of money because the education itself is so good. How many times do you hear about a company spinning off of an MIT research program. Meanwhile, UNLV had an incredible basketball program which most likely attracted students and professors to the school. However, last I check, the Computer Science program isn't even Accredited there!

I thought I had a point somewhere in there...

Cheers,
jw

Another MIT perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

This program will not be all that useful in the long run to end-users. At MIT, I have learned very little from the course material. Most of the learning comes from being exposed to the really cool professors and the other self-motivated learners on campus.

This is not to say that the program will be useless; the people who really benefit are professors at other institutions who are looking for innovative approaches to college level education. Because this is the primary benefit to a program like this, it will in no way replace an MIT education with a self-taught system.

(at lael (dot mit edu))
MIT Mechanical Engineering '03

Your money never went to you anyway

[Ars-Fartsica]

Undergrads at top US schools never see their dollars return to them - your money is safely in the hands of graduate researchers and faculty staff.

As it stands MIT has a great endowment and they can easily fund this project without dipping into the funds you donated to graduate work.

Linkrot!!

[webword]

The link to the article on degree.net really sucks. Why? Linkrot. When people try to get to this information in the future, it probably won't be there because other news will come along to replace it.

The solution is to put the information on both the "news" page and the archive. That is something all web sites posting news should do. The user should then be responsible for finding the news article in the archive, as an individual page, so that it will last when people go back at a later time.

While degree.net does not have the MIT degree news in their archive right now, I hope they place it there soon. Better still would be an indvidual page dedicated to the MIT degree news, so that it could be directly linked, rather than using the news page or the archive.

Linkrot sucks. Understand what it is, and understand how to prevent it. If you are a webmaster or publisher, make it easy to find information and set up permanent URLs. To do otherwise is poor practice. And users, look for permanent URLs. Use them when you find them. Try to prevent spreading linkrot.

Thanks.

Try this out

[Laplace]

Pick a subject that you are interested in. Something like a foreign language, art history, anthropology, topology, operating system design; anything that you are interested in but don't know much about. Get a good textbook on the subject. Commit to reading the text, working the examples, and solving the exercises in it.

How long would you last in doing that? When would you lose interest? When would other, more pressing issues, take priority and push your self study aside?

Having all of the courses on line is a nice idea. However, without the pressure of deadlines, grades, and competition, most people would have a hard time following such self study through to completion.

Re:Try this out

[OrangeKrush]

Amen to that. I decided to learn Latin this spring. I got a book (actually I had it lying around from the last time I decided to learn Latin :^), and I Just Did It. It took the exertion of quite a bit of willpower on days I decided to just skip that day's goal, but I did make it to the end in about 4 months, not much longer than a semester...

-OK

Other online resources

[scott1853]

Just the other night I was looking to signup for some online courses. I'm one of those people that had been programming since the age of 12 and just jumped right into the industry after high school. I'm glad to be here, but now I'm getting bored with computer science which is fairly simple. The more advanced sciences seem pretty interesting to me right now, such as physics and chemistry and even some mathematical theory.

MIT's OpenCourseWare sounds great for me, since I'm looking to learn the information, I don't care about the degree. However, their new system won't be online for several months or longer. Are there any good sites out there that provide good online resources for learning the topics I've mentioned? Pay sites are fine. Please don't say SmartPlanet or About.com

Re:Other online resources

[payslee]

DeAnza college has a very well developed distance learning program. It's a community college so may not offer all the advanced classes in a subject, but if you're looking to get started in a new subject area, it's a great place to start.

Their distance learning page is here: http://distance.deanza.fhda.edu/

I first came across them about five years ago when I was "New Media" editor for a textbook publishing company. There were a lot of innovative course materials coming out of their programs.

Re:Other online resources

[scott1853]

Thanks, I'm gonna check them out tonight.

Re:Other online resources

[cloudmaster]

http://alliance.franklin.edu/ and your local community college. Get an accredited BS in CS online (take tests proctored at your local school) and maybe an AAS from your local community college. I actually went to a "real" university for a few years, then got a job and am a couple of classes away from completing the degree. 'Course, most of the desire to get the degree comes from wanting to get a new job someday...

Anyway, Franklin's distance courses are pretty good, and their CS degree is actually CS - not some crappy "cs for managers" curriculum with one programming language and a bunch of business garbage. You get real compiler design, OS design, hardware function, and math classes at Franklin (as well as the requisite well-rounded crap, but not at the expense of CS courses). It was the best online CS program that I could find a couple of years ago when I was looking around.

Re:Other online resources

[scott1853]

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out. I've stayed away from the local community college. I have a friend attending there and I looked over her courses. Pretty bland stuff, but she's only in her second year so she's just taking all the required classes.

Re:Other online resources

[cloudmaster]

That's sort of how the franklin thing works. You get the initial well-rouded stuff at your community college where it's cheap and easy (mmm, cheap and easy...), then when you go to a real college you get real courses that are relevent. Eh, it works for me (esp the internet-delivered thing that lets me keep a full-time job).

Don't underestimate the cost of web publishing

[Ars-Fartsica]

MIT is about to create a huge web repository that will easily rival Yahoo and MSN in its engineering needs. Almost all of the web pages will have to be redone to create a uniform look, feel and functionality. Outside of that there will have to be mechanisms in place for new material to be published in an efficient manner. Factor in server costs, database licenses, and the biggest cost - labor - and you can easily get into large dollar amounts.

Its not just about setting up a web site - its the cost of migrating the practices of an entire institution around a new model of information dispersal. This will definitely erode the value of journals as graduate work starts filtering in to the system.

MIT may even be attempting somehting more daunting by trying to productize the process to be sold to other institutions, I'm not sure, but that would raise costs even higher.

Re:Don't underestimate the cost of web publishing

[Mistah Blue]

You miss the biggest cost... storage and availability of data.

We are talking in the 100's of GB, if not TB's. When you use that many spindles, you are going to statistically suffer spindle failure on the rate of 1 every week or two. That rate will increase as your spindle count increases.

You will have to go RAID-5 or mirror. As this will most likely be read intensive, RAID-5 would be an economical way to protect this data while improving read performance.

Availability is going to be another factor here. Think clustering, as it wouldn't do to have MIT's OpenCourseWare offline.

This costs money. Depending on their projected usage you can easily get upwards of $100M in cost. Remember this is a 10yr cost, so think total cost of ownsership (infrastructure, personnel costs, maintenance, etc.).

Re:Don't underestimate the cost of web publishing

[GrEp]

It's MIT for crying out loud. I don't think they are going to have to look far for engineers ;) The biggest problem will be getting professors to type up their course notes. If they had the bandwith they could just tape lecures, but I don't think 3rd world net users would prefer that format. Audio sucks because you can't pass it through Babelfish.

Re:Don't underestimate the cost of web publishing

[callmegracie]

Its not just about setting up a web site - its the cost of migrating the practices of an entire institution around a new model of information dispersal. This will definitely erode the value of journals as graduate work starts filtering in to the system.

i don't think that a repository of powerpoint presentations and PDFs will "erode the value of journals." how many graduate students will be teaching students about their current research? grad students at penn state have taught me basic C++ and physics - and i'm sure those aren't the subjects covered in their journal submissions.

Re:Don't underestimate the cost of web publishing

[bored]

100 GB is one spindle now days. A hotswap SCSI attached IDE raid config with a capacity of 1TB costs about $12k. Network costs? 100Mbps of internet connectivity costs 1k a month. Assuming mostly static content, the computers, network swiches and hot failover clustering software to drive this bad boy could probably be gotten for less than $30k. Pay a couple good students to set the whole thing up so it runs itself and you would be left with the cost of a couple HTML monkeys to integrate the whole mess.

up there with Harvard/other Ivy League schools?

[brlewis]

MIT doesn't think so.

Re:up there with Harvard/other Ivy League schools?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Frijoles!

4.41 million dollars in endowment per student?

*does the math*

At even the most conservative investment return rates, 30-40K tuition paid by the student is a tiny fraction of the university's revenue.

Wow. An eye-opening statistic.

An Alternative Educational System for Communities

[under_score]

MIT's stuff is really cool by virtue of its name. MIT is respected, well known, etc. All the course materials are also a great store of knowledge. But...

I've been working on a community educational system called Oomind. The great thing about oomind is that people are not just passive recipients of knowledge. You can also contribute your knowledge, and evaluate the quality of others' contributions. And, you can answer quiz questions to develop an academic record which is cumulative rather than percentage based.

You can find more about the philosophy of Oomind, and an introduction to how Oomind works. The basic idea is that educational material is in the form of courselets. These courselets have scores in ten different attributes including practicality, creativity, and beauty. The scores are based on a weighted average of user's evaluations of the courselet. These scores help in two ways: searching for information, and determining dynamically the academic value of the knowledge. Each courselet can have quiz questions submitted by any user. The questions also have a weight based on users' evaluations. When you answer a question correctly, the weight is used to add a percentage of the courselet's attribute scores to your academic record as a learner.

Anyway, it is very dynamic, but it is still new so there isn't too much content. Please join up and submit courselets!!!

This is about consistency and completeness

[Ars-Fartsica]

Yes you may be able to find the information you need on Google, but this will almost always be data in isolation. MIT will leverage the fact that all of the data is contained within one logical system in order to enhance cross referencing, indexing, searching and metadata generation. Done correctly it will be a truly cohesive, intelligent library. I contend that we have only scaped the surface of what can be achieved with the web in terms of information management and I suspect the MIT project is also interested in advacning the state of the art.

Distance learning

[mvw]

I took advantage of the fact that for many of the university courses I took were on-line. Not only were all the course materials on-line, but the lectures were too. So I would often sleep in and then catch class on my Mac Performa while eating lunch. Guess what? I really regret doing that. I wish I could go back and kick myself in the head and make myself go to class. I did fine in my classes but I missed out on lots of interaction, and the ability to ask a question in lecture.

This is because the american university system is closer to school. The German system is to have the professor go to the board or slide projector and to give his performance for 90 minutes. This is usually an one man show, with very few questions from the audience. School is IMHO, wenn the professor cares about the individual progress of the students and asks them questions etc.

The places where you learn are the small exercise groups and in contact with other students.

Today I study computer science next to my job at a distance university and wish I had the same material when I studied physics at a traditional university. That stuff is better and it saves you time, except you are one of those few persons who are actually able to learn at the speed the professor gives his talk (I'm not, I need usually twice the time :-)

I am amazed that you think that professions that don't need lab environments don't need campus based training. Would you want to pursue a history/English/law/religion degree without spending actual classroom time with your teacher and fellow students?

Well I signed up for the hardware lab this year and it is done this way: They send you a complete computer with interfaces, software etc home and you have 8x2 weeks time to get used to it and do homework with it. Later, if you solved the assignments, you have to go to one the locations where they offer examination and write a test. If you pass you are allwed to do a one week full time lab at the university location.

The funny thing that you meet your peer students personally just at the examinations or these labs in person, otherwise e-mail, news or irc is the means for contact, or individual arranged meetings among the students that live not too far away.

Regards, Marc

Re:Distance learning

[John Harrison]

Marc,

I understand your point and I have certainly learned a great deal using distance learning methods. My regrets stem from my perception that the best aspects of the university experience are student to student interactions and student to teacher interactions.

The interactions I had with other students were the most valuable part of my university education. Not only will I enjoy those friendships for the rest of my life, but the contacts that I made will be of use to me professionally as well. Just having a degree from such-and-such university is less than half of what makes my education worth the amount of money I paid for it. Yes my degree says that I have some level of CS proficiency, but the people that I know now are even more valuable to me.

For me as much of my learning came in the dorm as in the classroom. I was able to ask people for help and also able to give help nearly any hour of the day. I am not saying that this cannot happen in a distance learning enviroment, but for me it seems much more difficult.

Re:Distance learning

[mvw]

My regrets stem from my perception that the best aspects of the university experience are student to student interactions and student to teacher interactions.

I agree with you. What I wanted to add was that at least in the German university system teacher-student interaction is quite poor (the first time probably when you have to prepare a seminar treatise or perhaps even at the time you prepare a thesis, but not at class time) so that this makes no big difference between presence and distance education.

Student-student interaction is important, that is why the distance university has tutoring centers in the bigger cities that serve a whole region around them, where people can get mentoring. The intenet of course has been very helpful too.

I don't argue for distance learning in general, but because many people have to spend time for jobbing at the same time they study, distance learning methods (as a means to learn at flexible times and locations) combined with traditional student meeting points are very helpful.

Regards, Marc

Being there

[Ars-Fartsica]

Obviously there will always be great value in being on campus and mingling in the throngs of students and staff. Consider your experience at MIT to be the "premium" version of the MIT product.

for people who cannot afford the premium version, or who somehow missed out on college for various reasons, this is a great boon to them without diminishing your experience.

Re:Being there

[NoBeardPete]

I think there's a world of difference between the "premium" and non-premium versions of the product, in this case. As an MIT student, I'd have to say that the quality of instruction we get here is not, in general, exceptional. Those few exceptionally good professors that I've had were professors who had already written text books in the subjects they taught, so the world at large has already been able to make use of them.

The two things that make MIT a good place to get an education are 1) the student culture and 2) the opportunity to do cutting edge research in an MIT research lab as and undergrad.

Being surrounded by smart, motivated students who are passionate about their work is infectious. MIT students get a lot out of their education because they put a lot it, because that's the normal thing to do here, and because they all help each other out. While many schools have an atmosphere of cutthroat competition, MIT has an atmosphere of "we're all in this together" and "if we're going to make it through this, it'll be by helping each other out". The result of this is a whole lot of mentoring and working together amongst the undergrad population.

So, while it's all well and good to be able to look at the course materials online, I think people who do this will be missing out on the two greatest factors in MIT being a good school. You'd pro'lly be better of going to a decent state school, hanging out with some smart, motivated people, and getting involved with some sort of research group, instead of trying to use this stuff on the web to learn your shit.

Re:Being there

[cymen]

The two things that make MIT a good place to get an education are 1) the student culture and 2) the opportunity to do cutting edge research in an MIT research lab as and undergrad.

You missed 3) Using the connections you make to network jobs and/or funding for the rest of your life. And no I'm not an MIT student/alumni, just a slightly jealous onlooker. But I'm getting over it!

Textbooks

[Chelloveck]

Dang, I was hoping they'd make the textbooks available online. There are a lot of texts I'd love to browse through, but don't really want to spend the $50-$100 each for the privilege. (How did I ever afford it when I was in college, anyway!?)

The FAQ mentions that things available "could include material such as lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists, and assignments for each course". That's nice and all, but it sounds like you'll still need to get hold of the textbooks if you really want to take advantage of the course materials.

BTW, I suspect that part of that $100M figure may be from lack of revenue selling these materials in the campus bookstore. Just a guess.

doesn't matter

[sahala]

It doesn't matter whether this stuff counts toward a degree or not. What matters more is that it's out there and public.

Students at other universities worldwide can use it as an additional reference. Those of us (sniff sniff) who have graduated and are working can look up that algorithm or data structure that we don't quite remember accurately (probably because of the hangover from the night before).

Not that I can throw away all my textbooks, but this is pretty sweet.

Oh, and as for job eligibility, again it's not about the degree...everyone that can afford to go to college should, just because of the enriching atmosphere and the chance to meet smart girls^H^H^H^H^H people.

The same here...

[Anonymous Coward]

in this "shit hole" (as you americans talk about the third world) country called Brazil. It is true that basic education is not that good when you go to a public elementary school, but when you get to a public university, you are joining the best universities in the country (same level as top universities in US or EU). Too bad the selection is hard and many times the ones who get the chance are those who studied in a private elementary school, but thats not always the case. Too bad also, that although these are the best universities, the staff is the worst paid. Right now they are on strike, and the government has suspended theyr salaries, even though this is unconstitutional. (Another funny thing in Brazil is that government do what it wants, by "patching" the constitution with "provisory measures", that in reality end up not being provisory at all.)

Big Deal indeed !

[da5idnetlimit.com]

When I was a student , only 2 things impeded my progression :

1 - Getting there on time (late riser / late Quake player, pick your choice 8)

2 - Finding the course I missed from a friend, or fiend, or anybody who got it, AND/OR reading this filthy writing (mostly mine 8)

Now I don't know about you, but... this would have been a life saver ..

Stucture and Interpretation of Computer Programs

[aturley]

I found the page for the class on SICP, and lo and behold, THE WHOLE BOOK (well, it look like the whole book) is online at

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book .h tml

Mod me down if you already knew this. It came as a very pleasant surprise to me. For those who don't know, this book is considered by many to be part of the core of CS books, along with K&R, TAOCP, and the MIT Algorithms book.

andy

I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[kfg]

or luddite, but. . .

It isn't exactly as if the course materials or curricumlum at MIT, or any *other* college, is some sort of great secret.

Nor is the actual *course material* really going to be online. That will be found in the textbooks.

If you want to learn physics or how to read the Iliad in the original greek all you need do is make the trip to your local public library, and in some states any state funded college library is also considered a public library, and take out a relevant text.

And read it.

Without trying to appear *too* snide, anyone who can't figure this out probably isn't up to college grade work in the first place.

The possibility of having lecture notes available online is an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure of what general relevance or use it might be. The textbook always contains superiour information, that is why they USE textbooks after all, and lecture notes are, in fact, often useless without the text and only needed to make sure you might have some niggling little tidbit that * that professor, in THAT course, is likely to sneak into a TEST.*

All in all I see how this might prove useful to the less actually educationally ambitious student of MIT, and how it might prove *interesting* to some of the public, but I fail to see how it in any way AIDS the public in an educational sense. The material is already available to the public, (including the course curiculum of MIT which is published and stocked by public libraries already), in the superiour form of actual texts.

MIT is correct. They can publish this material freely because 1) The essential information is *already* free and public, and 2) Because you don't pay MIT to reveal to you that F=MA, you pay them to have a professor *explain it to you.* and then be able to say you earned a degree from MIT!

If all you want is access to the learning material so that you may educate yourself at little or no expense you likely have a vastly superior resource right in your own community.

It's called a "reference librarian."

Go introduce yourself.

KFG

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[jayteedee]

I agree that most of the material is not a 'great secret'. But... in the engineering fields there is a great wealth of information that is obscure and not easily gathered, categorized, understood, disseminated, etc. Not even a good index exists in some cases. Simple engineering course work, like physics, math, statics, dynamics, etc are easy to find and there are multiple good books on the subject. Research type engineer, or leading, bleeding edge engineering is published in obscure journals or internal documents which are available through the right channels, but it is not something the average, or even professional will have easy access too. I know that NASA is slowly putting the old NACA and NASA tech notes, briefs, etc. online, but what I really want is a summary of similar tests so that I can quickly USE the information (something like Hoerner did many years ago with the NASA wind tunnel data). University professors are the next-best-thing and many of them love to write articles and publish their work. I often research some of my work online (rocket science, missile engineering) and come up empty handed, or only pointers to published works through a journal that I have to get 'manually' and wait a few weeks for the information. Since MIT is renown for their engineering department (particularly their aero department), I am somewhere between excited and ecstatic. Plus on the other hand, more 'free' information (it does appear it will be encumbered with copyrights) is ALWAYS a good thing for you, me, and the people at large. I just hope I'll be legally able to distribute this information to others without much hassle (which does appear to be the case, but since there no content yet, this may change).

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[GrenDel Fuego]

The books used in their classes are publically available, but which books are they?

Most subjects taught there will have hundreds or thousands of books on the subject. I know I'd rather find out which books are deemed useful enough to be included in MIT's cirriculum rather than reading every book on the subject or pick one which may not be very good.

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[emin]

You raise a good point, but leave out several important issues.

First, while there are lots of books on almost any subject you can think of, most of the books aren't necessarily that great. Even in the good books, a lot of ancillary information is included. A good set of lecture notes should summarize the most important points and provide you with the essentials. If you have these you can then learn the details from the book. Having good lecture notes to start with is quite useful.

Second, many of the valuable lessons learned in engineering are learned by working on projects. Of course, anyone can make up there own "projects" to work on for educational benefit. However, a relevant project which can be completed in a reasonable amount of time while illustrating important practical and theoretical issues which has been debugged and comes with the necessary background material (code, libraries, etc.) is very valuable.

Finally, although you could go to a library to check out books and learn the necessary material. It is much easier and more conveniant to be able to do it in the comfort of your home/office via the Internet.

-Emin

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[litheum]

I'm not sure if you've ever gone to college or whatever... but my computer programming classes were pretty much taught out of a course pack designed by the instructor and sold at a copy center a few blocks from the university. I didn't even buy the damn book... (I bought K&R for 142 and Stroustrup for 143 instead.)

The point is that the course material *isn't* in the textbooks. Most everything you read in the textbooks is duplicated in lecture through slides or transparencies.

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[Anonymous Coward]

You do seem pretty snide. People are more apt to listen to you if you drop the pretension.

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[bartwol]

Some guesses...

You're probably not a professor, definitely a student (at one time or another), possibly PHD, if not then envious of such.

While you profess the importance of WHAT you know, you really care about WHO you know, or in this case, where it came from.

You have studied alot. You know much. But you are a living example of the difference between knowledge and wisdom; between articulate and eloquent.

Why do I assert these things? Because in the face of a proposition wherein a large body of knowledge will be disseminated to the public, your point is that there exists an even larger body of knowledge, and you therefore trivialize the proposition.

Your point, however well-supported, is small-minded. You missed the essential proposition here, which is undeniably of extraordinary value.

<bart

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[bob_jenkins]

Notes on computers have at least one advantage over notes on paper. Computers have "grep".

I recall one course taught entirely from lecture notes where the professor didn't define terms until two chapters after she started using them. I did rather poorly. Hum, one such term was 'k', so I suppose grep wouldn't have helped me much either. But for most terms, grep helps a lot.

Re:I hate to seem the naysayer. . `

[DataSquid]

MIT is correct. They can publish this material freely because 1) The essential information is *already* free and public, and 2) Because you don't pay MIT to reveal to you that F=MA, you pay them to have a professor *explain it to you.* and then be able to say you earned a degree from MIT!

Actually, from what I've heard you pay your $55k/year and get taught by a TA. Apparently MIT profs don't have time to lecure, with all their amazing research and whatnot. Not my ideal environment.

Get with the times

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is flame bait, but does anybody else out there realize that this news is almost a year old??? MIT announced this last year.

MIT != Social Life...

[Anonymous Coward]

"the most fundamental cornerstone of the learning process at MIT is the interaction between faculty and students in the classroom, and amongst students themselves on campus."

So wait... they're saying that the big contributing factor to the vaunted MIT education is... the Social Life ?

some are online!

[peter303]

Poke around course notes and prof home pages.
Some of these are better than print versions-
being more up to date and cheaper.

University Course Ma

[domo_jojo]

Being that most (if not all) universities in America are nonprofits, they suck a great deal of taxes from the government (hence the people) and for this priveledge the Universities gather an immense amount of cash reserves farming out their professors and staff for cash to bussiness and gov't and charging exhorbitant fees for the "honor" to attend a few lectures.

What I find remarkable here isn't the fact that the info will be free (Mellon et. al. are picking up the early tab) but that it even exists at all. See, one of the scams of education is it's vaporous nature. Having to prepare lecture outlines is one thing, to actually solidify a course's material in almost linear form via a web page has to be remarkable. How many courses, especially the humanities, do you remember as a bullshit waste of time because it was virtually a free for all class discussion or the professor (while well intentioned) was just a very poor professor? This shows, if it comes to fruition, a great deal of courage on MIT's part and proves that they aren't the con artists many Universities are.

Re:University Course Ma

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because you are (or were) going to a community college, heh....
a haven of morons and people trying to go to classes just to appease mommy and daddy and still live in their hometown....
and then there's the people who are there because they're parents or otherwise have lives in some form and MUST go to community college in order to have in-class experience and still be able to juggle in the other stuff....
and then you have the poor saps who ended up there because they either don't have the means to go to a four year school, or they're down on their luck and have had to go there to get things "together" before they can go to a 4 year college or go BACK to one.

And the kicking of students out of colleges for moronic reasons...welll....that's a whole other bag of horseshit.....

Been there, done that

[DG]

And not just once, but twice.

I went to a Canadian Military College (a loose analogue of West Point) Studied Computer Science (Systems)

The first:

Along the way, I took a course in Military and Strategic Studies, and discovered, belatedly, that that was where my true interests lay. I've since made it a point to read every single book on the MilStud required reading list, plus a large number of the other books written by the authors of those books, plus books written by the professors.

I've also toured some battlefields (seeing the actual ground reveals much the books don't) and have the experience of over 10 years of military service that I can apply to my readings.

I'd lay money that I could pass the 4th year MilStud final exams.

The Second:

After I retired from the Army, I took up building and driving race cars. Shortly thereafter, I took up a self-study of Automotive Engineering, through a mixture of buying textbooks, completing the exercises, and then hands-on applying the concepts to my own race car.

You want obscure formulae? Try reading Miliken!
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560915269 /thedsmautocropag/107-8499798-0210907)

I had a step up here, as there's a lot of crossover at the 101 level courses of physics and math between engineering and computer science, but I'd bet that I could hold my own at Batchlor-level engineering exams.

If there's an interest in the subject, and you're willing to get your hands dirty, you can learn a hell of a lot on your own.

Re: Been there, done that

[Inthewire]

Yeah. I know VB gets no respect, but it is useful for someone who has never programmed anything more complex than a table lookup in Excel.
I had an opportunity to provide an application for a small local company...by builiding this app I would probably prove my worth to my company and survive a seemingly endless round of layoffs.
So I bought two books, one for absolute braind dead beginners and one that purports to be a complete reference, both for VB. I did the 21 days book in three and was off and running...within 3 weeks I had a fully functional application that has replacable, modular business rules, table driven routing, text file importation, printing, etc. It isn't anything too special, but it gets a job done and got me off my ass and into the world of programming. I've since signed up for school (U of Memphis, Comp Sci), learned PHP and SQL (not all of it, but I'm getting there), gotten into Linux, etc.
All of these skills have come from playing with code and referencing the internet. I almost never look at the reference book, and I've since given away the beginner's book. Time elapsed? 6 months. I've since written and sold 2 more programs, and have built a few more that I use every day for most of what I do (traffic analysis for a transportation consulting firm). I've also built a database driven, user friendly diary site (www.diarymonster.com) that sees a fair amount of traffic and is turning into something interesting.
My point is that with the information availible online I have been (partially) transformed from a passive spectator to a passionate creator.
No longer do I have to wonder how it's done. I can find out for myself.
Of course, I'm burning to learn C so I can start hacking Linux...can't wait.

All about performance?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this reflect on the current IP debate? Does it mean that musicians should give away their music, and should stress that the (insert favorite musician here) experience was always about interaction between the crowd and the musicians? Surely it costs less than $100,000,000 to produce the music that could be conferred as essentially an advertisement for the real experience...

How about a complementary peer review slash site?

[tester13]

It would be cool if some people got together and set up a slash site discussing a course at MIT. Anyone could do it, and it would at least help add what is missing from not attending the actual class.

Of course one of the drawbacks could be the dissemination of misinformation. But I think that on the whole it could be a positive supplemental aid. Any thoughts?

OCW

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert some clever joke about MIT's OpenCourseWare
and the MIT Bathroom Server here.

Im an Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

The professors, except for a rare few, aren't worth listening to, other than to pick upon their biases. We all know the soft classes like Art, English and to an extent, History, have a 10 point swing on your grade depending on your professors willingness to accept contratrian arguments.

Good teachers can help, and the ones genuinely interested in their work are entertaining as well as informative. The point of going to MIT, aside from bypassing HR bimbos (which is valid) is the other MIT students and their assorted intelligent wackiness.

"Its a damn poor excuse for a mind that can only spell a word one way." - Andrew Jackson

But can we take the exams,do the assignments, etc?

[fnthawar]

I think an interesting side note to this would be to split the MIT tuition and MIT examination fees. That way, you could have students (online or otherwise) take the same exams do the same assignments, etc.

For the courses with 100% exam scores, this would be ideal.

Maybe they could market an MIT online degree? Maybe they already have this?

There's not much there there

[Animats]

Check out Course 16.160, Principles of Automatic Control, which is currently "online". The only real content is a short summary of what will be taught in each lecture. It's a good summary, in that it covers what the instructor considers important in control theory and how to use it to get work done. (It's possible to study control theory, prove theorems for a year, and not learn how to control anything. MIT doesn't make that mistake.) But there's only about five screens of real content for that course, excluding the problem sets.

There's a section where you're supposed to be able to see questions asked by students along with the answers, but it's empty.

All this seems great if you're a student at MIT, but it's not useful for others.

Re:There's not much there there

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that's what they had in mind. That's a simple course website. If you were to read their website, it says that "We expect that materials will begin to be available to the public in 2002." Fortunately what they are doing is a lot more exciting than the link you posted.

Not a big deal!

[Anonymous Coward]

I came to MIT as an undergrad because they offered me a great financial aid package. I finished up in three years with a little over 10K in loans. I'd call that a free education!

Also, I stayed at MIT as a grad student because my tuition was paid by my department and my stipend was competitive. In other words, I was paid to get an MIT education!

Recipe For those who want a free MIT education...

1. Study hard
2. Apply
3. If you get in and you are in financial need, then it's practically free!

Re:Not a big deal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding your recipe...
Easier said than done.

Don't get so excited

[Anonymous Coward]

Not trying to be an anonymous troll, but as others have already stated, this isn't that novel. I'd like to add a few other ideas:

1. Textbook publishers request that homework solutions are NOT put online. Therefore, every semester at MIT will have to have completely different homework and test problems, and solutions, OR the answers won't be posted online! So what good will having homework posted online be if you can't check your answers?

-- A caveat: It is possible that these professors would be more motivated then any professors/TA's I have ever encountered, and actually would write new problems every semester. That would be cool and maybe other schools would actually catch on.

2. People are too excited about a "free education..." How many people have actually self-taught themselves a subject in the same BREADTH as what is required in a University education? sure, maybe you taught yourself Spanish - doesn't count. maybe you taught yourself how to program java - doesn't count. how many people both to struggle through stuff they are less interested in but is still relevant, e.g. if you are interested in computer architecture, did you teach yourself math, physics, computer science, digital design as well as analog design? part of the utility of education seems to be exposing people to parts of the field that they may not be interested in, but are better off learning anyway, just in case.

3. this stuff is already on the web! someone already had a brilliant post about looking on Google for lecture information at other schools, this is an invaluable tool. if you wanted to self-teach yourself, you would've already discovered this.

Anyway, I don't think there's anything too novel about this except for media exposure and the perception that MIT is doing something new/revolutionary/philanthropic.

Re:Don't get so excited

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Textbook publishers request that homework solutions are NOT put online.

First, I can't believe they finally figured that out. Physics homework became a lot less frustrating when I could hunt down the answers by searching for the the textbook author's name and the word homework :).

Second, if students post worked out solutions, what are the publishers going to do? Sue them for violating the textbook's license agreement? My inclination would be to say "pack sand" and post the solutions, for students to use for good or ill as they see fit.

~~~

Re: Athletic programs

[edmudama]

Actually, MIT has one of the most comprehensive athletic programs in the entire world, with more inter-school varsity sports than most other colleges. Something like 45 Division III or D3-Club athletic programs.

MIT has a hockey rink that is free for all students with 90 minutes of open-ice hockey and ~4 hours of open-ice skating every day.

A rifle range, pistol range, tons of basketball courts, weight rooms, pool, and tons of fields for baseball, soccer, lacrosse and football round out the facilities.

What really separates MIT in my opinion is that all these facilities are designed with the students and their health in mind, as opposed to a big D1 school that just wants to pack alumni into the stadium each saturday afternoon.

If MIT ever was on ESPN (Our men's hockey team was invited to the D3-Club national championships a few years ago), I would definitely be there cheering for my alma matter.

hrm... wonder if I could get MIT athletics on PPV like I get NHL Center Ice now...

--eric, MIT alum in debt

cool

[sulli]

So shall we find a bridge over the Charles River, and measure it in CmdrTacos?

Re:An Alternative Educational System for Communiti

[mlh1996]

I would like to think this will work.

More likely, I'll have to wade through a bunch of crap to find the gems, much like I have to do now when researching a topic online. How am I going to know if the information I am getting is accurate? If the "courselet" is popular, maybe I can trust the evaluations, but what if it hasn't been reviewed much? Anyway, how am I expected to evaluate the quality of information I just learned?

At least when I search for "Computational Finance" or "Shakespeare and God" on the MIT system, I can put a certain amount of trust in the content.

Bacclaureate LEvel

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey my spelling my be wrong too, so what.

But 4th year Eng exams in physics are a far far far cry from Physics 101 or anything you can get from overlap. Unless I got really lucky on the question selection, I'd fail horribly any 4th yr Physics or MAth (maybe) exams. I work with lasers, magnets and CS. I'm good, good enough to know what my limits of knowledge (if not potential ;) are.

P.S. You can bend lasers with thermally enhanced radio shack torus magnets and standard home AC current. But don't.

Cooper

[RexRuther]

A better way to get a Free MIT education is to go to Cooper Union

The Cooper Union

Re: Athletic programs

[zerocool^]

I honestly don't have references to back this up, but as far as I know most athletic programs *lose* money for the school

This certainly isn't true. Sports are one of the biggest money makers for division one schools, second only to parking fines (sarcasm, and disgust). Take a look at this article:

During the 1996-1997 season, the University of Michigan earned $2.1 million for the television rights to its games, $1 million for the radio rights, $13.5 million in ticket sales from home games, $450,000 from concessions, $125,000 from program sales, $65,000 from merchandising, and $950,000 from bowl game participation. When all of its revenues were counted, the Wolverines grossed $21.3 million and cleared $10.6 million at the end of the season, which went to fund non-revenue producing sports at the university.

...
A survey of 111 Division I-A schools conducted by the College Football Association in 1996 showed that the group grossed $628 million with $328 million in expenses during the 1995-1996 season. In addition, the CFA reported $216 million in alumni and booster donations to athletic departments that year.

Trust me, sports makes money. I go to Va Tech. When we went to the big dance in New Orelands 2 years ago, we got some rediculous amount of money just for making it that far - 11 million, i believe. Then you have to think also: add revenue from tickets/TV/Radio/merchandise (most university bookstores basically launder money)/grants/alumni contributions/athletic boosters/etc.

Sports make money for colleges.

~Z

Back in my day ...

[sulli]

I took advantage of the fact that for many of the university courses I took were on-line. Not only were all the course materials on-line, but the lectures were too. So I would often sleep in and then catch class on my Mac Performa while eating lunch. Guess what? I really regret doing that. I wish I could go back and kick myself in the head and make myself go to class. I did fine in my classes but I missed out on lots of interaction, and the ability to ask a question in lecture.

Reading this I am really glad they DIDN'T have distance learning when I was in college 10 years ago. Time spent in class, taking notes, hearing the prof. speek live, asking questions, and so on is so much better than the Memorex version - and yet I can easily imagine being "busy" or distracted enough that I might have chosen the latter.

MIT is doing the right thing to put its course material on line while maintaining the requirement to actually show up. If I were an alum (I'm not) I might kick in some bux for this project. (Not $100M though.)

Re:Back in my day ...

[John Harrison]

Hey, do you know Chacko Sonny?

Re:Back in my day ...

[sulli]

hearing the prof. speek live,

Speak. Damn typos. Need more coffee.

this rocks

[AssFace]

I know that there are free courses at both Harvard and MIT, but I really am too lazy to go and do that, but I'm honestly not too lazy to sit in my room and read all the stuff for the class - esp if the assignments might be online.

granted you don't get the diploma that has the prestigem but I don't care, just want the knowledge.

is this really a new idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of making course material available on the web is great, but it's already being done, and is already available to the public.

Here are some links I know about:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/course_i ndex.html

http://www.amath.washington.edu/courses/

I'm sure there are many others at other schools, other departments. So, what is so new/innovative about MIT's approach? They'll make it easier to find the material? They have a better brand name?

naysay away....

[denshi]

Let me, politely, point out where you are wrong.

Nor is the actual *course material* really going to be online. That will be found in the textbooks.

You are, of course, correct -- except for the large number of courses that operate without textbooks of any kind, and use only lectures and notes the professor drafted. These are particularly prevalent in technical classes where the textbooks haven't been out yet, or there is no comparable text. Or the prof just wants to explain things a different way. Happens all the time.

If you want to learn physics or how to read the Iliad in the original greek all you need do is make the trip to your local public library, and in some states any state funded college library is also considered a public library, and take out a relevant text.

Certainly. Assuming, of course, that your local public library stocks all texts for MIT-grade classes, especially recent printings and obscure classes. And that no one else has checked them out first. Please. Be serious. When was the last time you could find that O'Reilly book you needed at the public library? Or W. Richard Stevens? Public library funding has been on the slide (or plummet) for years and years now, and it's not like they were ever all that well funded. With the new RIAA laws, libraries' funding situation will get even worse.

So let's just consider going to the local library and finding an available copy of last year's 'Markov Chains and Simulated Neuro-physiology' textbook just right out, shall we?? What we really need is some kind of system that can transmit large quantities of text and pictures to each interested student's workspace, without reducing the supply for anyone else. Gee, I wonder what we could use....

The possibility of having lecture notes available online is an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure of what general relevance or use it might be. The textbook always contains superiour information, that is why they USE textbooks after all,

Oh, right, I forgot. Except for those literally thousands of errors I have found in textbooks over the course of my life. So errata must come with each; distributing such and updating such is difficult if it has to come with the physical book -- I suppose you would need the above hypothetical information transport system, tying the errata to the book, in some kind of 'web'.

And as I said above, frequently there are no books. Or the books suck, which is an even more common situation. Or school politics fucks up book choice, so the prof is xeroxing and distributing portions of other books, making his own compiliation for the class as it goes along. Or somehow, the prof deigns to think himself talented enough to explain material better, to his focused group, than a general textbook -- perish the thought!

All in all I see how this might prove useful to the less actually educationally ambitious student of MIT, and how it might prove *interesting* to some of the public, but I fail to see how it in any way AIDS the public in an educational sense. The material is already available to the public, (including the course curiculum of MIT which is published and stocked by public libraries already), in the superiour form of actual texts.

Okay, cockmonger, let me put it for you straight. The material, at least not all of it, is not available to the public. This missing material, the real deal, the reason people pay 5 or 6 digits for 4 years of it, is the community of learning that supports peoples' interest and efforts. This community is the one thing that the ACES project is trying to duplicate that makes it different from the rest of the 'put notes on the web' projects the world over. Go read the article, join the community, add your ideas to the source -- it's GPLed.

So in closing, I should thank you for pushing the declining cause of public libraries. They need more support and funding, and always have. But there is so much more to a college course, and to a college environment, that you are missing. Take another look.

Re:naysay away....

[acceleriter]

Certainly. Assuming, of course, that your local public library stocks all texts for MIT-grade classes, especially recent printings and obscure classes. And that no one else has checked them out first. Please. Be serious. When was the last time you could find that O'Reilly book you needed at the public library? Or W. Richard Stevens? Public library funding has been on the slide (or plummet) for years and years now, and it's not like they were ever all that well funded. With the new RIAA laws, libraries' funding situation will get even worse.

Two words: Interlibrary Loan. The one-room library in the smallest town can get you that latest O'Reilly book if there's another library somewhere that has it.

Re:naysay away....

[scribblej]

"Let me, politely, point out where you are wrong." ... "Okay, cockmonger, let me put it for you straight."

Wow, I'd hate to see you put it impolitely.

Re:naysay away....

[denshi]

I am a complete ILL monger. I have used and abused it cruelly and relentlessly. It's great. But it still doesn't solve the general problem: that when one person checks out a book, everyone else has to go without. The internet *does* solve this problem. So while libraries are still awesome, text on the net can serve more people.

Re:naysay away....

[blisspix]

Certainly. Assuming, of course, that your local public library stocks all texts for MIT-grade classes, especially recent printings and obscure classes.

academic textbooks are not the domain of your local public library, you are totally right here. nor should they be.

wouldn't the logical thing be to go to your local university library and read the books there. university libraries are as public as any other. anyone may walk and read books on the shelves.

And as I said above, frequently there are no books.

if the lecturer has written a book, i can bet you that it will be the required textbook for the class. :-)

while some classes may not have a textbook, they will always have reading lists, which i find very useful when searching for a good core reading set for a topic. unfortunately, these lists are often kept close to a lecturer's chest.

Mature students, and deferred studies

[Anonymous Coward]

Your education may be free, but it's not accessible like it is in the US. Students in most European countries are placed into academic "tracks" at a relatively early age, on the basis of high-stakes exams. If they mess up just once, they're screwed, and can look forward to pumping gas for the rest of their lives, unless they are rich enough to buy their way into a private college (frequently in the U.S.).

Not true.

Here in the UK there are many many opportunities to do evening, part-time and distance-learning courses through local further education colleges to obtain A-levels and other school leaving qualifications.

Universities compete hard to attract such "mature students", and (so long as it is their first degree) grants and loans are available which are similar to those available to school leavers.

There is also a cherished national institution, the Open University (as featured in the film "Educating Rita"), which for over 30 years has been offering foundation courses and modular home-study degrees, with lectures broadcast free on national network TV in the early hours of the morning, for home taping.

Nice of MIT to catch up :-)

Yeah?

[Greyfox]

How much do you pay in income tax? Mine's in the neighborhood of 30%.

Yay!

[Greyfox]

Now you can get a CS education without ANY danger of meeting women! It's my dream come true!

Oh... Wait...

Textbooks aren't always superior

[staplin]

The possibility of having lecture notes available online is an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure of what general relevance or use it might be. The textbook always contains superiour information, that is why they USE textbooks after all, and lecture notes are, in fact, often useless without the text and only needed to make sure you might have some niggling little tidbit that * that professor, in THAT course, is likely to sneak into a TEST.*

Except, I've a number of classes where the textbooks were strictly optional. Why? Because the professor thought they only provided good background information. Or, the textbook only supplied a convenient reference... all the "real" learning was based upon the lecture. There are numerous reasons this could happen - here are just a few:

1) There aren't any appropriate textbooks. For example, I took "Linux Kernel Interals". It was all hands on, looking at the code. All the lectures were based upon the professor's and students' personal knowledge. Or how about "Computer Architecture", where our studies were based on architecture principles realized in the PDP-8? (A machine with a decent architecture without being too complex to completely understand.) The only thing available was the lecture notes (which have subsequently been published in textbook form, I believe).

2) It's a topics/research class. You don't find many textbooks for "Current Topics in MiddleWare". Or in "Current trends in Organo-Metallic Chemistry Research", if you want to leave the computer science field. Sure, you can reference some of the appropriate journal articles, but they won't don't give you the comprehensive view and insights that lecture notes give.

3) It's a subjective field. How about all those humanities classes? (I'm sure even MIT students have to take a few of these.) Sure, you can list the "Norton Anthology of American Poetry" as a text book, but that by itself won't give you any insight into the cultural and historical forces that shaped a given poem. And it certainly won't help you when the test asks you to expound upon how the author makes an emotional connection with the reader through his careful selection of language.

I think I've expressed my point. I've usually found lecture notes to be infinitely more valuable than some textbooks. I will admit that there is occasionally a textbook that beats out the lecture notes, but usually that's been because of a lousy lecturer. There's a lot more worth here than you are giving MIT credit for.

Re:Textbooks aren't always superior

[Bandman]

Where did you take a class on Linux Kernel Internals? This sounds very interesting...

Re:Textbooks aren't always superior

[staplin]

I took that Linux Kernel Internals class at CU (Univ. Colorado) Boulder from Dr. Gary Nutt who turned his lecture notes and assignments into a lab manual Kernel Projects for Linux.

Unfortunately the book is somewhat dated, relying on kernel 2.2(.14?). And while most of the exercises are decent, I think learning about VFS and the filesystem code by hacking together a FAT driver was a waste of time.

Hands-on teaches a lot

[DG]

One of the things that I've noticed from my self-study work is that understanding what all the gobbledygook really _means_ is a whole lot easier when you are using it to some practical end, rather than just regurgitating it for an exam.

That's a crucial advantage.

When self-taught, it works sorta like this:

Have problem -> identify problem -> identify skill needed to solve problem -> study relevant material -> use new skills to solve problem -> get real-world feedback that problem is really solved (or not)

You've got a vested interest in seeing the material through, and you've got hands-on examples for you to play with.

In the acadmic world, it's more like: Study material -> solve exam questions -> go looking for applications of material later in life.

There's not the feedback and vested interest in learning the stuff that you get with the self-taught approach.

a lot of work

[LT Grant]

an idea like this on a grand scale is all great, but remember, you (the student) have to put in the work to get the education. i know a lot of my course material here, at Notre Dame, is available on the web (in fact, my entire EE text book is online - http://www.nd.edu/~lemmon/courses/ee224/) but there is a lot more than just reading that goes into the learning. There is a major lab component in this (50%). Also, the interaction between you and your fellow students make this what it is. I've learned more in the dining halls than in the class room, because interacting w/ these "smart" people force you to kick it up a notch. but i'm all in favor of this, just remember, reading and knowing are two completely different things.
go irish!

about the MIT mascot...

[callmegracie]

His habits are nocturnal, he does his best work in the dark.

perfect for slashdotters everywhere!

more useless MIT trivia.

improve QC of courses?

[peter303]

OpenCourseWare will also help professors to improve the quality of courses by exposing them to the world. The mechanism for doing this in scientific research is the peer-reviewed paper. The mechanism for doing this in teaching is not as thoroughly developed. Except for published textbook and external seminar, the professor is only rated by their students and other profs in the department. OpenCourseWare will "pull their pants down" so to speak.

Good, Better, ...?

[4of12]

I really applaud MIT's move to make their curriculum available for free over the Internet. It shows an interest in the advancement of science that trumps the growing trend to patent and close-off avenues for technology growth by businesses intent on exploiting technology-related law (who can blame them for doing so?).

The reason I think it shows real guts is that MIT traditionally has been very focussed on maintaing good relations with industry, and industry that profits from the current base of technology laws, and an industry that donates money to MIT. They are more closely tied together with industry as an engineering school, where a liberal arts school is pretty much independent of direct industrial largesse.

I was a student at MIT in my past. You may not know this, but MIT is actually run by MIT Corporation. Furthermore, upon entrance to the school, I "had" to sign some kind of paperwork that essentially insured that patents and ideas that I came up with while at MIT were theirs and not mine. Theses, too, are copyrighted by MIT, and generally more difficult to obtain than theses from other universities that are listed by University Microfilms.

Thus, you can see why I'm impressed at the turnaround evidenced by this move.

What would be even better would be if they were to release streaming video of classroom lectures, sessions with teaching assistants, as well as lecture notes, problem sets, exams, solutions.

Your flawed logic

[Loundry]

Acutally, it is your logic that is flawed.

But if society benefits by educating its members,

The main flaw in this argument is that the "what's good for society" is *highly* subjective. Many people argue that the War on (Some) Drugs is "good for society," when there is a huge, massive pile of evidence that it does much more harm to individuals than it does good.

Who defines what is "good for society"? I claim that "that which is good for society" and "that which is moral" are almost exactly equivalent. The difference lies in that the former implies groupthink while the latter implies individual thought. And "moral" is also a highly subjective definition.

Re:Your flawed logic

[waxmop]

Who defines what is "good for society"?

The people - that's who.

In a completely relativistic universe, nothing can be found to be absolutely right or wrong. So I can't argue with you if that's how you see things.

But unless you're willing to say that there's nothing intrinsically bad about people committing crimes or living in poverty, then my point is still valid.

Re:Your flawed logic

[Loundry]

The people - that's who.

Ah yes, "the people." Now, would you mind telling me which people? If you want to say "all the people," then I expect you to be able to tell me a way of finding out the opinion of all the people and then coming up with a single "will" which represents all of their desires and isn't unfair to anybody.

I'll point out here that the majority of "the people" in Nazi Germany agreed with what the Nazis did.

In a completely relativistic universe, nothing can be found to be absolutely right or wrong. So I can't argue with you if that's how you see things.

Unless you can point out which morality is the "correct" one, then you agree with me that we do, in fact, live in a completely relativistic universe.

But unless you're willing to say that there's nothing intrinsically bad about people committing crimes or living in poverty, then my point is still valid.

Your invalid point is made no more valid by the statements here. Instead, you have succeeded in raising more questions:

1. Is there anything intrinsically bad about people committing crimes? Well, that depends on which actions are determined to be "crimes," doesn't it? Some statist governments determined that owning property was a "crime." Are you implying that it is government who decides what morality is? Remember: everything that the Nazis and the Stalinists and the Khmer Rough did was legal.

2. Is there anything intrinsically bad about people living in poverty? Well, that depends on how "living in poverty" is defined, doesn't it? In the United States, I can live in a one million dollar house and still be legally "living in poverty."

Your points are based on very shaky foundations.

Myself, I belive that the only actions which should be illegal are those which deprive another individual of life, liberty, or property.

Open Source, Open Courses

[shut_up_man]

Creating an open, free, online resource like this and building it with closed-source software is like paying McDonalds to provide food at a homeless shelter.

If MIT is serious about intellectual idealism (and it looks like they are), this system should be built using open source. Then the code should be released to the world under a license like the GPL, to allow other universities & organisations to build their own online resources using the system.

If they JUST HAVE TO spend that $100 million they talk about, sponsor swarms of hackers to build systems that might be a little useful to the MIT project, but generally just improve the world. (databases, search engines, etc).

Re:Open Source, Open Courses

[sydneyfong]

not everything could be GPLed or open sourced. The system would involve some huge harddisks and storage devices, and how should they expect hackers around the world to install it and test it out themselves? telnet to the machine and mess with the code? why would anyone be interested in the code when it's all based on propietary things (hardware, OS, etc)? and GPL? barely anyone would be interested to buy the same hardware MIT uses and help them develop the software for $0, not to mention trying to redistribute them to other users.

Reasonable?

[Loundry]

Correct. Many of us do not believe this to be a bad thing, since a reasonable, progressive taxation system results in the rich subsidising the poor.

"Reasonable"? Reasonable to whom? I assume it's reasonable to the "poor" you mention since they get to plunder the coffers of the "rich." How reasonable is it that the harder you work, the more you are penalized?

Not necessarily. What it should mean (modulo tax cuts for the rich, and the myth of trickle-down economics) is that this generation of students are subsidised by the previous generation of students, since they're now earning more than their "non-graduate" contemporaries.

Many students here take out loans to finance their education, and then pay back the loan when they graduate and get a job. This way, students are responsible for their own education, which is the way it should be.

Oh, and Cato Institute reports attacking government spending are not exactly impartial sources

And Tom Daschle isn't impartial, either. So what? You'd expect a person who is arguing their position to be partial to that position, wouldn't you? Impartiality is not important in this regard. What is important is whether or not the facts stated by the Cato institute are true, and wheter or not the reason they employ is valid. I notice that you chose to assail neither of those things.

Re:Reasonable?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is important is whether or not the facts stated by the Cato institute are true, and wheter or not the reason they employ is valid. I notice that you chose to assail neither of those things

And you can argue for either side by choosing among different facts. Or would you agree that things put out by liberal think tanks are right so long as they use only (selected) facts and the reasoning isn't fallacious.

~~~

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

Many students here take out loans to finance their education, and then pay back the loan when they graduate and get a job.

If their credit is good. Like it or not, many people from working class backgrounds have trouble getting sufficient loans to cover both tuition and subsistence, which means they either have to work a job as well as studying, or give up. Either way, they're seriously disadvantaged w.r.t. the independently wealthy. Call me a socialist if you must, but I think I high quality education should be available to everyone with the smarts to use it.

(NB: Most of my experience re: student finance is limited to the UK.)

which is the way it should be.

Which is the way you think it should be.

Re:Reasonable?

[Loundry]

If their credit is good.

If you have bad credit, then what is the incentive for a private company to loan you money? Credit is earned, not distributed.

Like it or not, many people from working class backgrounds

"Working class"? I think what you mean is the low wage-earners. Your terminology implies that only the poor work, and everyone else gets a free ride. This is a very common concept in leftist ideology: the rich did not earn their money, they were given it. So the government has the right to take it away and give it to those who "work for a living."

Either way, they're seriously disadvantaged w.r.t. the independently wealthy.

So? Did you consider that the wealthy earned their money and the poor earned less money? What are the poor decisions that the poor make which keeps them poor? Leftists continually imply or state that the poor are in their bad situation through no fault of their own.

I also state here that I think people have no right to have children that they cannot afford to raise. Since you are a leftist, you'll probably unload on me with a boatload of ad hominems before you try and argue against that statement.

Call me a socialist if you must, but I think I high quality education should be available to everyone with the smarts to use it.

You're not a socialist, you are a leftist. And I agree that high quality education should be available to everyone, but the problem remains: who is going to pay for it? I think that the individual should pay for it, while you think that the poor have the right to use the government as an instrument of plunder. How much of the high wage-earner's money should the government have the right to seize? What percentage is the right number? That's not a rhetorical question: I really want you to try and answer it.

Which is the way you think it should be.

I'm still waiting for someone to provide me evidence and reason which refutes my point of view. I usually get maudlin whining about "the poor" and "the children," but very little valid argument.

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

Your terminology implies that only the poor work

My terminology is the standard British usage. Go look it up in the OED.

Did you consider that the wealthy earned their money and the poor earned less money?

Bull. Most wealthy students inherited their money.

The problem remains: who is going to pay for it?

Taxpayers. This is where we came in. Neither of us are right, you berk. Its an ideological disagreement. I think the rich should subsidise the poor, you think they should fend for themselves. Fair enough. You (possibly) call yourself a libertarian. I call you greedy and self-interested. I say I believe in encouraging social equality, you call me a bleeding heart liberal (or a leftist, a word which, incidentally, is almost unheard of outside America).

You say "The rich should be allowed to keep their money." I disagree. It happens. Now stop pretending you have a hot line to the truth.

Re:Reasonable?

[LordNimon]

Like it or not, many people from working class backgrounds have trouble getting sufficient loans

How can an 18-year-old have bad credit??? Every 18-year-old I've ever known has always been inundated with credit applications, regardless of his background. Teenagers can't do anything that will ruin their credit.

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

How can an 18-year-old have bad credit???

Very easily. A young person's credit, like the bulk of their money is inherited. Live in a house with parents who are bad risks, and that black mark'll be on your record until you can prove otherwise.

Every 18-year-old I've ever known has always been inundated with credit applications

Let me guess, this is in a comfortable, white-collar kind of neighbourhood, right?

Re:Reasonable?

[Loundry]

My terminology is the standard British usage. Go look it up in the OED.

Your words lend credence to the stereotype that the British are elitist. Furthermore, it makes sense that such a concept would be "standard usage" in the ultra-classist British society.

Not that it takes away from my argument, though.

Bull. Most wealthy students inherited their money.

I think what you mean is that most wealthy students were given money by their wealthy parents. I think this is acceptable: if I earn a lot of money, then I maintain the right to provide for my child in the best way that I see fit. Likewise, if I don't earn enough money to provide for a child, then I should not have one.

Taxpayers. This is where we came in.

And here, what you wrote is not nearly as important as what you didn't write. I asked some questions in my last post that you ignored. I'll ask them again here. Maybe this time I'll get an answer:

How much of the high wage-earner's money should the government have the right to seize? What percentage is the right number?

Neither of us are right, you berk.

I don't remember claiming to be right. But I think the reason and the evidence behind my point of view has yet to be successfully challenged. Thank you very little for the ad hominem, though. If you had a decent argument, you probably wouldn't have to resort to invective.

I think the rich should subsidise the poor

Define "rich." Define "poor." And how much should be subsidized? What is the percentage?

you think they should fend for themselves.

Incorrect. I do not think that the government has the right to take property from one group of people and give it to another. I do not think people should (or, in many cases, could) "fend for themselves." Humans are social creatures.

You (possibly) call yourself a libertarian. I call you greedy and self-interested.

I do call myself a Libertarian. And generally I don't respond to ad hominems like these, but, in this case, they're telling about the mindset of a leftist. First, can you define "greedy"? Do you realize that I could very well call you "greedy" since you're not living in the squalor that the people (for whom I've built houses) in Juarez, Mexico live in? Second, all humans are "self-interested." It's a psychological fact. Humans do not do anything unless they get something out of it. I.e., altruism is a myth.

I say I believe in encouraging social equality

What does that mean?

you call me a bleeding heart liberal (or a leftist, a word which, incidentally, is almost unheard of outside America).

I called you a leftist, not a "bleeding heart liberal." I do not approve of using the term "liberal" for leftists, since leftists neither support nor believe in individual liberty.

You say "The rich should be allowed to keep their money." I disagree. It happens.

Since I rarely use the terms "rich" and "poor" (those words have awfully slippery definitions), you are attributing words to me which I did not write. I do believe in the right to life, liberty, and property. You obviously don't believe in the last two.

Now stop pretending you have a hot line to the truth.

Pot, kettle, black.

Over 170 million people have been killed by their own governments in the last 100 years. I don't understand why this fact doesn't disturb big-government leftists, who seem to be saying, "*This* time, we'll make huge government work right!"

Arguing with leftists is much like arguing with religious fundamentalists: they both ignore evidence, ignore questions, and employ horrible reasoning. Your argument is no exception. Here are some other points I made or questions I asked that you ignored:

• I made a point that credit was earned, not distributed. I can see why you ignored it, though: unlike wealth, you cannot claim that people are "given" credit.
  
• Did you consider that the wealthy earned their money and the poor earned less money?
  
• What are the poor decisions that the poor make which keeps them poor?
  

Next time, I suggest you use more reason, more evidence, and less of everything else. I am not swayed by nor interested in your emotions.

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

Your words lend credence to the stereotype that the British are elitist

No they don't, you simply don't understand the usage. If differing usage offends you, feel free to replace it with the synonymous "blue collar".

I earn a lot of money, then I maintain the right to provide for my child in the best way that I see fit.

And as long as your child is OK, you're absolved of responsibility for any other member of humanity, right? Thats a nice elision you use, implicitly equating freedom of choice with the right to keep all your money. You're also fond that other elision -- playing on the double meaning of the word "earned" (as in "what you got paid" and "what you deserved")

How much of the high wage-earner's money should the government have the right to seize? What percentage is the right number?

Provide me with GDP, a histogram of earning distribution, costings for health care, and your best estimates of their trends, and I'll put a number on it. How simple do you believe economics to be?

Define "rich." Define "poor."

Theres no need. Progressive taxation is a sliding scale.

altruism is a myth.

Says who? Ayn Rand? I am an altruist. Do I then not exist.

Whats does I encourage social equality mean

That I believe that the role of government is to redistribute wealth so that the richest countries in the world don't have any starving citizens.

You obviously don't believe in [liberty and property]

I believe in both of them. However, I don't hold the accumulation of property to be particularly meritricious, and I don't believe personal liberty absolves people from a moral responsibility to care for those less fortunate, and that one of the roles of government is to enforce this.

Arguing with leftists is much like arguing with religious fundamentalists

Arguing with "libertarians" is hilarious, because they take the high moral line over ad hominem attacks, and then come out with stuff like that.

I made a point that credit was earned,

If I have good credit because my parents are rich (which isn't true, incidentally), why do you consider that I have earned it. Thats an accident of birth.

Did you consider that the wealthy earned their money

Some of them did. Some of them didn't. Lee Iaccoca(sp?) did, Ricky Martin, less so.

and the poor earned less money?

Well in the sense of how much they were paid, obviously. Did they work less hard? Some of them. Some rich people are lazy too (George W. Bush, prior to the presidency, had hardly done a hard days work in his life) And some people aren't lazy. I earn more than my sister-in-law, but she works much harder and for longer hours than I do.

Re:Reasonable?

[Loundry]

No they don't, you simply don't understand the usage. If differing usage offends you, feel free to replace it with the synonymous "blue collar".

Yes, they do, for your implication was that your usage was "Standard British" usage (which everyone should know), and I should go look it up.

And as long as your child is OK, you're absolved of responsibility for any other member of humanity, right?

No, but thanks for putting words in my mouth. I decide for myself who I am responsible for. I can always kill myself and absolve myself of responsibility for everyone, can't I?

Thats a nice elision you use, implicitly equating freedom of choice with the right to keep all your money. You're also fond that other elision -- playing on the double meaning of the word "earned" (as in "what you got paid" and "what you deserved")

How incredibly communist of you! Pol Pot would be proud. I don't just believe in freedom of choice. I believe in freedom, period. Freedom from government (which is force) intrusion. Freedom from government oversight. The government should exist to enforce the laws, and the only actions which should be illegal are those which deprive another individual of life, liberty, or property. And if I don't have the right to keep "all of my money," then do I have the right to keep my house? My car? My clothes? Any of my property? If I do, then what criteria do you use to differentiate, and how do you prevent government abuse? Furthermore, who decides who deserves what, since you seem to have a notion of people only keep what they "deserve."

Provide me with GDP, a histogram of earning distribution, costings for health care, and your best estimates of their trends, and I'll put a number on it. How simple do you believe economics to be?

As if this were a matter of economics! This is not economics, this is politics. Leftist politics. Government mandated (read: forced) seizure of property is more akin to theft than it is to economics.

Theres no need. Progressive taxation is a sliding scale.

And who decides where the slide lies? How do you prevent government abuse?

Says who? Ayn Rand? I am an altruist. Do I then not exist.

No, says psychology. Humans don't do things if there isn't personal gain involved. It's a psychological fact. You do exist, and you are not an altruist.

That I believe that the role of government is to redistribute wealth so that the richest countries in the world don't have any starving citizens.

You use the term "redistribute" becuase you do not think wealth is earned. You think it is distributed. You are wrong. You also fail to realize that countries will always have starving citizens, no matter what the private sector or governments do.

I believe in both of them. However, I don't hold the accumulation of property to be particularly meritricious, and I don't believe personal liberty absolves people from a moral responsibility to care for those less fortunate, and that one of the roles of government is to enforce this.

Once again, your statements only elicit more questions. You don't "hold the accumulation of property to be particularly meritricious." Fine... how much property are citizens allowed to accumulate? Why not have the government seize it all and be just like the ultra-successful Soviet Union? And your words, "less fortunate" imply that the poor are in their poor state through no fault of their own. You and I both know that this is false. Sometimes people are poor becuase of bad fortune, but most often they are not. Why don't you answer this question: Why are people poor? Last, you mention that it is the job of Government to enforce morality. Do you realize that morality is completely subjective? Do you realize that you put yourself in the exact same boat that as the Religious Fundamentalists of the U.S.A., who want to impose the Christian religion on all people and totally ban abortion becuase it's a "moral" thing to do.

Arguing with "libertarians" is hilarious, because they take the high moral line over ad hominem attacks, and then come out with stuff like that.

Touche. I notice you didn't dispute my statement that you use shaky evidence and flawed reasoning.

If I have good credit because my parents are rich (which isn't true, incidentally), why do you consider that I have earned it. Thats an accident of birth.

Maybe things are different in the ultra-classist British society, but here in the U.S., one's credit does NOT come from her/his parents. It comes solely from her/himself or possibly that person's spouse.

Some of them did. Some of them didn't. Lee Iaccoca(sp?) did, Ricky Martin, less so.

How did Ricky Martin not earn his money? Because you don't think he's talented? Who cares what you think! The Ricky Martin phenomenon is a multi-million dollar part of the entertainment industry, and the entire lot depends on one person: Ricky Martin. What do you think his cut should be? 25%? 10%?

I notice that you didn't mention lottery winners as those who didn't earn their money. Is this perhaps they usually come from the holy "working class"?

Well in the sense of how much they were paid, obviously. Did they work less hard? Some of them. Some rich people are lazy too (George W. Bush, prior to the presidency, had hardly done a hard days work in his life) And some people aren't lazy. I earn more than my sister-in-law, but she works much harder and for longer hours than I do.

Notice I never said "lazy." That was a word you introduced. I never argued that low wage earners were lazy. Some of them work harder than I do. But I earn more than they do becuase there are fewer of me than there are of them. Almost any able-bodied man can dig a ditch. How many ditchdiggers can write computer code? How simple do you believe economics to be?

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

Yes, they do, for your implication was that your usage was "Standard British" usage (which everyone should know), and I should go look it up.

You very very misunderstand.How incredibly communist of you! Pol Pot would be proud.

Cute. Leftist == Communist == Pol Pot. Beautiful. Ad hominem, unjustified, unargued. But beautiful. Perhaps I should reach for Capitalist == Fascist == Augusto Pinochet. Thats bollocks too, but you started it.

The government should exist to enforce the laws, and the only actions which should be illegal are those which deprive another individual of life, liberty, or property

Your taxes are currently paying to drop bombs on the Taliban. I believe this act of self-defense is also a role of government. Do you? Would a pacifist have the freedom to not pay to support it.

No, says psychology. Humans don't do things if there isn't personal gain involved. It's a psychological fact.

Thats a pretty big claim. I notice you haven't given a reference.

You do not think wealth is earned. You think it is distributed. You are wrong. You also fail to realize that countries will always have starving citizens, no matter what the private sector or governments do.

Thats a pretty big claim. I notice you haven't given a reference.

How much property are citizens allowed to accumulate?

As much as they like. But they should be prepared to pay some of it in taxes in order to care for those who are not wealthy.

And your words, "less fortunate" imply that the poor are in their poor state through no fault of their own. You and I both know that this is false.

Some of them are, some of them aren't. Thats why I singled out those that were (Duh).

Re:Reasonable?

[Loundry]

Cute. Leftist == Communist == Pol Pot. Beautiful. Ad hominem, unjustified, unargued. But beautiful. Perhaps I should reach for Capitalist == Fascist == Augusto Pinochet. Thats bollocks too, but you started it.

You don't understand libertarianism very well. The differences between "communist" and "fascist" are very, very few. Both of them are huge, intrustive government. I reject both.

Your taxes are currently paying to drop bombs on the Taliban. I believe this act of self-defense is also a role of government. Do you? Would a pacifist have the freedom to not pay to support it.

Yes, the government should also defend the borders. Note that I do not support the U.S. being the policeman of the world. The U.S. should also stop supporting israel.

Thats a pretty big claim. I notice you haven't given a reference.

This was in response to my claim about the psychological fact that humans will do nothing unless there is personal gain. No, this is not a big claim at all. It is universally believed by almost every psychologist in the world. I dare and defy you to find a psychologist who disbelieves it. Furthermore, I dare and defy you to tell me something you have done which is altruistic.

Thats a pretty big claim. I notice you haven't given a reference.

This was in response to my statement that there will always be starving citizens. I don't think my claim is as big as your implication that there can be some kind of government which will eliminate all hunger. Perhaps you ought to back up *your* claim.

As much as they like. But they should be prepared to pay some of it in taxes in order to care for those who are not wealthy.

You dodged the question. That which is taxed is that which they are not allowed to accumulate. How much are citizens allowed to accumulate tax-free?

Some of them are, some of them aren't. Thats why I singled out those that were (Duh).

And how do you define "less fortunate"?

Again, what you wrote is not nearly as important as what you didn't write. Look at all the questions I asked and points that I made that you ignored:

• I can always kill myself and absolve myself of responsibility for everyone, can't I?
  
• And if I don't have the right to keep "all of my money," then do I have the right to keep my house? My car? My clothes? Any of my property?
  
• Government mandated (read: forced) seizure of property is more akin to theft than it is to economics.
  
• And who decides where the slide lies? How do you prevent government abuse?
  
• Why not have the government seize it all and
  be just like the ultra-successful Soviet Union?
  
• Why are people poor?
  
• Do you realize that morality is completely subjective?
  
• Do you realize that you put yourself in the exact same boat that as the Religious Fundamentalists of the U.S.A., who want to impose the Christian religion on all people and totally ban abortion becuase it's a "moral" thing to do?
  
• Maybe things are different in the ultra-classist British society, but here in the U.S., one's credit does NOT come from her/his parents. It comes solely from her/himself or possibly that person's spouse.
  
• The Ricky Martin phenomenon is a multi-million dollar part of the entertainment industry, and the entire lot depends on one person: Ricky Martin. What do you think his cut should be? 25%? 10%?
  
• I notice that you didn't mention lottery winners as those who didn't earn their money. Is this perhaps they usually come from the holy "working class"?
  
• I never argued that low wage earners were lazy. Some of them work harder than I do. But I earn more than they do becuase there are fewer of me than there are of them.
  

Re:Reasonable?

[gowen]

Would a pacifist have the freedom to not pay to support it? Yes, the government should also defend the borders.

This answer is unclear.

If I don't have the right to keep "all of my money"

If you do have the right to keep all of of your money, how does the US defend its borders. Bombs don't pay for themselves. Are you saying taxes for guns : good, taxes for welfare : bad. I don't understand.

You have just given a reason for taxation (the US' just war on Afghanistan). Now why do you struggle with the concept so much to ask vapid questions like: "Do I have the right to keep my house? My car? My clothes? Any of my property?". Yes, yes and yes. All I've suggested is a progressive taxation system. Effectively the system you have now, but with tax breaks for the poor, not the rich. Is that so hard to comprehend?

In the U.S., one's credit does NOT come from her/his parents

Bullshit, kiddo. When you're 16 or 17 and looking to go to college, your family situation is all important.

I dare and defy you to find a psychologist who disbelieves it.

Here is a nice review paper, discussing the many different views psychologists take to altruism. Here is another. Now give me a reference supporting your contention.

Why not have the government seize it all and be just like the ultra-successful Soviet Union?

Why do you keep suggesting this? The government taxes you. You agree that this is sometimes acceptable (military expenditure). Why, in this case, is taxation for welfare equivalent to Soviet-style totalitarianism? Its a non-sequitor. Thats why I don't respond.

Do you realize that morality is completely subjective?

Yes. Thats why I've couched all my statements as my opinion. You're the one making objective (and unjustified statements like Altruism doesn't exist. Everytime I say moral, I'm being subjective, I know. I'm telling you about my morality.

Do you realize that you put yourself in the exact same boat that as the Religious Fundamentalists of the U.S.A., who want to impose the Christian religion on all people and totally ban abortion becuase it's a "moral" thing to do?

Thats an awful analogy. There is no similarity between a position on tax rates and government spending and abortion. Having said that, all governments impose the view of the winning side on the losers, thats how it works. Is Bush's tax and spending cuts imposing his morality on America's leftists? Maybe, but thats how government works. Is it equivalent to religious fundamentalism. No.

The Ricky Martin phenomenon is a multi-million dollar part of the entertainment industry, and the entire lot depends on one person: Ricky Martin. What do you think his cut should be? 25%? 10%?

Whatever the record company feel like paying him. But he should pay tax on that money.

I notice that you didn't mention lottery winners as those who didn't earn their money. Is this perhaps they usually come from the holy "working class"?

No. Its because lottery wins are so few as to contribute negligibly to the exchequer. I didn't mention lingerie tycoons or stand-up comedians, auto workers or futures traders either, and they're far more important. Would you like an exhaustive list of jobs? All income taxed by the same rules. Not too tricky a concept.

Don't wait for MIT to post it

[abe ferlman]

You can get all of the courses from ArsDigita University online now. This was a one-year program based loosely on MIT's undergraduate computer science curriculum. It's got Real (unfortunately) video of all the lectures, problem sets and solutions. Pick a course, do them all in order. They're really quite good.

Bryguy

OpenUuniversity

[bigattichouse]

Anyone want to create a forum/online university? Since people might not go for "virtual degrees", you could offer low cost testing and completion - kind like brainbench and others, but based on MIT and other corricula.

Anyone game?

Mike

What about a Beuracracy?

[Questioning]

As one who has had to piece through archives before, I find that the more information available, the more difficult it is to find something. What I am really curious about is how they will set up their search engine.

And your flawed logic

[SEE]

Who defines what is "good for society"?

The people - that's who.

That statement in and of itself is an argument that "there's nothing intrinsically bad about people committing crimes or living in poverty" unless "the people" say there is. In which case, you are simply declaring majority rule/conformity the sole rule of an otherwise entirely relativistic morality.

In the true Hacker Spirit

[mrpengin]

Rick Greenblatt and the TMRC hackers would be proud!!

SpbSU is cheaper and better

[Anonymous Coward]

Look guys, St. Petersburg State University
[http://www.spbu.ru] has been free for ages, and offers a comp-sci program far superior to that of MIT. Just go check their results on ACM programming competitions. [http://www.acm.org]

Capitalism in general and private education in particular suck.

For the record ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Gnu/MIT.

Just add people.

[trilucid]

First off, this is very good. I've actually been waiting a long time for this sort of thing to occur (no M.I.T. for me, at least not yet).

Maybe a good way to really make this useful would be to establish online volunteer groups (community people, not necessarily M.I.T. folks) who truly grok this stuff. As anyone knows, the coursework is pretty heavy stuff. Anybody got any ideas how to possibly get this ball rolling?

FreeMIT.org is available :-).

Pretty cool...

[DeltaBlaster]

Should be interesting to see when they get it up.. I would have gone there If I had the money.... better grades probably would have helped to hehe :)

bzzzt....wrong

[CmdrPinkTaco]

check your sources (located as answers to the first question)

UNLV is an accredited university. As a senior there, I can attest that they have an excellent staff with excellent facilities who could give two poops about the basketball team.

Granted it is a small college, it is growing quickly and is well recognized for it's research for a university its size.

Online Courses

[everyplace]

It amuses me to no end that MIT is fully funding this effort to the tune of $10m, yet other universities that have been doing this for a while refuse to even notice that their teachers have been doing just this for years.

I'm quite biased, of course, because someone close to me is one of these teachers. Over the last two years, the University of Pittsburgh has ignored his efforts to create a fully functional course book of material online here, until this year, when they decided to ask him to teach double the normal class load, in addition to heading a new joint-department class, and setting up a series of classes to be taught exclusively online for highschool students who can't commute to the university for AP classes.

And yet, despite all of this, he effectively earns less each year, do to absolutly no funding, and a series of raises dramatically lower than the cost of living increase. Go figure.

I guess he's just at the wrong university.

everyplace

Re:How about a complementary peer review slash sit

[Anonymous Coward]

...there's something like this already....it's called usenet

Well

[jonestor]

Well, they got everything else online. Why not course material too?

http://bathroom.mit.edu
http://spleen.mit.edu/laundry
http://neurosis.mit.edu/foo

University of Auckland...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Computer Science department has pretty much everything on the web.

link.

Re:University of Auckland...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, posting the link to Slashdot may end that pretty quickly. :)

You're completely wrong

[Sagarian]

Labor is by far the biggest cost in an effort like this.

You can get, say 2TB of storage, a set of 2 2-way IBM H80 web servers, a 4-way M80 database server with 4GB of RAM for database, and a high-end failover H80 to back up the M80. Add to that a fully-redundant 100BT Cisco Router/Firewall/Switch setup. Add to that Oracle licensing costs for the whole setup.

Hundreds of millions? You could buy a setup like this and set up a seriously scalable web site for under $1 million just over a year ago... I know, I did it.

The parent to this post is not "Insightful". It is "Wrong"

Re:You're completely wrong

[Mistah Blue]

If you had bothered reading my post, you would have noticed I mentioned $100 million was likely a 10 year total cost of ownership. Included in that cost of ownership is personnel (i.e. labor).

I did NOT say it would cost $100 million to build this.

I DO say it could cost $100 million to build and operate over a 10 year period.

What Happens...

[Gunnery Sgt. Hartman]

What happens when the teacher isn't worth the free notes he posts on the internet?