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MIT Everyware
TeachingMachines writes "David Diamond has written a very readable article at Wired News titled MIT Everyware that follows up on MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative (previous story). It turns out that one of the most popular courses has been '6.170 Laboratory in Software Engineering, Fall 2001.' Diamond notes that '[u]ltimately, MIT officials know, OpenCourseWare's success depends on the emergence of online communities to support individual courses.'"
Well, this is a pretty good idea for people who don't have time, or even, the transportation for university. Of course, there will probably be debates to see if these courses will be admissible for diploma...
You may have completed the material but that doesn't mean you can stick 'MIT degree!!' on your Curriculum Vitae.
I'm reading Laboratory in Software Engineering myself, but only because it's interesting - it will probably prove of little benefit in the marketplace.
Still, an excellent initiative - while other universities are milking every cent they can MIT are actually promoting an interest in learning and sharing of information. Excellent stuff.
success depends on the emergence of online communities to support individual courses.
However I also think the success depends on improvement to the courses based on the community response.
Isn't this the philosophy all open-source, open-standard etc are based on?
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
You CANNOT get credit for coursework via this method.
Duh, he's talking about trends in the near-future. The fact that MIT doesn't currently give credit for non-paying online students is irrelevant.
Someday, the marketplace will drive colleges to split up their student-based revenue into two parellel streams: testing and tutoring.
A person will be able to independently decide whether he wants MIT to educate him about a subject, to certify that he's been educated on it, or both. For quality schools, that certification will often be much more elaborate than a single test event.
To some extent, a student can already choose to get only the tutoring portion and not the testing. This is called "auditing a class". But today, a person who's already so expert in a subject that she can safely skip each lecture and still pass the final has no way to avoid paying for those lecture sessions.