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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.'"
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
Online courses only really work in cases where people are highly driven or very short on time. As in medical school etc.
Generaly the problem is that it's too easy to 'disconnect' from class and never open the book or do the homework as the web lectures and forum based discussions don't create the same level of attachment and group learning as class.
I'm currently a college student and I have taken a web based class this term and the first few weeks adjusting to it was tough. I kept forgetting to check the boards, to post replies etc. Since you get graded on the level of discussion on the boards etc...first few weeks sucked.
It's very nice though to have all the slides available 24/7 online, even ones from classes taught by other profs. Even better if they post last years tests 8-)
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Online communities to support the university, eh?
Party tonight at 65.215.9.11!!! OPEN PROXY! FREE SOFTWARE KEG!
This is the future of online college.
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
Top 10 OpenCourseWare Nations*
Rank Nation Hits
1. Canada 3,886,197
2. Germany 3,576,071
3. Brazil 3,170,362
4. South Korea 3,254,259
5. France 3,012,102
6. Japan 3,095,913
7. United Kingdom 3,099,713
8. China 2,563,446
9. India 2,512,267
10. Australia 1,372,052
* Outside the U.S.
Includes nearly 600,000 hits from mainland China, where the government denied access to OpenCourseWare until February 2003, and nearly 2 million hits from Hong Kong.
Top 10 OpenCourseWare Classes
1. Philosophy 24.00: Problems of Philosophy
2. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 6.170: Laboratory in Software Engineering
3. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 6.071: Introduction to Electronics
4. Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences 12.409: Hands-On Astronomy: Observing Stars and Planets
5. Mathematics 18.06: Linear Algebra
6. Mathematics 18.013A: Calculus with Applications
7. Nuclear Engineering 22.00J: Introduction to Modeling and Simulation
8. Physics 8.02: Electricity and Magnetism
9. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 6.281J: Logistical and Transportation Planning Methods
10. Management 15.810: Introduction to Marketing
Nice to see that the 'Other Nations' are outside the US. And I'm glad its South (not North) Korea at No. 4, considering that Nuclear Engineering is at No. 7!
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
"Of course, there will probably be debates to see if these courses will be admissible for diploma..."
Probably only between people such as yourself that have not read any of the FAQs:
"MIT OCW is not meant to replace degree-granting higher education or for-credit courses. Rather, the goal is to provide the content that supports an education."
About 1/3 of the FAQs there plainly state that this is just the publishable material of the course; not at all a replacement for taking the course, and in no way is admissible for a diploma.
If you've ever attended college and skipped a class, you should know there is absolutely no comparison between being in class and reading the notes on the web later. That being said, I think this is a great idea, and hopefully people will use it for its intended purpose.
Scott
From the MIT mission statement:
The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.
It's one thing for a university to say something like that, but what I as a student can contribute to this discussion is the assurance that they're for real. TDespite huge military and government funding there are no secret projects on campus; every research lab is open to every student. Most parts of campus (including the extensive libraries) are even open to the public. Data is posted on the internet as soon as it can be verified... I feel silly listing these individual things MIT does to share information. That's probably because OCW is the single greatest step in that process.
I'm not worried that my degree will be obsolete in 20 years. Other people may have learned the same material organized by the same professors, but the real value of MIT is the interaction with the teachers and the students. It comes with a hefty price tag, of course. Disclaimer: MIT isn't perfect. Every time I've mentioned the school before I've gotten flamed. Flame away. The school isn't perfect, but it does have a particular nobility of purpose.
while (!sleep){
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I remember thinking a few years ago that I should have downloaded and archived all these *GREAT* course notes and lecture materials that the hip profs from Stanford, MIT, UW and other schools had put on line, but I didn't.
.edu web servers.
And then, just as the idea of "courseware" started getting bandied about, many of those sites started to go offline or require local authentication. Why? Because MIT hyped up "open courseware" as if they had invented it, even though all kinds of course information (and more) had been available on school websites for years. And as always: Once marketing gets a few tentacles around cool geek technology, the squeeze is on... Don't get me wrong, MIT is hip and wonderful, but they forced the golden goose to be an egg donor - and it was painful to watch what happened over the next 18 months.
Some of this stuff had been collections dating back to the mid to early 90's, and built by the kind of guys you WANT to listen to, guys who can compress the kind of experiences and insights you'll only get in 9 or 10 years of doing real work into a handful of lectures.
And it was the whole thing, too, usually the prof's own notes, and materials, and old tests and EVERYTHING just dumped into websites (or ftp directories) to be sorted later. Not to mention collections of usenet posts, and source code, and outlines of old papers... A treasure trove that you could wade into, and find magic even if you didn't know what you were looking for.
But then the schools started these initiatives-
almost all of which were started shortly after MIT did the courseware announcement, and one by one all the campuses took an interest in what their teachers were posting. And then blammo! In a year or so, it became much harder to find these treasure troves, because MIT made the administrations takes note of the value of this information.
Google later helped us to find things - sort of - and now you can find specific topics, but you can no longer find the huge amount of course notes you once could discover by simply popping over to the schools
feh!