Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models?

An anonymous reader writes "Educational badges, which seem like a playful riff on Boy Scout skill patches, pose an existential crisis for colleges and universities. If students can collect credentials from MITx and Khan Academy and other free Web sites, why go to a campus?"

Comments

Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

Is the only badge relevant for self teaching.

Re:Portfolios

[ohnocitizen]

What about subjects that don't lend themselves as easily to the portfolio approach? Works great for designers, but what about geneticists?

Re:Portfolios

[TheRaven64]

Published, peer-reviewed, papers go in a portfolio for any subject like that...

Re:Portfolios

[ironjaw33]

Published, peer-reviewed, papers go in a portfolio for any subject like that...

I'm curious as to how many people with no university or industry affiliation have published papers, especially those that have published without any collaborators with such affiliations. As a CS grad student, I haven't run across any that I can remember, but perhaps I haven't been around long enough and there are too many other disciplines and specializations to count. Some disciplines would be easier than others -- in Computer Science, for example, there are plenty of research areas that don't require a huge amount of resources.

That said, peer review publications are pretty much by academics and for academics; only few (non academic or industrial research) outsiders would care so much to publish unless they are hoping to gain the very affiliation the eschew.

Re:Portfolios

[tepples]

only few (non academic or industrial research) outsiders would care so much to publish unless they are hoping to gain the very affiliation the eschew.

You said "industrial research". I guess the point of the comments by Deus.1.01 and TheRaven64 is just that: one's industrial research should get one into industry.

Re:Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

Where on the god's flat disc are you going to do the practical lab work? Besides, genetics is a research discipline, you would have to get involved in academia anyway.

Re:Portfolios

[lightknight]

How good can you be if you haven't accidentally created a plague or two?

Re:Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

Well, yes...

Any Higher education is suppose to teach you about research(maybe a bit beside the point), but the discussion has veered into theoretical research disciplines, and research positions.

I was just talking about showing of this cool physics engine.
(note I am a bachelor graduate and yes, portfolios still matter....that and nepotism)

Re:Portfolios

[hedwards]

That's easy, just become a henchman, there's significant room for promotion as the evil genius keeps offing his #2 and chances are there's all manner of laboratory equipment to get used to when you're using it to fry secret agents.

Re:Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

But you would have a life expectancy of 10 minutes.

Re:Portfolios

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a few really great papers, with really original and useful research. On the other hand, most of it seems like a giant circle jerk, serving no useful purpose other than to advance the advanced-degree-accreditation process. Publishing is quite expensive. The peer-review process often seems to involve who you know far more than the quality of the work.

As such, no, I don't see to many independents tossing weeks of salary away on a doomed attempt at publication. Schools, on the other hand, submit and resubmit papers all the time, paid for by the tuition of their students, and brag about the numbers of papers published.

I am not impressed.

Re:Portfolios

[Genda]

In the mid 90s I worked with several good friends on a research project investigating the sexually based dimorphism of the human corpus collosum. It not only looked at the dimorphism among a large Stanford based MRI baseline data set, but also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.) The project was not affiliated with any school or industrial organization. It was a fascinating project.

Re:Portfolios

[Anonymous Coward]

As a scientist with a good handful of papers under my belt your comment tells me that at best you've read ones of papers.

Re:Portfolios

[Anonymous Coward]

Publishing is quite expensive. [...] As such, no, I don't see to many independents tossing weeks of salary away on a doomed attempt at publication. Schools, on the other hand, submit and resubmit papers all the time, paid for by the tuition of their students, and brag about the numbers of papers published.

I have no clue where you get that publishing is expensive. I routinely submit papers to the top statistics journals, e.g., J. Royal Stat. Soc., J. Amer. Stat. Soc., and Biometrika, along with various physical science journals, e.g., Proc. National Acad. Sci., all of which are "non-open access" by default, and have never been required to pay for anything, including over-length page charges. As well, I have plenty of colleagues that send out papers to top journals in other fields, such as applied math, theoretical math, the physical sciences, and all branches of engineering, that have yet to see a bill.

Oh, and as an aside, although there are a few journals that have review and submission charges, it is up to the individual professors and researchers, not the university, to pay these either with federal/private grant money or money from private expense accounts. The only time tuition money factors into anything related to research manuscripts is when the university library renews its subscription access to online repositories, e.g., Springer, IEEE, JSTOR, Elsevier, etc.; of course, all of these articles are made available to the students, not just a select few.

Re:Portfolios

[TheRaven64]

I published one paper after leaving academia. It was no harder than publishing in academia - write the paper, send it off to a journal, wait for the acceptance. Some journals charge for publication, but there is usually at least one open access journal that doesn't in any given field. Decent journals do anonymous review, so the reviewers have no idea of your affiliation.

The main reason I stopped publishing after leaving academia was that I was too lazy to write literature review sections for papers (I actually have several ones on my hard drive that are complete apart from that, but outside academia there is little incentive to rack up the publication count). If I blog about stuff, I get feedback immediately, rather than needing to wait up to a year for journals to get around to publishing a paper.

Re:Portfolios

[El Torico]

And it's a problem that you can only get Sea Bass instead of Sharks.

Re:Portfolios

[aeoo]

also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.)

Instead of "explained by" I think you mean "matched with" or "correlated with."

Re:Portfolios

[tepples]

non-open access

Where would someone self-taught find the money to acquire the journals whose articles his paper cites?

Re:Portfolios

[datavirtue]

and next....English class.

Re:Portfolios

[datavirtue]

Why would they charge? Because they have a glut of crap flying at them? If you submit a paper that is worth something they should pay you. I smell crap.

Re:Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

In his pocket?

Subscriptions for Individual journals cost 10-20 bucks a year.
You can also pay per issue.

For IEEE, JSTOR and my personal favorite ACM, access, its about 200 dollars a year.

Re:Portfolios

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work at a state University (designated by HR as faculty/staff) on an HIV project as a web designer. My co-worker and I both contributed to the technical content for the research publications. He had a B.S, I was still working on mine. The federal and state programs we used for funding required all authors to possess at least a BS. His name appeared as an author, mine did not. Still debating whether after I earn my BS to request I be added.

Re:Portfolios

[tepples]

Subscriptions for Individual journals cost 10-20 bucks a year.

In my experience with running into the major scholarly journals' paywalls, that's how much a single article costs over the web.

Re:Portfolios

[TheRaven64]

Not sure about where you are, but here the local university will allow anyone, even non-students, to register. They are then allowed to use the library computers to view papers from all of the journals that the university has subscribed to, for free. I know one person who did exactly that while she was writing applications to do a masters (not at the local university, and she was not an alumnus).

Re:Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

For a non-member yes. (forgot to subscribe to individual journals you still need a membership with its own fee).
That only means it pays of to subscribe.

Also some libraries have deals with the publishers for access to their repositories, universities libraries have plenty of periodicals.

At any rate, money shouldn't be a concern, only real problem might be that in some cases you might not meet the requirement for membership.(for ACM at least you can forgo formal education requirement if you have industry experience)..
It varies wildely from case to case, and even so you might have options from public libraries.

Re:Portfolios

[Rich0]

Agreed. If you're talking about something like math or CS I could see there being a lot of opportunity.

Perhaps in genetics you could do data-based analysis using publicly-available datasets and find something others have missed.

However, in most physical and biological sciences noteworthy publications tend to have experiments associated with them. Even if I came up with strong evidence that some gene had some remarkable property based on analysis of DNA sequences in a public database, reviewers would ask the obvious question as to why I didn't create a knockout mouse or something to confirm it. Well, creating knockout mice isn't really something you can do in your kitchen, at least not if you don't want mutagens in your food and for that matter unless you have quite a bit of money.

Plus, I don't think that it is fair to say that somebody needs an extensive portfolio of peer-reviewed publications to be considered as a substitute for an undergraduate degree. It is rare for an undergraduate to have any serious contributions to peer-reviewed work (they might get their names on a paper if they are fortunate, but often with quite a bit of help). Indeed, even PhDs often only have a few reviewed publications and if you truly had an impressive portfolio of them you'd be more likely to be a candidate for a professorship at a top-10 school.

The only thing a typical undergraduate has really accomplished is that they've sat through many classes and got good marks on a series of tests. It makes you wonder why you couldn't just have an MCSE for Genetics, or whatever.

Re:Portfolios

[Anonymous Coward]

Grandparent Anonymous here...

I've read hundreds of papers. Perhaps thousands. I'm listed on over a dozen myself, as a contributor though I never wrote so much as a single word.

There is good research out there. But I've seen a lot of bad stuff too. And a lot of stuff rehashing what's been done before with just very minor tweaks. My field is computer science, assorted algorithms for NP hard problems, and various aspects of robotics.

When I'm trying to learn something new, and I'm reading dozens papers that all cover pretty much the same stuff in pretty much the same way, then yeah, I start thinking it's a circle jerk. It's a waste of my time to read. So the question is: Who's reading it? And more importantly, why are they all getting written, let alone published?

Last time I tried to get something published independently, the fee I was quoted was around $700. I didn't try again. I do write whitepapers occasionally.

As for that "The money comes from other sources" line. That's bullshit! Plain, simple, and sticky. It's no different that the old "Lotto money funds _blah_" argument. Sure it funds it. But they cut the funding from other sources to _blah_ by the exact same amount that lotto funds it, and then redirect those funds elsewhere.

If you are not paying N thousands of dollars out for publishing fees, that money can go to other purposes. Ultimately, tuition won't need to be so high.

the problem is profit

[lemur3]

I think the idea of models for education that have been around for a long while apparently arent meeting the peoples needs.. the popularity of khan and mitx is just but one example...

the 'threat' of people learning more stuff only exists if your business relies on selling people an education..

for everyone else its good news!

Re:the problem is profit

[Moryath]

Actually, not so much. Setting aside diploma mills like DeVry, University of Phoenix, etc, it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.

On the flipside, yes, there are certain areas of the economy where "college" has taken over the role previously taken by what were called "trade schools", and there's the inevitable degree-creep that's been caused by the brainless HR sector constantly requiring more and more of a checklist of "must have this, must have that" to apply for jobs that has come with the computerization era. The idea of "all jobs require a college degree", whereas 30 years ago it was a HS diploma, or the number of jobs now requiring a Master's rather than a mere Associate's or Bachelor's degree, all pushed even further by a complete refusal by companies to actually provide on-the-job training, instead insisting that all new hires should drop in like made-to-order cogs on day one.

Khan and MITx look a lot to me like the Idiocracy approach to "education" - one size fits all, just take your multiple-guess test and keep taking it till you get your cert.

Re:the problem is profit

[ohnocitizen]

The question becomes what level of education does our society want to support, and how do we support teachers to make that possible? If we want a college level of education for our populace, then we really need to rethink things. The traditional approach is highly problematic - it doesn't reach everyone, it is very expensive... Then again, this new method as theory is not a sustainable way to support teachers, and leaves out in person instruction. (In practice one would expected these classes are actually used in "real-world" classes to supplement instruction).

Re:the problem is profit

[wisty]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.

Yeah, 'cause that happens in bricks and mortar universities *all* the time.

Re:the problem is profit

[idontusenumbers]

It's also a threat to anyone that depends on other people to be stupid, mostly scammers.

Re:the problem is profit

[idontusenumbers]

I guess politicians could also be included in this group as well.

Re:the problem is profit

[donaggie03]

It does once you get past the freshman weed out classes: at least that was the case for me when I got my engineering technology degree from Texas A&M and my mathematics degree from the University of Houston . .

Re:the problem is profit

[Xeranar]

Or you're just a loud minority supported by an even smaller minority who want to break public education due to their political goals and personal views alongside their ability to profit. This is a better mousetrap conundrum, if you can do it you'll get rich but nobody has. Humans only learn in a handful of ways and frankly a traditional academic setting is preferred.

Re:the problem is profit

[aurizon]

A university like MIT, Yale etc teach and produce graduates with skills that are respected and an employer can ask for a transcript and rely on it to show the merit of the person in these courses. Diploma mills also grant detailed transcripts, but gain little respect. Is the transition from diploma mill to university possible? - Yes, over a time, by following accreditation procedures, usually governed by the state any school can elevate itself.
Now we have Khan and MITx, one of which grew from the earth overnight and the other which sprang from MIT. Both teach courses, but Khan has none of the past reputation of MIT(x), so how is the employer to gauge the relative merits of two applicants, one from MITx and one from Khan?
It is apparent that MITx is self referential, based on many decades of fame. Khan is also self referential - but from a course history that can be as little as a few months. So how can they be compared? Years ago, a system was crafted to deal with the problem various colleges had to rate their student intake. How to cull the goofs from a slacker high school from the worthy students from a high school with a good curriculum. I am of course referring to the SAT tests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT . These have served for decades to serve as such a screen. The SAT also has more limited test areas for expertise in restricted areas. I think that a third party, like SAT or ??, can fill this test void, and charge a fee for this service. As time goes by, employers will go through a learning process whereby MITx, Khan academy et al 'badges' will accrue merit, especially of these academies invoke a test procedure that tests the person (and not some online hired test passer), possibly in harmony with SAT et al, because they will see the need for this sort of process. Sadly, the cost will accrue to the student - who else?, and this will impact the freeness that is their hallmark. Of course, MITX and Khan can produce a dossier of 1000 questions on each of their courses that an employer can use to self test applicants, say on the 50 that fit is best? These banks of questions will make it to the web and people will take it to self assess and study to pass. All this is good.

Re:the problem is profit

[Belial6]

The reason so many jobs require college degrees instead of a HS diploma is because traditional education has failed through the HS level. The reason that you are not seeing the requirement of Masters degrees instead of Associate's or Bachelor's is because the "Reputable" colleges have become the same kind of paper mills as DeVry, Phoenix, etc...

Online education isn't the Idiocracy approach. Traditional eduction has become the Idiocracy education.

A major piece of this conversation that gets completely ignored is that there are different levels of education. Look at all of the comments in any thread concerning Khan Academy , and people start talking about how they don't want to be operated on by someone who got their medical degree online, or drive on a bridge by someone who got their engineering degree online. The conversation should start with "Does a 6 year old learn math better via Khan Academy or in a traditional 1st grade classroom?" This should then be asked for each year until you get to the end. I can tell you that my 7 year old child gets about the same amount of education from 6 hours of Khan Academy as traditional education would provide in 6 months.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I have this strange, strange idea.

How about we just require people to know what they're doing in order to get the job?

Re:the problem is profit

[i.r.id10t]

Of course, it would help if a high school diploma meant more than "johnny showed up every day and didn't distract anyone" .... seriously. When I graduated HS in '89, the polices were changed so that as long as you showed up every day, didn't cause a disturbance, didn't sleep, and didn't die you would get a 60... get 1 point anywhere on anything, and you now have a greater than 60 average so you pass...

I teach a intro to linux class at a community college (whoops... just college. we offer 4 year degrees now in a couple of subjects so legally we can't be called community anymore) and I have students that can't follow a set of 10 directions... that a secretary for the English department can (because I have her test stuff like this). They can't think critically, problem solve on their own, apply past experience to current problems, or even do a decent google search.

So yeah, at this point I'd say an AA or AS degree is what a HS diploma was 30 years ago...

Re:the problem is profit

[AK Marc]

If you haven't taken a class where you are learning Russian History in a class of 8 from a PhD in Russian literature who is "published" as a translator of 10 or so historical non-fiction works from Russian to English (and in the class, it is so informal and discussion-oriented that everyone calls everyone else by their first name), then you didn't get an education, you got a degree. And yes, that was at a university where I was also in a Chem 101 (literally) with 500+ students and IDs were checked at all test days because there's no way the lecturer would ever notice a cheater without papers checked. You just have to sometimes look hard for the actually educational classes.

Re:the problem is profit

[jellomizer]

It fits better in an economics model. The basic principal is the more education you have the more you will get paid.
So as more people try to get a better education the more schools will try to meet demmand. So standards get lowered because a 2 year degree is needed for a job that was previously needed for a high school deploma. So the education taught would be the equlivlant of a high school deploma. A 4 year is about what you get in a 2 year, a masters is about the same as a 4 year. A phd is the same as a masters. And you need post PHD work to get the same level of work a PHD use to get.

The problem isn't as much lower school standards but students know how to handle the system to get degrees without learning as much. You find professors who grade easier, take classes on information you already know, or classes where you just need to work hard at but not necessarily learn from. They space out classes so they can take a class they think as too hard as pass/fail per semester as to not hinder their GPA.
When going to other schools say to take a masters you need at least a 3.0 GPA. That means colleges can no longer grade their students the old way. By giving grades based on the statistics of the rest of the class. So going to grad school if you got a 2.5 from Harvard University would look worse then a 3.0 from University of Hartford.

If a student went to college for an education there would a lot less A students and a lot more C and B students as they will want to take classes in areas they are not good at as to really expand their minds.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anne Thwacks]

require people to know what they're doing in order to get the job?

How are you going to get politicians to vote for that?

Re:the problem is profit

[heathen_01]

That means colleges can no longer grade their students the old way. By giving grades based on the statistics of the rest of the class.

What kind of idiotic approach to grading is that!

None of the morons in a given class gets over 10%. However the one in the corner that doesn't drool as much managed to get 8.5%, more than the rest so he nows passes the course with flying colours?

Re:the problem is profit

[mapkinase]

Free college education is better for the country which proven in numerous examples, countries like former Soviet Bloc, many post-socialist Arab countries are well known for their high number of good specialists.

The only problem with question "why campus" is that it looks a lot similar to question "why Harvard".

Re:the problem is profit

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who went to a traditional university (UCONN) if find your comment "provide actual interactive discussions" quite funny.

Gee, I wish I had that, rather than TA's with little command of the engrish language.

Higher ed is the one size fits all, but I find Khan to be incredible flexible for my kids as they tear through the subjects they need help in.

 

Re:the problem is profit

[loneDreamer]

Remembers me the Wikipedia debate. High quality but full of trust issues. But give it time and it may become the norm.

Re:the problem is profit

[Belial6]

Good example. Even one step farther, The traditional source is at least as untrustworthy, but most people don't even think about it because it is the traditional source.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anonymous Coward]

... Setting aside diploma mills like DeVry, University of Phoenix, etc ...

DeVry and UoP may have a lot of graduates, but these aren't diploma mills. Diploma mills are instead little more than administrative offices, and no real coursework to speak of for the pretty piece of worthless paper they give you.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Disagree. The main reason jobs require college degrees is that the Supreme Court held that tests for jobs had to be job related because of their disparate impact (certain protected groups did worse than others). Businesses responded rationally--> job specific tests were very expensive, so they required all applicants to satisfy a test that cost the businesses no money, i.e., a college degree.

Re:the problem is profit

[Ambassador Kosh]

Many in-person university classes are exactly what you said is wrong with online classes. Look at Organic Chemistry for instance, that one was even criticized by DARPA recently. Organic Chemistry classes in USA university are pretty much universally taught as memorization classes and tested that way also. Doing them online is no different then doing them in person.

Last semester I had a class which did extensive online homework and it was not multiple choice at all. It was for a chemical engineering class on material and energy balances and we used something called sapling. For that you had to actually figure out the answer and enter them into the system and it was right or wrong based on how close it was to the actual answer. It worked extremely well and it helped learning since if you got it wrong it told you why it was wrong and you could try again.

On the flip side I had a math class on differential equations and in that class maybe 1/3 of the homework or less was graded and many people ended up doing a certain type of problem wrong until an exam came since that type of problem had never been graded so they had no idea they had it wrong.

Online courses and homework that are instantly computer graded offer a lot of advantages over poor university courses since you get instant feedback and so you don't learn the wrong way of solving the problem. Also you have to admit these online courses don't have to be better then good university courses they have to be better then poor university courses and that is a very low bar to meet since most university courses are poor.

I would take good videos and online homework and tests based on understanding not memorization and not multiple choice any day over most university courses. If they where cheaper I would probably just do them for all courses since the odds of getting a good class is fairly low and at least these online classes would have a pretty standard level of quality.

Also don't knock the khan academy until you have used it. I found it pretty essential on my differential equations class since it was done so poorly. The book did a poor job of teaching the materials and so did the instructor so without those online screencasts that class would have been vastly more difficult.

Re:the problem is profit

[Ambassador Kosh]

Not only each year but for each subject. There are some subjects that are probably better online at all years or many years and others that are almost always better with a physical presence.

Re:the problem is profit

[jellomizer]

Apparently you never have taken statistics.

If the Mean average is about 8% and the standard deviation of grades is 1%
So the the people who got 8% will get a 2.0 the people who got 9% will get a 3.0 and the one who got 10%+ will get a 4.0
the poor slob who got 6% or lower would have failed.

Now this allow the professor to raise the bar up very high, and really see how much the students get out of the class. The students will work harder because low percentages do not feel good, and there is always that kid who will break the average that will make sure you are on your toes. I have never seen a class based on a curve that ever got away with lets all try to fail so we all can pass succeed.

Also this helps keep the professors material at the right level too. If the average is 10% for passing then he knows either he is not teaching the material or it is much too difficult. If students are getting high grades of 90% and 100% then he is making the class too easy. If he gets an average grade about 70-75% and a Standard deviation 15% then he is around on mark.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you'd better take a second look at that there "deploma" of yours, Jellowriter.

Re:the problem is profit

[heathen_01]

Apparently you never have taken statistics. If the Mean average is about 8% and the standard deviation of grades is 1% So the the people who got 8% will get a 2.0 the people who got 9% will get a 3.0 and the one who got 10%+ will get a 4.0 the poor slob who got 6% or lower would have failed.

Right so the 10% guy who clearly does not understand anything about the subject gets a pass. This works in reverse too, the guy who gets 90% but is the lowest in the class fails. Clearly the 90% guy is better than the 10% guy however the grades don't reflect this in any way.

Now this allow the professor to raise the bar up very high, and really see how much the students get out of the class. The students will work harder because low percentages do not feel good, and there is always that kid who will break the average that will make sure you are on your toes. I have never seen a class based on a curve that ever got away with lets all try to fail so we all can pass succeed. Also this helps keep the professors material at the right level too. If the average is 10% for passing then he knows either he is not teaching the material or it is much too difficult. If students are getting high grades of 90% and 100% then he is making the class too easy. If he gets an average grade about 70-75% and a Standard deviation 15% then he is around on mark.

The professor can still run as many statistical tests on the data until the cows come home, but what has that got to do with the grades given out?

Consider that I could take a class twice, score exactly 75% each time (a firm grasp of the subject), however the first time I'm with geniuses and hence get graded as a fail as I'm in the lowest 1%. Next time the opposite and top the class with the same 75% and since I am now in the top 1% get the best marks. How can that be considered even remotely rational?

Have you looked in to how its actually used in practice. First the curve is computed, then it is distorted based on judgment calls and a host of other dodgy practices. Far better to set objectives at the beginning and then grade the students on how they individually performed, and ignore how the person sitting next to them performed, its irrelevant.

Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

The usual purpose of attending college isn't to learn the material, so much as being adequately credentialed for consideration for employment. So the question is, will the people doing the hiring consider them as sufficient alternatives to a traditional degree.

I suspect they'll stay slightly less influential than industry certifications, which stand well below degrees from accredited universities.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

I tentatively agree, but I think the entrance of "big-name" universities into this experiment potentially changes things, if they keep standards up. Anything with the name MIT or Stanford associated with it has some amount of built-in cachet. I think that even if it's not a regular degree, but Stanford-with-an-asterisk, employers, and especially smaller and less rigid employers like we often find in technology, will be willing to consider it if Stanford does a reasonable job with it.

I can especially imagine employers with specific needs taking it seriously, e.g. someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.

Re:Not optimistic.

[frisket]

That's the nub of it. From the article:

After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned.

I think the author has made a fundamentally false assumption here. "Traditional college diplomas" are not meant to contain the details of what the recipient learned. That's what a Transcript is for. A degree certifies that you have learned how to learn; that you know how to read and analyse, how to find information and sift it for fact and fiction, how to write what you have learned clearly and concisely, and how to support your argument by pointing at what others have done. It also certifies that you have done all this within a specific discipline, so there is an implication that you know the basics of your chosen field[s].

That may certainly provide adequate credentials for some kinds of employment. But it excludes the large number of specialist institutions whose business is to teach the basics and practicalities of a discipline, without the same level of emphasis on the other skills.

Unfortunately it also excludes a significant number of institutions who accept payment to allow a student to graduate without proper checks on whether they have or have not achieved anything of worth, based on other aspects of the individual's social background. As degrees-for-cash become more prevalent, whether state-sponsored or privately-funded, it is becoming more difficult to distinguish this class of graduate from the first.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Cornwallis]

"If students can collect credentials from MITx and Khan Academy and other free Web sites, why go to a campus?"

I was going to say that the student misses out on puking in dorm rooms during keggers, fending off advances from lecherous profs, being forced to participate in the college textbook scam, outrageous tuition increases, and on and on...

Re:Not optimistic.

[vlm]

someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.

Yeah the problem for Mr Badge is that badge collection is all that is need to do the job, but the unemployed guy with a masters in math also applied for the same job, along with 10 new B.S. 4-year grads and 5 guys with 3 years of experience, and that "retired" EE prof with a PHD who was denied tenure. And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.

I'm not thinking the depths of the second great depression is all that great of a time to roll this idea out.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

For large employers, there's also the meta-skill of showing some amount of self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies. A degree is in part a certification that you've successfully followed a series of requirements and tasks for four years. That's harder to replicate in these DIY educational approaches, because not being huge and bureaucratic is sort of the whole point of the alternative approaches.

Re:Not optimistic.

[vlm]

Thats awesome for the (number of people in silly valley in the field)/(number of people in USA) * 100 percent of the population. In other words just about no one.

Similar, I could move to one of the oil/gas production hubs, and be one of the 10 or so McDonalds employees making more than $20/hr.

It's just not relevant to most of the population.

Re:Not optimistic.

[mysidia]

For large employers, there's also the meta-skill of showing some amount of self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies.

They could introduce some classes whose subject is "navigating bureaucracies", "meeting requirements", etc.
With hands-on project work, and learn by doing used extensively....

Re:Not optimistic.

[quintus_horatius]

In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...

It sounds like you don't think much of people that don't have degrees, as if they're hired only to fill a chair until a properly-educated person comes along. Please explain why college degree should confer higher value than real, visible work. As an employer I prefer to see what someone can really do, regardless of their papers. As an employee, I would rather show off the things I'm capable of (and interested in) now, not how much I can borrow/spend on having someone else spoon-feed concepts to me.

Don't get me wrong, I went to college and I think an education is important. I find that intelligent people that don't attend college often lack the critical thinking skills that come with a well-rounded scholarly experience, which is a waste of their potential. They miss the real point of an education, which is to teach you how to think. I just believe that there is frequently too much emphasis on papers, not enough on actual capability. Maybe some of the "startups" think that too.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Ethanol-fueled]

A dirty little secret is that you can train tech-level employees to do engineering work. My employer recognizes this fact, and it's a win-win situation - They save money not hiring engineers when they're not necessary, and the techs are given recognition and lucrative raises, so they're happy going above and beyond. I work time and a half to write programs while the guy across from me is designing those necessary-but-unimportant-boards to make our lives easier. Meanwhile, we have a drafter with no degree bitching about how he wants more of a challenge in doing his engineering work.

Paradoxically, there is a certain department that hires real engineers to do nothing but walk around with clipboards all day and codify common sense.

Re:Not optimistic.

[narcc]

A degree certifies that you have learned how to learn; that you know how to read and analyse, how to find information and sift it for fact and fiction, how to write what you have learned clearly and concisely, and how to support your argument by pointing at what others have done.

Unfortunately, that's completely untrue for the vast majority of undergraduate degrees. When I was in grad school, I was astonished at how few of my classmates knew how to competently write something as simple as a research paper.

Undergraduates tend to get away with a practice similar to "proof texting", where they first write a paper based on their current knowledge and intuitions, and then dutifully hunt down sources which appear to support their points and inserting quotes and citations as though they were initially referencing those works. It's a bit like plagiarism in reverse, where they credit others for their own work, however inappropriate that may actually be.

Of course, you can't (or shouldn't be able to) get away with that at the graduate level, which is probably why so many people wash-out early on. They simply don't have the skills that their degree implies they have.

Re:Not optimistic.

[infinitelink]

Answer: MENTORS.
Buddy up with good guys willing to teach you about the innards of an organization, and give advice whenever asked before you proceed with anything. Older/wiser/realistic/cynical guys likely better for this, but if you are young especially, they may have a soft spot for you.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, there is the rub, "teach you how to think", do we really want that, do we want generations of robots all thinking in the same way?

Re:Not optimistic.

[JonySuede]

the difference between a good programmer with a CS degree and a good programmer is in the depth of the theoretical knowledge.
The one with the CS degree should be able explain when the radix sort is the best choice , the one without a CS degree from a good U might not even knows about the radix sort.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

what is sort? please provide extensive documentation.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the IT space, I will hire a candidate with an industry certification far faster than someone with a paper from any university. If they have both, then top of the list. If it is one or the other, then I find I get a lot better performance out of industry certs than degrees.

Re:Not optimistic.

[microbox]

The usual purpose of attending college isn't to learn the material, so much as being adequately credentialed for consideration for employment.

You do realise that you are one of the first generations in ALL OF HISTORY to know your place in space and time. Guess that has no value to you. Stuff is the be-all and end-all of your model of value. For the more politically inclined, it seems that knowledge is just something you use to gain power over groups of people, and has nothing to do with the magic of our lives.

Re:Not optimistic.

[lpp]

God .. er.. Old Glory Insurance help us if the robots quit thinking the way we want them to.

Re:Not optimistic.

[microbox]

Every programmer thinks they know more than they do. When someone has a CS degree, they quickly work out that there is a /lot/ to learn. A naive outsider will not know the difference, because both people can talk a good talk. Often the cost of using inferior programmers shows up years later, when business rules change, and things need to be updated. Think of all of those IE6 websites. Most of that idiocy would have been avoided for /zero/ additional cost if the coders had a clue and appropriate training.

A well-trained and educated programmer with sufficient theoretical foundation should produce code 5x as fast with 10% of the bugs as a teach-yourself type. The educated programmers code should also be robust under future changes.

Agree with you on societies fixation on credentials over capability. I think the HR people are the /worst/ for this type of thing.

Re:Not optimistic.

[quintus_horatius]

I said teach you how to think, not teach you what to think. Most of my professors were keen on the former, not the latter.

I see an education as teaching you how to use a tool expertly and effectively, not that different from playing a musical instrument. You might play classical or you may play jazz but a master can play both both and more. A violin can be used to play Led Zeppelin and make it rock but only by someone who knows how to play a violin well.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you. How is that for critical thinking?

I had the critical thinking skills to ignore the conventional wisdom of the time when I graduated HS. That wisdom being that college was the only path to success & that real estate always goes up. I was class of '06 and spent all of '07 buying precious metals, guns, & ammo preparing for a sub-prime apocalypse. I then made a killing during the Obama scare of '08 when I sold off some of my collection to panicked republic-tards.

I shorted AIG, Borders Books, and General Motors months before they went under.

I educated myself using Wikipedia because nobody would give me a scholarship to save my life. Now I look at occupy wall street protesters and I shake my head because I watched them blindly go off to college loading themselves up on debt while I killed myself on $.495 cent tacos.

I'm gainfully employed and my iPod generation classmates are living in tents cause they got fucked in to indentured servitude by listening to the recommendations of assholes like you. Fuck you and your pretentious education veiled class-ist bullshit. Critical thinking? I don't think you know the meaning of the word.

Let me look in to my crystal ball and enlighten you on the future. Barnes & Noble is about to tank, Romney is not going to be the Republican nominee, Democrats are going to lose the senate. SOPA is going to get attached to a "must-pass" spending bill under another name. The TSA is going to get sued in 2012, likely as a consequence of radiation exposure levels. Iran is going to provoke the United States by financing sectarian violence in Iraq. North Korea is going to attack South Korea after a little bit of saber rattling. Our relationship with Pakistan is going to continue to degrade.

Gas prices will hit record highs this summer. Copper and Zinc prices are going to go up. The DJIA is going to have a shitty year in 2012 and be down from 2011 for most of it. It will surge upon Obama's re-election, but Congress is going to get raped dooming 2012-2014 by "Road to Serfdom" bullshit. The Japanese Yen, the Chinese Yuan, the Swiss Franc, & the Russian Ruble are all going to do better than the USD. The USD will out-perform the Euro which is going to continue it's volatility until Germany leaves. This event will cause the Euro to collapse triggering a second global recession.

The United States will have it's credit rating down graded. The Democrats are going to pander to Occupy Protesters in the 6 months prior to November with big talk about student loan reform & forgiveness. Most of it will never leave the committee & what law does get passed will be a relabel of the existing programs with some token deferments, interest rate reductions, & "civil service" type draft-alternatives. The IRS will get more aggressive on taxing foreign earned income inspiring the most renounced US citizenship's in recorded history. Student Voter turn out will be record setting but 2012 is going to cement the idea that student's are irrelevant and the minority/elderly woman vote is all that matters. The Democrats will probably nominate a Hispanic woman in 2016.

Egypt will have elections, the Egyptian people will reject the results and the attempts to assert authority will result in civil war. Syria will be the next country NATO authorizes air-strikes on, but only after a mass-rape inspires public outrage. Bashar al-Assad will learn from the examples of Gaddafi/Saddam & will fuck off to some hotel in Africa or Southeast Asia.

In response to US meddling in the ME, China is going to do some naval exercises too-close to Taiwan and the Americans won't do shit. It may be a joint exercise with Russia. Venezuela is going to accuse the USA of being well... the USA, after some CIA sponsored coup/assassination/slander campaign fails and Chavez will respond by dying of cancer after making sure to Martyr himself as a populist messiah.

India will still fail to perform as expected, South America is going to be the new hip place to fuck off to n

Re:Not optimistic.

[demonlapin]

I was astonished at how few of my classmates knew how to competently write something as simple as a research paper.

Most people can't write at all. I wrote some stuff as a high school senior and college freshman than now makes me recoil in horror, but at least it's reasonably clear and grammatically correct. They invited me to be one of the writing coaches for the next batch of freshmen. I declined. A friend took the bait, though, and she showed me some of the piles of shit that people wrote - at a fairly selective university. Amazing.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please explain why college degree should confer higher value than real, visible work.

if the job requires any intelligence or judgment, that real visible work is not exactly the same as the work you will need an employee to do once you hire him. Does the person have a broad understanding of the field the that job requires, or did they work on learning just enough to get a demo out?

For example, suppose you need a statistician. A person with a degree in math from a university with good grades is clearly a safer choice than a person who uses statistics correctly in a web page you read. The guy with the degree was tested by experts in a large part of the field. A guy who wrote something online may know nothing but the few facts he put in his paper. Or maybe he applied a formula without understanding it.

Re:Not optimistic.

[AliasMarlowe]

And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.

No matter how good those liars are, they have little or no chance... against the nepotist applicant.

Re:Not optimistic.

[vlm]

Now they are kinda forced into college and the government is there with the money because ...

.... their campaign donors (the big banks) told them to guarantee the loans. Socialize the losses and privatize the gains. Thats why higher ed costs so much, why shouldn't it, every dollar extra is another 25 cents of interest profit for the banks.

Re:Not optimistic.

[radtea]

The usual purpose of attending college isn't to learn the material, so much as being adequately credentialed for consideration for employment. So the question is, will the people doing the hiring consider them as sufficient alternatives to a traditional degree.

I thought the usual purpose of attending college was four years of drinking and ill-considered sexual escapades, which bond you into a social clique that will support you for the rest of your life by creating "old boy" job opportunities.

A month or two back there was an article on hiring practices on Wall St and why they only considered "name" schools. The argument came down to: it isn't about competency, it's about recognition (so if you consider that "credentialed" I guess I agree with your claim.) People with money want people from Yale or Harvard carrying water for them, regardless of actual competency.

The curious thing is that these online programs are likely to produce actual competency without significant credentialing, and at some point most employers do want a few people around who can actually do something useful. Online learning indicates a reasonable degree of self-motivation and self-organization, both of which are valuable in some businesses, so those businesses--and only those businesses--are likely to honour such learning.

Re:Not optimistic.

[radtea]

The one with the CS degree should be able explain when the radix sort is the best choice , the one without a CS degree from a good U might not even knows about the radix sort.

This is a great example, as it helps convey the reality that someone with a CS degree is a font of knowledge that is almost completely irrelevant to every real-world case. Furthermore, as anyone with a real education will tell you, the specific things like "when it is best to use X" are what fade fastest unless you are working in a field where that knowledge is used regularly, in which case it doesn't matter if you learn it in college or on the job.

Education is great, but I'll take a good developer with no degree over someone with a degree who thinks their mostly useless theoretical knowledge makes them special. Ideally, of course, I'll take a good developer with a degree, but those are amazingly hard to find.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the good news is that after this kondratieff winter phase of the economic cycle is over, the part of the economy that's going to drive the next upswing will take up all of those graduates and more. Unfortunately the next big thing is still tiny and take your pick as to what it is...
Organ Engineering?
Nanotech?
Who knows...

Re:Not optimistic.

[Rich0]

The usual purpose of attending college...

...it seems that knowledge is just something...

The grandparent was talking about college. You accused him of rejecting the value of knowledge. The two are entirely different things.

I think that college has very little return on investment these days. Sure, it has value, just as a 3 carat diamond has value. However, both are massively overpriced in comparison to their intrinsic value.

I'm all for learning, however. I do it all the time, but haven't taken a formal college class since completing the course requirements for a PhD. Somebody who seeks to obtain the benefits of knowledge without the cost of college is not cheapening knowledge - they're acknowledging that it alone is what gives a college education any value at all, and seeking to obtain the former without having to pay for the excess baggage of the latter.

Free market

[Anonymous Coward]

This is free market competition, and by definition, good.

Re:Free market

[phlinn]

The free market isn't good by definition. Because it's free of coercion and force (or it ceases to be 'free'), it is not evil by definition, but that's not the same thing just as non-negative doesn't mean positive. Lawful neutral I'd say...

"why go to a campus?"

[Anonymous Coward]

To woo women!

Re:"why go to a campus?"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why Techers go to another campus.

Safe for a while

[Anrego]

I really don't know if this is a good thing. While I think I would have loved the idea while I was in school, looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.

If left to my own devices, I would have spent every hour of my free time on a computer. Luckily I had friends who dragged me to various things.. and begrudgingly I actually had a lot of fun.

In other words, I think education is only part of the education process. Social development is the other big part. Technical skills are great, but in todays work environment everything is team driven and being able to get along with people is almost (or even more) important than being able to crank out killer code.

Re:Safe for a while

[JimBobJoe]

looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.

And that's true. Putting it in more stark terms, a lot of higher education is really just a lifestyle for 19 year olds. That's not a bad thing, hell, I've lived that life far longer than one human should.

But colleges make this lifestyle absurdly expensive, when all you really need to do is set aside a neighborhood for 19 year olds.

Re:Safe for a while

[N0Man74]

Sure, I agree that there are additional hidden values that may be found in traditional education (such as the development of social skills and social networks).

However, it is completely possible that you can succeed in attaining your education without gaining these social skills or developing those networks, just like it is possible to develop social skills and networks without traditional education.

Additionally, not everyone is in the financial position to attain the luxury of having both a traditional education and a rewarding social experience. Some will be unable to afford to go at all, while others need to spend almost all of their time split between school and the job they need to pay for it.

So what you speak of is fine for an ideal, but the reality of the situation is that the people that benefit the most from open and freely available knowledge are those that can't afford (or would struggle to afford) a traditional education anyway. I doubt it will have much benefit on traditional education since there will always be parents of privileged kids who share your attitude that the "college experience" has great value in personal development.

Though, if there is an effect, I hope it would be to create downward pressure on the cost of education.

Re:Safe for a while

[vlm]

In other words, I think education is only part of the education process. Social development is the other big part

The problem is that only applies if you're doing the education process thing while 18 to 22 years old. The real world educational process is somewhat more complicated. For example, I'm in my 30s and I'm well aware that due to ageism, getting a "tech job" after 40 is roughly as likely as getting hit by lightning, and only 1 in maybe 30 will ever get into management. So, if I make the cut thats a pleasant miracle, but facing reality, I better start planning in my head for a non-STEM job, which means going back to school.

I REALLY don't think the strategy of tossing me in with the 18 year olds and telling me to learn how to play nice is going to work out. If nothing else I would probably get busted for buying the underage hotties booze in exchange for adult services or something. No... I'm not thinking this will work out.

Technical skills are great, but in todays work environment everything is team driven and being able to get along with people is almost (or even more) important than being able to crank out killer code.

That's something I've heard all my life yet never experienced. There are anecdotes where total sociopath / psychopath / lunatics who are good coders are useless, but the existence of an extreme doesn't prove that therefore "joe average coder needs to get used to the commune / collective farm and from each according to their ability and to each according to their need" and all that rot. Decades of experience show social skill and ability is more like a step function, like an amusement park ride poster "you must be this connected to humanity to succeed and no less" "you must have been laid/drunk/stoned X times to get a job here" "you must be friendly with the HR interviewer lady no matter what she says for a minimum of 10 minutes to get this job" or whatever.

Re:Safe for a while

[Janek Kozicki]

Of course you are right that education is received best when you have active interaction with smart people. Which should happen at real university. Unfortunately it does not. There are 300 people on single year of civil engineering studies, and this university (PG, Poland) is the best one in whole country when it comes to civil engineering. And let me tell you: teachers are sick of that many students. Teachers don't pay attention to students. They *can't* pay attention. There are too many of students. The university is swamped.

Khan academy or MITx would be a great relief for the universities to get rid of students who would waste professors' time. And instead it will let the teachers to focus on brilliant students who made a choice of not studying online, but wanted to come & discuss. It's a win-win.

You can't force a student to do the real studying if he doesn't want to. If that student is at the university, he is wasting everyone's time, only to get away with a degree. If that student will make a degree online, then the real science will go forward faster & easier. That is unfair? Oh this is being solved naturally, add more "experience levels". It is already happening. There was a /. story that what currently is a PhD, was a bachelor's degree about 60 years ago, in terms of required scientific work that you had to do to obtain that degree. A new degree "habilitation" is being added on top of PhD to compensate this. Everybody knows that bachelor is now pretty common nowadays, everybody knows it is less worth than 60 years ago.

The education diversity is much *higher* than in caveman ages. There is much more knowledge our there which can me known or unknown to each of us. I'm surprised that it took half a century to add more education degrees. Look where our civilization was 50 years ago.

Online universities are a natural step in the right direction: dumb down bachelor's degree, add another degree on top. And let everyone choose which level of education they want too have. Too much work to get habilitation? Everyone has a choice. Remember that we have made a lot of discoveries in last century.

Funding? Well, that's another story. Science goes forward even if there are funding problems, albeit slower. The most important thing is a fruitful interaction between professors and brilliant students. And online universities will let this happen.

Re:Safe for a while

[Janek Kozicki]

short version for tl;dr:

- let's allow online universities
- so we have fewer lazy students at the universities
- students who actually come to study are served much better, and really have interaction with teachers, who suddenly have more time

Re:Safe for a while

[heironymous]

Social interaction is education. Did any undergraduates actually learn anything from their professors? The only things I remember learning, I learned from my peers.

Re:Safe for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

That's something I've heard all my life yet never experienced. There are anecdotes where total sociopath / psychopath / lunatics who are good coders are useless, but the existence of an extreme doesn't prove that therefore "joe average coder needs to get used to the commune / collective farm and from each according to their ability and to each according to their need" and all that rot.

It's been my experience that it matters a lot more when you try to progress. I have consistently seen the folks with the attitude problems or the in-ability to participate in a discussion or express their ideas move very slowly or not at all through their careers.

As you progress from code monkey, to doing serious coding, to technical leadership (team lead, etc) and finally to project management, communication becomes more important and technical ability less so. If you keep going (personally I have no interest) the technical aspect disappears completely.

As you said, to get that first job, you just need to come across well for an hour or so. You can probably even progress a bit without social skills.. but eventually you are going to hit a wall where social skills turn from a nice to have to a job requirement.

Re:Safe for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

short version for tl;dr:

- let's allow online universities
- so we have fewer lazy students at the universities
- students who actually come to study are served much better, and really have interaction with teachers, who suddenly have more time

Common misconceptions:
- That undergraduate teaching is an onerous expense for a university. It's not; it's a profit centre that subsidises the rest of the university. Typical example. At the well-ranked Australian uni I'm typing this from, approx half the staff are "teaching & research", the other half being "research only". Teaching load for teaching & research staff is nominally 20% of their time. So, according to the accounting 10% of faculty time is spent on teaching*. But student fees are about 30% of the university's revenue. Another 30% being the government operating grants. If universities stopped receiving the tuition fees ... they'd ask the taxpayer for it again (countries aren't about to let their universities close on a large scale because that'd be a disaster in terms of their image for innovation).
- That the university wants students to be more active. Nope, the accountants that run even the top universities these days just want their cheques. Ideally from students who don't get a government subsidy (so there's no government strings attached).
- That releasing more of a lecturer's time would encourage them to spend more time with undergraduates. University staff are hired and promoted based on research. "The world's best teacher but a bit short on publications" wouldn't get even an interview at most of the top universities. Release some of a lecturer's time so he can spend "more time with students", and he'll take on a few more PhD students to crank out some more papers and get promoted.

* Although it takes longer to teach a class, actually a lot of teaching is not even done by faculty staff now. "ResTeach" by cheaper PhD students or post-docs is a growing portion of teaching. (Dangle some lecturing in front of a student or post-doc and let them foolishly think it'll help them get a faculty position here in any way, rather than harm their chances by distracting from their publication time.) And the course that has zero faculty staff takes zero faculty teaching time regardless of how the admin load of the course changes. The ResTeach post-docs are often employed by co-located research centres (not funded by the uni) on campus, so the faculty does not even incur the indirect cost of their other work going downhill when they are overloaded.

Re:Safe for a while

[heathen_01]

Science goes forward even if there are funding problems, albeit slower.

The librarians at Alexandria might disagree with you on that point.

Re:Safe for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

All implicit skills can and should be made into explicit learning. It's far better for someone to learn how to learn, to analyze, to critically examine, to remember, to interact with others, etc. as it's own thing, rather than learning those things in the process of learning the official material.

What answer to you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're asking SlashDot, so you expect the typical "degrees don't matter if you're truly driven" answer. Tell that to every HR department in any reputable company.

because they don't want to be laughed at

[Anonymous Coward]

during their job interview. unless it's clown tryouts. but i imagine those are more scary than funny anyway.

Good, about time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Something to cut the universities down to size. Those cults have been inflating degrees and causing degree creep for long enough.

Getting a degree

[AG the other]

The most important thing in getting a degree is getting that ticket punched. There are jobs that just won't even talk to a person that doesn't have a degree.
My degree is in music but in interviews I've never been asked what my degree was in. I've often been asked if I have a degree.

Re:Getting a degree

[__aaltlg1547]

Getting that ticket punched is only one goal. If I hire a somebody on the basis of having his ticket punched and then find out he doesn't know how to do anything, I'm going to fire him pretty soon.

Re:Getting a degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the point was you hired him - possibly overlooking a better employee who didn't "get his ticket punched".

It's a pretty nasty system, as you just illustrated.

Re:Getting a degree

[vlm]

Getting that ticket punched is only one goal. If I hire a somebody on the basis of having his ticket punched and then find out he doesn't know how to do anything, I'm going to fire him pretty soon.

That's the problem with degree inflation / underemployment, if you hire a math major to do what amounts to a secretary job (real world example, a friend of my wife) and later find out she's really no good at solving Riemann Geometry problems, its kind of hard to fire her if she does a good job at filing orders.

Lets say I lied at my current job and I don't really know C++ despite having had to take something like 4 semesters. Other than the honesty thing, would anyone care, seeing as we switched mostly from perl to ruby years ago and I've never written a line of C++ for salary in my life despite it being the core of my "IT" training?

From a training standpoint all you need is a 2-year AS IT cert collection to do my job. Doesn't matter if I got my M.S.C.S. out of a crackerjack box as long as I've got the 2-year A.S. skills to do the job once I get in here.

I have been seriously thinking about the diploma mill thing because I'm not worried about not learning how to do PHD level work, because I'll probably never get a "real" PHD level job anyway, so it seems it would be "safe" to buy some fancy wallpaper if it helps me avoid downsizing or whatever.

Re:Getting a degree

[cheekyjohnson]

There are jobs that just won't even talk to a person that doesn't have a degree.

That... is brilliant! Well done! How did they ever come up with such an intelligent move?

No threat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Until employers recognize a khan academy badge or certificate as being just as good as degree it's not threatening anything.

Colleges are in the business of printing degrees and making sure that employers know how "wonderful" their degrees are. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure all employers know how "inferior" self-taught people are, whether they self-taught from MIT or self-taught from decades of work experience.

College grants an education, but it's also a racket and it's a racket with a lot of money behind it.

Networking!

[Greyfox]

College is as much about establishing your social network as it is about learning. You don't even really have to know everyone to have the advantage of having gone somewhere; perhaps a hiring manager went to school there 10 years earlier. He'll still have a preconceived notion of what you went through to get your degree. I have to think that having those ties with a physical institution and actual contact with actual people will be worth more than "Some guy who posted to an online forum around the same time that I did."

Re:Networking!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stanford University for example.

Most of the students are complete idiots, but their rich parents will fund your startup.

easy answer

[decora]

because if you go to a campus, then your education costs will increase. that means you need to take out a bigger student loan. this, in turn, means that some hedge fund or investment bank can resell your student loan to someone else, take a huge profit, and retire to Fiji.

what you need to understand, is that all of those perks of on campus life are very important to the economy of Fiji.

Re:easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well Fiji ain't doing to great at the moment. There's a military coup.

Because

[Anonymous Coward]

The students still have to pass the state and federal tests to ensure that their teachers getting their jobs done...

                                  That's why.

Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... from someone who says, "I don't actually have an MD, but I do have a 'Great Listener' badge!"?

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[jedidiah]

Now you've stumbled onto a situation where the fancy bit of paper doesn't cut it. Yeah, you heard me right. A doctor isn't going to get to cut on you just because they have that bit of paper. They also have to go through a sort of traditional apprenticeship. The education itself isn't considered enough.

So an MD is kind of a bad example.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Fair enough. Okay, try applying to a residency program with your "Great Listener badge" and see how far you get.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[guttentag]

Ironically, I recently went to an urgent care facility and was seen by an MD who listened to the first few words out of my mouth, was in too much of a rush to listen past that, looked in my ear, pronounced my diagnosis, prescribed medication and hurried out the door to see her next patient. A week later, my condition worsened and I got a second opinion from someone who actually listened to me describe the problem, and found out that not only was the diagnosis wrong, the medication she prescribed was having the opposite effect of what was needed. It may actually have done permanent damage.

So a year ago, I would have said I'd be more comfortable with an MD. Now I'd place a higher premium on someone with a good listener badge.

Actually, I'm not sure if that's still considered irony. I think they simply call it "Managed Healthcare" these days.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[ceoyoyo]

Hey, I'm a great listener. Tell me all about your problems, then I'll randomly pick a drug off of Wikipedia and tell you to take it. Feel better?

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[geminidomino]

As opposed to the first MD in his post, who pretty much did that but without listening to said problems?

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[sjames]

I also wouldn't get surgery from someone claiming a PhD in communications or psychology (nor in mixology). That's because those skills aren't terribly relevant to surgery, not because it's a badge vs. a degree.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[demonlapin]

Factually incorrect. Someone who has graduated from a US medical school with an MD does have to do one year of postgraduate training before entering practice. At that point they can apply for (and obtain) an unrestricted medical license that will allow them to do neurosurgery, should they choose. Hospitals require residency training before they will allow someone to practice in their facilities, and malpractice insurers will not cover you for something outside your training, but in the comfort of his own office and on his own nickel a licensed physician can legally do anything that the patient consents to.

Furthermore, the apprenticeship involves a pretty significant educational component. Residency programs get suspended when graduates can't pass the specialty board examinations (which, as noted above, are not actually required to practice at most hospitals).

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[demonlapin]

Urgent care is usually a terrible place to go. Too many nurse practitioners supervised by too few MDs, many of whom are not all that great on their own and who are doubly bad when relying on someone else's observations.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[syousef]

... from someone who says, "I don't actually have an MD, but I do have a 'Great Listener' badge!"?

You do realize a doctor who doesn't listen is just as bad don't you?

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have to actually listen or you get your badge revoked

What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Anonymous Coward]

See the subject line. I'm an Eagle Scout and I'll acknowledge that that badge doesn't really account to much in the technical world, but I must protest to the idea that Boy Scout badges are worthless. At least the merit badge booklets can provide a decent crash-course session on many subjects for less than $5.

Being an Eagle Scout got me my first few jobs. The First Aid and knot-tying skills I learned have continued to be useful throughout my adult life. Your "playfull riff" is offensive, sir anonymous reader.

Re:What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Being an Eagle Scout also entitles enlistees in the Army, Navy, and Air Force to start as E-2's instead of E-1's.

Re:What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it all depends on where you live.

Where I grew up, the boy scouts were made up of local criminals and future members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Re:What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Anonymous Coward]

Case in point. While very drunk, I got talked into working at a scout camp for a summer when they were desperate for someone's who entire job qualification appeared to be breathing past their 21st birthday and not on the sex offender's list. Well, so, I was the archery range director. Apparently, there's a class for archery range directors, and whatnot, and generally you had to see a bow and arrow to get the interview, but they were desperate. I spent a week with the merit badge book and 2 councilors (kids) who loved archery during prep week, and taught a thousand kids how to shoot a bow and arrow. Still can't hit the target myself, but no one got hurt, most of them learned how to shoot a bow and arrow decently, and almost all of them had a good time. The merit badge books are remarkably effective, at least were then.

Re:What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[DanTheManMS]

That's... honestly surprising. I mean wow. I guess you're right in saying that it depends on where you live. My fellow scouts may have failed out of college like I did or passed with flying colors, with or without drugs. But I would never believe them to be future KKK members or leaders. Mind == blown.

Is it about the campus, or the tuition?

[Shag]

Plenty of reputable schools have offered online programs for ages, and nobody's complained about that before.

So is the problem now that they're talking about making them free, and nobody who has paid for something wants someone else to get it for free?

This sounds a lot like the complaining about scholarships for minorities and the disadvantaged.

IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Joe_Dragon]

A lot of way colleges work is stuck in the past and some of it does not fit into today's world. But some of that stared years ago.
Also there are a lot of people who not college material but can go / have other ways of learning.

The cost of colleges is only part of what needs to be fixed.

The tech schools do get a lot of stuff right and fill in some big gaps.

community colleges do have a good fit and it's said that took state laws for 4 years colleges to take credits.

4 years is to long (for most people) and some times all the filler and gen edu needs push it out to 5 years.

post grad is geared to staying in school and becoming a teacher.

The PHD systems needs a lot of work as well.

The tech / IT field needs the apprentice systems so people can get the skills to do the job and so we have people who know what they are doing. Tech school is a good starting point but for most tech jobs 4 years CS is not.

A 4 year college should be the place to go to do IT work.

Why do people like jobs' who DON't have a college degrees get look down on? Job's did a lot with out the high cost piece of paper (and that was back in the day where less people where going to college)

Does does tech schools get look down on?

Why does tech not have apprenticeships?

Why was the PayPal founder Peter Thiel paying for entrepreneurs to skip college and work on startup's?

Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.

people who are not college material. but can do a tech schools or apprenticeships?

community colleges and tech schools have night classes and let people drop in for on going education.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[betterunixthanunix]

Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.

This is the way it is supposed to be. Universities are not vocational schools, and a degree in computer science is not a professional certification. People forgot that a long time ago...

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[vlm]

A 4 year college should be the place to go to do IT work.

Sure about that? I did the 2-yr associates in a IT related field (telecom) and it was way more than necessary for entry level IT work. Basically it was a 4-year engineering degree minus almost all non-technical classes, and maybe skip a couple of senior year classes. Think about it, take your average EE degree requirements, strip out all the liberal arts, strip out all the math and classes that are utterly impossible without the math, and you're pretty much got my associates degree program. Think about it... take a typical 128 credit BS, subtract out 30-40 credits of liberal arts, knock out a couple senior year classes, thats your AS degree.

I can relate that in almost two decades of IT work I never used calculus or Spanish or early american pre-civil war history (which is what eventually earned me my BS degree)

I later did a 4-year CS which with transfer credits, amounted to little more than a lot of liberal arts classes, some math, and a couple upper level classes... If you do a "real" CS degree with intensive math, it does take 4 years.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Ensign Nemo]

This! 100 times, this!

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem is that Universities are marketing it as something akin to professional certification (and many businesses are treating it as something akin to professional certification).

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[KPU]

Why was the PayPal founder Peter Thiel paying for entrepreneurs to skip college and work on startup's?

So they won't have other options when it fails.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[ceoyoyo]

If your university is heavily into marketing, go somewhere else. For example, if they buy TV ads, don't go there.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Anonymous Coward]

If all the decent jobs require a college degree then colleges are the new vocational schools.

If you don't have a toilet paper degree then you can't get decent work for the most part. I know this. My wadded Kleenex associate's is practically worthless now and I don't have big money for another 2 years of school. My life and career are over and I'm not even 40 yet. It doesn't matter what I know or how many years of experience I have. I can't get through the front door.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[geminidomino]

Everyone knows the GOOD schools do all their marketing on the football fields...

(NB: Yes, I'm being snarky. I'm an FSU graduate, I deserve it.)

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Attila Dimedici]

So, you are saying that Harvard or Yale would be a bad choice? If your university isn't marketing itself, you are probably wasting your money going there. The value of a university degree is, to a significant degree, the tendency of hiring managers to say, "Oh, you went to Whatsa U, that's a good school."

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Anonymous Coward]

Does does tech schools get look down on?

I don't don't know, does they?

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Anonymous Coward]

From one AC to another, don't despair. Things will get better. Sometimes life is just rough.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[ImprovOmega]

Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.

Colleges are not there to teach you specific job skills. The greatest value of a college education is teaching you how to think about a given problem set. Once you actually have the skills to properly approach a problem, it's the same basic technique whether it's in Java, C++, C, Fortran, Cobol, .NET, Basic, C# or whatever other flavor of the month comes along.

Because nobody actually cares

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Because nobody, except the person getting them, actually gives a shit about educational badges.

Re:Because nobody actually cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nobody, except the person getting them, actually gives a shit about educational badges.

Because the "education" they got is worthless - a vicious circle nowadays. This is why if you really look for education (and not the badge), you have better chances on Khan Academy.

HR is the only important actor

[vlm]

The only important actor in this transaction is HR. No one else cares about degrees or badges or whatever, all that matters is skill.
Someone wake me when "HR" as a group cares more about badges than, say, 2 year associates degrees (which they do not care about at all).
Or perhaps certifications. For decades my local 2-yr tech school has offered endless certs for IT and pretty much anything else they can train over a weekend.
Even vendor certs. What is my old CCNA or CCNP worth? Well, I guess it would make a nice placemat under a drink at a restaurant.

Re:HR is the only important actor

[Anonymous Coward]

It's beyond HR. I just talked to a guy a couple weeks ago who was looking for an entry level server operator - and he was offering on the job training - but only to people with degrees. He flat out would not substitute decades of computer experience for a degree.

I didn't bother to ask him why and I hope he enjoys his 22 year old "degree holder" who will skip out on him after a year and a half.

Never mind whether online schools work.

[__aaltlg1547]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/education/students-of-virtual-schools-are-lagging-in-proficiency.html

The number of students in virtual schools run by educational management organizations rose sharply last year, according to a new report being published Friday, and far fewer of them are proving proficient on standardized tests compared with their peers in other privately managed charter schools and in traditional public schools.

http://www.kunc.org/post/report-finds-more-virtual-k-12-students-are-falling-behind

The number of private companies operating full-time online K-12 schools in Colorado and other states continues to grow. Meantime, student performance is declining. That’s according to a new report by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.

These articles pertain to K-12 schools but I think the dynamic behind why these schools don't work very well can be generalized. Probably nothing works as well as direct face-to-face instruction.

Re:Never mind whether online schools work.

[cheekyjohnson]

Whether it works or not really depends on the person and how they learn.

I do think the public educational system right now is absolute garbage. And I definitely think that they put too much emphasis on higher grades and tests.

Re:Never mind whether online schools work.

[ThirdPrize]

Lets face it, no two degrees are worth the same thing if they are from different colleges. There is a sliding scale of universities and chances are, a 2.1 from Oxford is worth much more than a 1st from Scunthorpe Uni. Badges will probably just slot in the list somewhere near the bottom, along with all the other mail order diploma places.

Re:Never mind whether online schools work.

[__aaltlg1547]

Not all public education is garbage. A lot of it is pretty good. It all depends on which public school you are talking about. On average, schools in decent neighborhoods populated by middle and upper-middle income students compare favorably to private schools and are comparable to good schools anywhere in the world. Crappy education in public schools happens mostly in the poorer-neighborhood schools that have fewer resources to use to educate kids who are harder to teach.

Besides, in both New York and Colorado it was clearly demonstrated that online schools were much less effective than the regular public schools you think are garbage. No doubt there are many reasons for this. In Colorado, it was clear that many of the online schools were little more than fraud schemes. But even the ones that were trying to educate children weren't very good. Imagine trying to educate a bunch of kids who may or may not even be in the room when the lessons are being transmitted, who may or may not be doing their own homework and are distracted by the lure of PR0N, games, internet gambling, the TV in the next room, their mom's medical Marijuana stash, etc. And if they have questions, who answers? Who sees that they are not getting it?

For all those reasons, for me, the badges idea is pretty useless. The badge is a worthless credential. It's just not supported by a proven model of education.

Re:Never mind whether online schools work.

[cheekyjohnson]

Besides, in both New York and Colorado it was clearly demonstrated that online schools were much less effective than the regular public schools you think are garbage.

It may have been clearly demonstrated that that was the case... for some people. I don't doubt that many people will do better in classes than online, though. All I said was that that's not the case for everyone. Different people learn in different ways.

Every school I've seen relies on grading systems and test scores (as if that is all that matters), and make mandatory many subjects that most people will never use upon people. Things like No Child Left Behind only seem to worsen the situation.

I do agree that some schools are better than others.

More focussed education

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be useful in avoiding the situation in which HR people ask for CS degrees for sys admin jobs in which much of the content of such courses is just fluff. We've been moving in this direction for some time, with colleges offering more specialized courses. Biggest question though is how seriously these badges will be considered? Could be that many of these badges will carry as much weight as a "degree" from Patriot Bible University, who if other universities required practical demonstration of sexual prowess under lab conditions, would be happy enough to give a degree to anyone on receipt of a condom filled with sponge.

Could Khan Academy or MITx exist alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still have to find highly-trained and qualified people to teach -- people who actually know stuff and have some practice giving courses -- and they need to make a living somehow. I'm not sure MITx or Khan Academy could exist unless there was a campus somewhere from which teachers could be hired, or where they are already doing that job (MIT). I think the most that's going to happen is traditional universities augment their delivery methods, but nothing is going to replace the one-on-one training that happens in more advanced programs (i.e. when students get to the point of working on thesis projects and the like). At some point you have to go from hundreds of students taking a standard course on-line to specialized stuff that has to be custom-tailored for each student, and which pushes them harder to start figuring stuff out for their own. If all you do is teach on-line courses and think that is "good enough", eventually you won't have any people left who are qualified to teach them.

really, why..

[Lumpy]

Honestly, my wife has asked that lately. a "degree" is useless as tits on a bull outside of science or education. Mostly because Business degrees are a complete joke.

She has a Bachelors in accounting and a CPA license. does not make her get a job any easier. In fact it hinders her right now, because companies dont want to pay a realistic wage that a BS and CPA would ask for. They are more interested in paying $25,900-$33,500 to a 21 year old kid that just got their AS and will take the peanuts pay happily.

I'd go a step further

[ksemlerK]

High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?

Re:I'd go a step further

[betterunixthanunix]

High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?

That depends on whether or not our high school education system is actually teaching people how to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, it is not, and moreover jobs in America are becoming so demanding that people require additional training just to perform their job.

My view is this: the focus on vocational training has to become secondary. America is supposed to be a democracy, and in order for a democracy to function we need people who can read newspapers and understand important political issues. College should be about educating our citizens and making our democracy strong, not just about training people for high tech jobs. People can go to technical schools to get technical training, and the entire college system should be restructured to be friendlier to non-matriculated and part-time students.

Why should mechanics and truck drivers be less educated than investors and managers? We need people to do all of the above, and in theory we want people from all walks of life to be able to participate in democratic processes in a meaningful way.

Re:I'd go a step further

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Have you stopped to consider that (1) because of diversity of pay, some people have to work long hours, and don't have the time or the energy to participate in the democratic process, (2) some people simply are not interested in participating in the democratic process, (3) some people don't have the brain power to participate in the democratic process, (4) some people realize that participation is a complete waste of time since (corporate $$) >> (votes) when it comes to influencing politicians. Theory is nice. Then, there is reality.

Re:I'd go a step further

[ksemlerK]

I was taught how to read, write, do arithmetic, be aware of world events, care about the US constitution, be aware of modern political events, and also practical skills that are usable in the workforce through the School-to-Work program in WA state. I interned at a locksmith, and an audio installation shop. I have learned valuble skills from these internships that I still use to this day. (I work at a auto dealer here in town)

We are not a democracy, and never have been. "god" willing, we never will be either. In a democracy, 51% of the population can kill 49% of the population by a simple vote. We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. The word "Democracy" appears nowhere in the US constitution. Hell, back in high school, I used to read the Constitution and history book for fun. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "A democracy is where three wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for dinner, a republic is where the lamb has a gun".

As to your question about why should mechanics and truck drivers being less educated; I contend that they are equally as educated. They are trained in skills that you do not have, and there is a market demand for those skills. Furthermore, to be a certified ASE automotive technician, it requires ongoing education in automotive repair. Vehicle technology changes rapidly, and a technician needs to be kept up to date regarding the latest changes.

Why is a "well rounded education" limited to knowing about shit you'll never use in the real world, such as Socrates, advanced calculus, Cantonese III, The History of Rock and Roll, underwater french basket weaving, etc? Why aren't practical skills such as automotive engine repair, Small engine repair and electricity, plumbing, wood craftsmanship, etc, (which are practical skills), considered part of a "well-rounded education"?

Re:I'd go a step further

[cheekyjohnson]

High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce

And never mind actual education. All that matters is that you're ready to be part of the workforce.

Re:I'd go a step further

[ksemlerK]

Versus being a pointy-headed academe who does nothing but run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt while doing nothing but studying the fine art of the History of Ethiopian influence upon modern hip hop music.

Re:I'd go a step further

[Skidborg]

All those reasons are caused by poor education and instilling of priorities...

Re:I'd go a step further

[cheekyjohnson]

That isn't quite the direction I think it should head to. I just meant that I think the current public 'education' system is awful. Especially later on (such as in high school). I think there's too much focus on rote memorization, grades, and test scores (as well as too much focus on unnecessary classes).

Let's be honest about it....

[Nrrqshrr]

Colleges and the educational system as a whole didn't evolve much. It's driven by the old "teacher and student" ideal and by the ready-to-serve needs of corps.
When you see people moving on to something else.... maybe you should make your own system evolve?

Re:Let's be honest about it....

[betterunixthanunix]

Here is an idea for evolution: stop treating bachelor's (and increasingly master's) degrees as professional certifications. People who want an in-depth understanding of a given field should major in that field, but for people who just want to get a job, how about this plan:

1. Go to a trade school and get a professional certification.
2. At night, take interesting courses at a university -- in particular, courses in political science, economics, basics about technology (not those courses about how to use Word and Excel -- courses about how computers work, how the Internet works, etc.), courses in science, etc.
3. Be an educated citizen who can identify politicians that support the things you support, now that you understand the issues facing our society
4. Profit (for society, now that democracy works because people know what they want)

Universities should become friendlier to part-time and non-matriculated students, working people who want to get a decent educated while support a family. Rather than being institutions where kids can party at their parents' expense, they should be institutions where adults can be serious about scholarship.

Re:Let's be honest about it....

[russotto]

Here is an idea for evolution: stop treating bachelor's (and increasingly master's) degrees as professional certifications.

Talk to corporations about that. They're the only ones who can do it.

Re:Let's be honest about it....

[ZombieBraintrust]

Federal and State government could do it as well. If you consider how much of the economy is controlled by those two they could lead by example.

Re:Let's be honest about it....

[Marxist Hacker 42]

"Be an educated citizen who can identify politicians that support the things you support, now that you understand the issues facing our society"

Politicians who support the things I support are in violation of Article I Section 10 of the US Constitution, which prevents this republic from becoming a distributed democracy entirely.

Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[Paul Fernhout]

Great points. See also my: http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."

See also these collections of links i put together:
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005379.html
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/005584.html
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/006005.html

Re: Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[williamhb]

"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand.

Not true. Educational technology can happily reside in the classroom. "Online" does not necessarily mean "physically remote" or "after hours". Ubiquitous includes class-time.

---
The Intelligent Book.

Re: Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[Paul Fernhout]

The big issue is the difference between "education" and "schooling" which John Taylor Gatto goes into.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Iâ(TM)ll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"

Or John Holt.
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html

It relates to, but goes beyond, this article:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/03/2040253/when-getting-rid-of-college-lectures-makes-sense

Re: Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[williamhb]

The big issue is the difference between "education" and "schooling" which John Taylor Gatto goes into.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Iâ(TM)ll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"

Or John Holt.
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html

It relates to, but goes beyond, this article:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/01/03/2040253/when-getting-rid-of-college-lectures-makes-sense

The article on Eric Mazur is misrepresentative -- according to him. He doesn't "get rid of college lectures", he turns the lecture time interactive. Similar to what the Intelligent Book tries to make easy, but Mazur's "Peer Instruction" requires much larger changes to your teaching design. You can do large changes with the Intelligent Book if you want to, but it's not required -- you can do something as simple as just putting the live polls in to your existing course, and ask the class questions to spark discussion (that has long been shown to be pedagogically very effective).

I think the John Taylor Gatto argument is founded on a misconception. The "command-type economy" is nowhere near as command-type as you think. Most organisations are not well-understood hierarchical factories, but poorly understood complex dynamic systems. For instance, half the problem in running a hospital is that most of what the doctors and nurses are actually doing isn't documented and varies enormously from ward to ward. At every student employment fair I have seen every employer I have spoken to has valued precisely "self-reliant resourceful readers and critical thinking" over every other skill. And universities -- at least the ones I've encountered (which admittedly have all been world-top-50) -- generally don't do schooling. They take comparatively little care to train students in content that is useful to jobs as the academics that take the classes feel offended by the idea of becoming trainers dancing to an external employer's tune.

Re: Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[Paul Fernhout]

As Gatto points out, schooling is segmented, with 1% or so of students receiving an education intended for them to be part of a top elite, and then about 10% or so more receiving a somewhat different education to be part of a managerial/professional class (doctors, lawyers), and then the rest intended for worker class status.

Whatever the level of "interactivity", there is still the issue of who sets the agenda, who tells whom what to learn and when, and so on. Is the situation learner-directed (like a public library) or is it state-directed (or employer-directed) like in a public school or private workplace?

If you think about what most businesses want, whatever they say, it is not "curiosity" but "assignable curiosity", which is a big difference. It is not critical thinking, but it is thinking critically about business problems within business assumptions while not rocking the boat where it matters. See also Jeff Schmidt's "Disciplined Minds" book which goes into that:
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

The primary function of top 50 schools is not really "education" so much as "filtering". See Goodstein or Chomsky:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"People within them, who don't adjust to that structure, who don't accept it and internalize it (you can't really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don't do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don't do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren't lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on."

It can take a long time to accept all this, especially after one has been through decades of schooling where the number one thing taught is how much you need schooling... It took me a long time to accept that... It can be especially hard for those who get the best grades in school...

When I was in high school (1970s) and we had just gotten Commodore PETs, I was thinking how this mean everyone could get cheap-to-copy tapes with content and programmed instruction so they could learn all sorts of stuff. I saw the big issue as being the cost of textbooks. I did not see then that such a thing would have violated the basic idea of schooling, that you are learning what the school system wants you to learn when it wants you to learn it, and what it already had was sufficient to that task. Schools were not interested in having their routines disrupted by people learning what they wanted when they wanted in as much depth as they wanted and without much oversight and tracking.

That is why educational computing has gone pretty much nowhere within most schools, except when it has been very narrowly crafted to essentially be just like a text-book (maybe just a bit better) and when it has been linked into a pervasive system of monitoring and evaluation and fine-grained control. Some of that is changing, but it is changing despite what schools are, not because of what schools are. Any change is from some few dedicated educators who often are risking everything to try something that would actually help kids a lot (like Gatto).

Th

What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[DanTheManMS]

Reposting while logged in since my AC comment was virtually ignored.

See the subject line. I'm an Eagle Scout and I'll acknowledge that that badge doesn't really account to much in the technical world, but I must protest to the idea that Boy Scout badges are worthless. At least the merit badge booklets can provide a decent crash-course session on many subjects for less than $5.

Being an Eagle Scout got me my first few jobs. The First Aid and knot-tying skills I learned have continued to be useful throughout my adult life. Your "playfull riff" is offensive, sir anonymous reader.

I hope so!

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely do hope so.

If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[tepples]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who [...] provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective

Can't this be done online with software such as Slash or phpBB?

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who [...] provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective

Can't this be done online with software such as Slash or phpBB?

No. In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls. Moderation and reputation systems are not an effective substitute.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[tepples]

In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls.

They also, unfortunately, use peer pressure to weed out bright students who just happen to have impaired mobility or an autism spectrum disorder.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[icebraining]

"Install" software is insignificant, the question is who's actually answering the questions and discussing the topics. Khan is free because as a broadcast medium, it requires very few knowledgeable people for each student. If you make it two way, you suddenly need the same number of teachers as a regular college.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Ethanol-fueled]

It can be and is done using popular software like Webassign and Blackboard, and at least one of those can pretty-print formulas for math and science classes.

It's close enough - what the teacher usually does is require that each participant post x number of comments or answers to others' questions. It's like actually going to class in the sense that you have your front-seat hand-raisers and you have your unmotivated back-row dwellers who respond only when called upon, and with generic answers.

It's better in a lot of ways for controversial discussions. I took an art class online where the teacher was a totally cool professional troll, showcasing Serrano's Piss Christ in a very conservative Christian area. The whole forum was stirred into a frenzy and I defended Serrano's work saying, "In history, only the most cherished objects were adorned with gold. What is the only golden substance the human body can produce?"

In a censorship discussion, I declared that nothing, not even child pornography, should be censored. I would have had the shit beat out of me had I actually said that in class.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[tepples]

If you make it two way, you suddenly need the same number of teachers as a regular college.

But no room and board, and no textbook fees if the teachers contribute to Wikibooks/Wikiversity or another Free courseware project.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Xeranar]

If you have autism the odds of your success are mucher lower. Also I have yet to have met a class that was so bothered by a physical handicap that it defeated them. Ultimately you're trying to justify the obtuse.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[blue trane]

They don't weed out attention whores, sycophants, and ego maniacs who sound confident but don't really know anything.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[ceoyoyo]

And you miss out on the social aspect of college and end up as well adapted as a homeschooler.

The "peer pressure [that] weeds out trolls" the other poster mentioned is important.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[demonlapin]

the social aspect of college

University campuses aren't the only places where 19 year olds can meet, hang out, and hook up.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[rtb61]

Kahn also does not have to validate the credentials of the individual to ensure the person so names i actually capable of functioning in the speciality that the education qualification would indicate.

I don't see any problem with on-line as long as the final testing and qualification is done in person and verified.

So free learning and pay for written, oral and practical testing. Free is important to keep out the right wing rip off merchants, whose scam is to charge government to provide pretend education for a year and then not give a crap about the result (they'll be faking numbers of students, pretending late drop outs, faking tests results). Of course if students fail the testing they can always pay for individual or small group tutoring in the areas they failed and retake the tests.

Once it is online, you only need 'one' school, and lessons plans written 'once' for each element of each subject of each course. So one of nor recurring payment for work produced with copyright owned by government and then distributed free by government. After all it would be supremely crazily insane to contract out online educations thousands upon thousands of times for identical efforts to be repeated year in and year out, now that would be blatant corruption and in affect sending out million dollar welfare checks to education copyright scam artists.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[korean.ian]

Of course not, but they are great places to meet other like-minded individuals, and have good discussion around topics that interest you in person. Having discussions about a particular topic with other people in the same room who share that interest is somehow much more fulfilling than having it over a bulletin board.
That's one of the great things about going to a decent school - meeting people that share your interests, becoming friends with them and learning to socialize among your peer group. School is not just about frats and fucking.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[korean.ian]

Blackboard is a shitty platform for online education - and I go to the school that developed it!

What school do you go to that you would have gotten the shit beaten out of you for saying nothing should be censored?

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[korean.ian]

Strike that - got Blackboard confused with WebCT.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

That justifies abuse to you, does it?

"Oh, the odds of your success are much lower anyway, so a bunch of cunts bullying you is TOTALLY OK WITH ME."

You make me fucking sick.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

Many home schooled students are well adapted and socialized.
Some research supports that they are perhaps even more prepared than non-home schooled students.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/13/home-schooling-socialization-not-problem/

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

I've known many home schooled people who were bright, socially well adjusted people. You seem to be suffering from the common perception that all (or even most) people who are home schooled are backwoods hicks or religious nutters. That simply isn't reality. You might be surprised how many people are home schooled these days, along with the various reasons their parents chose that path. You might also be surprised by the extensive socialization made possible by communities and groups that specifically cater to home schooled kids. Take a look at the average density of public school classrooms these days, along with the resulting lack of attention educators are able to provide to individual students.

I've also known many complete idiots and social miscreants who attended public and/or private schools, and are walking around with college degrees. In case you were wondering, I wasn't home schooled, but I did grow up with a bunch of kids that were. I assure you I learned far more in the library than I ever did in class, and I got plenty of socialization outside of "normal" school bounds. I'm also a high school dropout who has been working as a programmer and system administrator for over a decade. My kids will not be attending public schools; my wife and I have decided that they will be home schooled.

So, what was your point again?

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

Free is important to keep out the right wing rip off merchants, whose scam is to charge government to provide pretend education for a year and then not give a crap about the result

How is this a right wing thing?

It happens especially under left-wing governments, as there's so much government involvement rather than letting businesses compete for students. In NZ, under 9 years of a left-wing government course providers would charge massive fees which was taken as a govt interest-free student loan, and provide a CD for the students to watch, they complete a quiz at the end and they've got a qualification - as an incentive the student they'd get a "free" laptop and a loan they never have to pay back. You wouldn't do it if students had to get loans in the free market.

Right-wing: government lets people do want they want to do.
Left-wing: high government intervention, trying (sometimes as a guise, sometimes well-meaning) to engineer things to be equitable.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anne Thwacks]

School is not just about frats and fucking.

Maybe not, But they are the things that to motivate kids to go there!

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[icebraining]

Those definitions are overly simplistic. Social anarchism - including collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism - are left-wing schools of thought where there's no high government intervention.

As for Marx, he wrote "The contradiction between the vocation and the good intentions of the administration on the one hand and the means and powers at its disposal on the other cannot be eliminated by the state, except by abolishing itself; for the state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities, since the scope of its own power comes to an end at the very point where civil life and work begin."

Does that sound like "high government intervention"?

As for right-wing, we should remember Fascism - "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" - is a right-wing school of thought.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

Blackboard is a shitty platform for online education

Don't worry, it's still true.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that the raised odds of defeat prevented them from even trying in the first place. Ultimately you're trying to justify the priviledge.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Travelsonic]

The way some of my profs talk about it, you'd think they were ready to strangle the people behind Blackboard with the problems it has.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[phlinn]

Actually, no, fascism is not a right-wing school of thought. I really don't have time to go through the rounds on this argument all over again, but fascism is really rather centrist.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[korean.ian]

No no, I agree with that, I meant i got the product which was developed at UBC (WebCT) mixed up with Blackboard, which we are migrating to.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[korean.ian]

Not any kids that are worth being friends with....

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Xeranar]

Actually yes, I am justifying a professor moving on for the sake of the other students because in college it is less hand-holding and more learning. Those with functional autism have the right to seek ou
t aid from the professor or learning support but don't have the right to drag the class down. As a whole though I never support bullying and I have yet to visibly see it at the University I teach at. I see awkward body language and have had students complain to me about the one or two students who do to a mental deficiency weren't able to remain quiet but they never made any attempt to harm them or adversely interact with them.

Course you're just an AC, so why am I even replying?

PS: College is a right of entrance, passing is the privilege.

Universities are in no risk at all

[Anonymous Coward]

For certain things, it's absolutely essential to go to an institution of higher learning. There are basically no self-made physicists and mathematicians. A great example is Srinivasa Ramanujan who didn't really make a good contribution until Hardy recognized his genius and brought him to England. And he's (obviously) an extreme case [of genius]. Basically, you need an academic environment and resources to academically thrive. In addition: labs? funding? Graduate students (in science most notably) get paid for the work that they do, and many researchers need access to very expensive machines.

DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mill

[Joe_Dragon]

And if any thing tech / IT needs trade like learning.

As in IT

CS is very top level and has a over load of theory.

Certs are vender based and some are ones that you can cram for and pass with no idea on how to do the real work.

Tech school and trades is the right fit with some real apprenticeships / interns (that are not office boys and ones the get paid and do real work with a learning part to it)

Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[tepples]

Published, peer-reviewed papers generally result from some sort of experiment. But I'm under the impression that some subjects are so tightly regulated that just doing experiments by themselves is illegal without a license. Only people who already have a degree from an incumbent accredited institution can get a license to supervise experiments in person. Case in point: the decline of chemistry sets after the strengthening of toy safety standards and the public awareness of the illicit manufacture of stimulant drugs.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Deus.1.01]

Now I don't know much about chemistry, but I've seen alot of cool chemicals that can be bought.
Uranium powder on amazon anyone?
If you could afford the equipment( mass spectrometers don't come cheap) maybe that's enough for practical experiments to get data for a paper you can show off.

But the money spent could as well be used to enroll into a UNI for a proper lab and courses.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[dances with elks]

I can only speak for my experience in the UK... Animal experiments require a home office licence to comply with various parts on animal welfare regulation. Chemistry and physics experiments do not (as far as I'm aware, as a university researcher) require any licencing. But on a more practical level, chemical companies such as Sigma-Aldrich or Alfa-Aesar would be very reluctant to ship to a non university/company address, and I have had to sign declarations for certain specific chemicals promising not to synthesize drugs with them. Interestingly one of the most annoying things to deal with is buying ethanol, due to stupid customs and excise rules.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Anne Thwacks]

Chemistry and physics experiments do not

Based on what I learned at uni, in the UK, if you actually know any physics or chemistry, you can be arrested for "having information likely to be of use to a terrorist".

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Anonymous Coward]

Even illegal research has its merits. I've been conducting illegal research on marijuana for 35 years now with only desirable results quite contrary to the governments wasted "pay" studies used as propaganda for propping up the newsprint and cotton industries.
        Have a smoke folks, there is hardly anything this wonderdrug isn't good for. From pain to PMS, from nausea to stress relief from glaucoma to boredom, marijuana does so much , I expect the medical industry keeps a lid on it so they can sell us loads of their side effect inducing garbage that drives up the cost of medical treatment for everyone anyway.
        It is sad that in this age of information and knowledge that the medical profession is no more trustworthy than our government.
One must literally take their own heath into their own hands for lack of trust. We might as well be in the middle ages for all the good Doctors are now.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[datavirtue]

If I were conducting DNA research on how to turn on immortality genes, and I'm not, I wouldn't broadcast that fact to the public. In fact, I would keep it completely secret. The last thing our government wants is the average Joe living for 1000 years. The same goes for any healing technology.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Ihmhi]

Knowing what information may be considered to be information likely to be of use to a terrorist is information likely to be of use to a terrorist. Please report to your local police station and turn yourself in.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Ihmhi]

I did a similar study myself last New Year's. I'll be writing a peer-reviewed Facebook post on it. It's called "How much Johnnie Walker Black do I need to drink to sleep through the idiots setting off M-80s in the street out in front of my house?" The results were inconclusive.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Fjandr]

I wish I had mod points.

Excuse me while I go find something with which to wipe my monitor off...

who knows who is actually doing the work?

[vsigma]

Let's just be honest here.. one class or a badge, at a time. Do we even really know who is actually doing the work?

Granted, the same could be said about large universities - but the chances of that happening are significantly lower!!

But the reality is that part of the educational process is learning how to work with other people in real time under different conditions. I don't care how many certificates, or whatever you have saying that you know something. But if you can't actually communicate with other people, and work under actual multiple time pressure constraints - you will *NOT* succeed. That's the bottom line.

Re:who knows who is actually doing the work?

[Ambassador Kosh]

Cheating is massive at university, the design encourages it. Most classes are done as pure memorization classes and not on understanding. What this means is that cheating is actually encouraged behavior and cramming for tests works. I find this a truly horrible situation that needs to be fixed and even DARPA has commented on it but I don't see the universities changing.

violating the Americans with Disabilities Act,

[Anonymous Coward]

JIM COLLISON

Employers should not fear the EEOC warning. In fact, employers should use it to focus their attention on identifying the actual essential qualifications needed to perform a job...and how to assess whether or not a candidate has these qualifications. Because education has been so dumb-downed in the last 50 years, a high school graduation diploma or a high school equivalency certification simply is not evidence that an individual possesses the essential qualifications to perform a job. The same is true for many if not most post high school degrees. Check out the new book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. Also check out the new Skills Gap research report from A.C.T. showing that just having a diploma or certificate is no evidence an applicant possesses the foundational skills of reading for information, locating information, and applied math needed for almost every job today. Jim Collison, President, Employers of America, Inc.

Re:violating the Americans with Disabilities Act,

[__aagujc9792]

As a result of the 1971 SCOTUS decision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co it's extremely dangerous to an employer to use perceived aptitude in hiring decisions. The gap has been filled by wasting 4+ years out of the life of all kinds of people (with no interest in learning per se) who need a certificate of aptitude that is immune to discrimination lawsuits. The badges are designed to serve the same need. Let competition roll!

It depends upon your goals ...

[MacTO]

If you're looking to work for someone else, then you need to prove yourself to them. Sometimes you do that through portfolios. Sometimes you do that through work experience. Sometimes you do that through references. And yes, sometimes you do that through accreditation.

If you're the type of person who wants to start their own business though, these forms of independent learning can be nearly as good as schooling. Of course you would have to go a little beyond hitting the books, since there is definitely a human element to learning.

Of course, the people who are most successful at learning this way are probably self-starters to begin with and probably already know that.

IT should be not be but that is what HR thinks

[Joe_Dragon]

IT should be not be but that is what HR thinks

No need for a 'campus', but no problem with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Students can collect credentials from anyone competent to give them. I teach some students at campus - and give the same courses on the internet. For the student, it is a matter of preference. They can go to a campus, actually meet people, but also having to live in the town where the university is. Or they can take courses on the net, not meet anyone but get the same credits.

These that go the traditional campus route tend to be young people. Those who take internet courses are more of a mix - some older who want to add to their education, some younger who study part-time and work the other part of their time.

Net-based education won't be a problem for the established universities, ot at least it won't have to be a problem for them. For who is best positioned to do online teaching? The established universities, who already have professors, the required knowledge, and a reputation. All they need is to adapt to a slightly new way of teaching. And I say slightly new - there have always been mail-based courses. And even the campus-based students use the net for a lot of things these days - such as managing their exercises.

tell him that he is braking the law

[Joe_Dragon]

As you need to offer that to people with learning disabilities who don't have a degrees but can do the job.

plumbing has trades and apprentices systems

[Joe_Dragon]

tech needs some like that as well the traditional classroom does not fit for a lot of tech stuff and there is a BIG form say IT admin, Cisco, and doing programming.

But people thing that CS is the one big fit all (it's not and even then each schools does CS in different ways) and thing tech schools are a joke (they are not 2 years in a tech schools covers more stuff that is used in real jobs then 4 years in CS)

Now IT should be 1-1.5 years class room trade / tech school and 0.5-1+ years on the job apprentices + on going class room. Or some mix of that based on what the best fit is maybe even part time class and part time job.

Re:plumbing has trades and apprentices systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Apprentices get paid. It's cheaper to have interns, as those are free.

Rising costs are the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason, Universities and Colleges are falling into the trap that the only worthwhile education must be expensive. You must spend thousands of dollars on short-print books that are only good for a few years of classes. College professors must right a book or two, so that they can require it for the upper classes. Infrastructure costs must continue to climb, so that you can have perfectly manicured lawns and expensive looking buildings.

Essentially, they have a lot of things that cost more so that it can be prestigious so can therefore justify their expense.

trade school should come after not just college

[Joe_Dragon]

College is not setup to tech job's skills and alot of it is for moving up in the college system and doing teaching / R&D type stuff and that is OVER KILL for most jobs.

Not everyone is cut out for school. Not every school is worth the tens of thousands in loans it takes to go there.

Re:trade school should come after not just college

[Ambassador Kosh]

However a lot of businesses require that piece of paper to do the work. DARPA recently did a study for STEM fields and what they found is that basically anyone that was capable of doing the required work after graduating college was also capable of doing the work on their own before starting. Very little learning actually happened but no company will hire as as an engineer without that piece of paper regardless of how good you are. Your resume will not even be looked at.

The result is that colleges are essentially gatekeepers for many jobs and they do a poor job of preparing you for those jobs or much of anything else really. Colleges are still massively focused on memorization instead of understanding. Facts can be looked up and should be, understanding can not.

No

[rcharbon]

If 20 years of experience doesn't preclude the need for a diploma when applying for a job, why would a few online classes?

why?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

How about the ability to actually build a machine that actually produces semiconductors, and I certainly got my money out of the program.

~$30K for materials and `$20K budget for the lab equipment including things like hydrogen purifier, mass-flow controller, incinerators, custom bell-jars, UV light source, and other assorted materials and equipment. Then there's access to a machine shop to cut angle iron, a scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffraction system, all in the same building of the university.

And this was just undergrad work.

Now how are MIT Online and Khan going to replace that?

Re:why?

[Dr Max]

$50 000 isn't that hard to come up with. If i saved most of my money for a year i could have about that much, and if an online course gave me the skills to create and run the equipment (given a market for the product) i could get setup with my own business quite easily and never have to go to uni. I'm not really sure about the market on semiconductors but i just finished an online ai class if i can turn that knowledge into products for under $100 000 (a couple of years saving while i'm planning) then i'm set.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you have just shown the value of a university education because you have just shown that you cannot tell the difference between research and manufacturing.

Re:why?

[Dr Max]

There will be plenty of research as well, you cant just start pumping out robots.

Re:why?

[williamhb]

How about the ability to actually build a machine that actually produces semiconductors, and I certainly got my money out of the program.

~$30K for materials and `$20K budget for the lab equipment including things like hydrogen purifier, mass-flow controller, incinerators, custom bell-jars, UV light source, and other assorted materials and equipment. Then there's access to a machine shop to cut angle iron, a scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffraction system, all in the same building of the university.

And this was just undergrad work.

Now how are MIT Online and Khan going to replace that?

Many courses don't involve equipment expenses. At the moment, the cheap-to-run courses are big profit centres for universities. The lure for institutions would be that if you leverage your brand to go online and capture 200,000 more students in cheap-to-run courses that had been going to University of the Less Prestigious, that's lots more profit to cross-subsidise the rest of the university's empire-building.

The flaw is more because the teaching content has never been the universities' only unique selling point, and has actually been one they've long been happy to outsource -- they've used other people's textbooks for decades, and happily put courses out to "ResTeach" staff (non-faculty) to teach these days.

Ivy League not there for the edumacation

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, alright, big name universities do teach stuff, but so do state colleges, and some of both are pretty good. "Online", done well, can be equally good, or equally bad (top-posting MIT grads? seen'em). It's just different.

Some of the arguments here are really about formal education; a certificate not unlike an industry certificate that certifies you meet and possibly exceed some base line minimal competency in a certain subject. Such as, "consistently pick the options that makes $vendor the most money", as some industry certificates are infamous for. Academia itself is also infamous for petty and stupid rules and whatnot.

We also have far too many PhD courses and a general overvaluation of degrees. Much of that really should be "downgraded" back to vocational school, with a re-appreciation of that to match. Less overspecialising in universities, more general science skills, that sort of thing. Going "virtual" with more mix-and-match power might actually help there, though it should be perfectly feasible to do in RL-teaching too. Just that we've forgotten it's really important.

Not surprising when everybody from the first line clerk to the janitor is called an "engineer" now, when but a few years ago they'd be called a "manager" of something or other. Managers ought to manage, engineers ought to engineer. Meaning the former get things done and the latter fix things, whatever they might be. Most drones (especially the overpaid and dreaded middle management variety) are essentially small-script-driven. Back when, even, an engineer was a military title. Engineers used to be people that built bridges while under fire. Not so much now.

The online stuff doesn't come with formal certification, but it might. In-person education is also valuable but you could do one-on-one virtual sessions too, or even make an appointment to see someone in person, next to all the virtual and canned stuff. Perhaps insist on in-person examination if you like. It's all methods of delivery and as long as they sort results, it's all fine. People just need to understand what's what, and that takes time.

What virtual doesn't bring is habitual drinking binges and fraternizing yourself into the old boys network, the established way. It also doesn't bring peer pressure quite the same way. So you get a slightly different breed of grad. Whether that's good or bad, well.

at least pay min wage as it's easy to brake the la

[Joe_Dragon]

Fee-based programs, and charity auctions, restrict internship opportunities to students in wealthier families who can afford paying thousands of dollars while the student works for little or no wages,

Beyond fee based programs, there has also been criticism against companies requiring college credit in exchange for eligibility to obtain an internship. Depending on the cost of the school, this is often seen as an unethical practice, as it requires students to exchange paid-for and often limited tuition credits in order to work an uncompensated job. Even if the school does not require credit to be received for an internship, companies often will require credit to be received so that they cannot be accused of giving the intern nothing. But in the case of most schools—though some do reserve internship credits that will not take away from your normal tuition's worth of credits—the student is taking a risk and a loss in their pursuit of possible future employment

But there laws and if they not followed you must pay the interns

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division allows an employer not to pay a trainee if all of the following are true:[19]

        The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
        The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
        The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
        The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
        The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
        The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Personalized AND video AND accredited

[bd580slashdot]

Khan Academy isn't one size fits all. They partner with real schools and teachers too. The idea is to get more one on one time for students and teachers by shifting the one size fits all portion that is usually presentation time in a class to at home video homework and interactive adaptive exercises. Then when the student is stuck (and software helps ID this) the teacher has more time for personal interaction because the class time isn't being used for one size fits all presentation. Also Western Governor's University is fully accredited. There's face to face video and live proctoring and so on. Flat rate tuition and you can challenge for credits at any time. So you can study with free online stuff until you are proficient and then challenge for full accreditation at a flat rate. Pretty fuckin' cool, huh?

Two words:

[Rogerborg]

Toga, toga!

Education vs professional qualification

[Colin Smith]

The professions typically have a couple of years of professional qualifications to pass before going into practice. This is over and above a good education.

Education is not and should never be, professional qualification. They are entirely different things.

The problem seems to be that many professions, and HR "professionals" don't seem to realise they should be providing "badges and certificates" for professional qualifications.

A degree is not a professional qualification, it is and should be for education. MIT Online and Khan Academy are educational tools, again, not professional qualifications.

Re:Education vs professional qualification

[Rich0]

So, then, what is the purpose of a degree anyway?

If I want to be educated why not just audit the same courses at a significant discount and not receive the degree? If the degree is not meant to confer any kind of professional qualification then it is purely for bragging rights, and that is a lot to pay for them!

I have a friend whose daughter decided to pursue a trade, and many were encouraging her to go to college just for the enrichment. I encouraged her that this was VERY bad advice - she was much better off just getting training for her trade and then pursuing it and only taking courses that would truly give her a competitive advantage. A degree would have zero economic value to her. Once she has established herself with a professional salary (in less than the time it would take to go to college let alone hunt for a job), she could easily afford to take any night classes she desired. Since she would not need to obtain a degree she could take whatever classes interested her without any regard for some proscribed program of education (other than as advice).

I'm all for lifelong learning. I also like owning a car. However, at today's rate getting a college education is in most cases not unlike buying an Asten Martin - sure, it will get you to the grocery store, but at what cost?

Now, if you're going into a STEM career where that college education is both important and usually economically justifiable, then go ahead - that is just a capital investment.

Why go to a campus?

[az1324]

This will just leave more room for the increasing numbers of people who go to college for the coeds and parties aka the social education. For them it's really just an expensive sleepaway camp but the students/parents will pay the tuition because of the accreditation of the university. Hopefully alternative education platforms that help separate education from institution will bring about new standards that make individual achievement in higher education easier to evaluate. But this will also devalue the standard diploma leading to aforementioned "students" unwillingness to pay premiums for rubber stamped degrees and this loss of funding could have a negative impact on the real value of these institutions, depending on how those university economies work.

yep education is next for internet

[patelbhavesh]

the next generation of young kids who have grown up in an online world with smartphones and tablets online education is a natural progression. personally i think a combination of online study and then follow up with classroom interaction might give the best of both world.

and ?

[unity100]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.

youre talking as if there does not happen such discussions online. i guess you have never been to a civil, science oriented community forum ? and you are talking as if the only online education methods are khan and mitx. the fact that such discussion forums, communities, mailing lists have existed since arpanet escapes your horizon.

are you sure that you are qualified to participate in discussions pertaining to how science education should be, with your narrow horizon ?

Some things cannot be taught by video

[msobkow]

There is no substitute for classroom discussion refereed by a Professor of Philosophy when you're learning how to construct an argument.

There is no substitute for classroom discussion about history and literature, or any other subject where the course is about forming and expressing opinions, not learning what the "right" answer is.

As those two items are the most critical things I felt I got out of my 4 year BScAdv in Computer Science, I definitely do not feel online education is a threat to the universities, though it is a game-changing supplement to the traditional university or college environment.

Re:Some things cannot be taught by video

[eee_eff]

I agree they cannot be taught by a video--but the discussions do not have to take place in the classroom--some of the most insightful discussions I'd had occurred between students, or with a professor outside of the classroom. Still not seeing why the university is required.

Re:Some things cannot be taught by video

[russotto]

There is no substitute for classroom discussion refereed by a Professor of Philosophy when you're learning how to construct an argument.

Sure there is. School of Hard Knocks. Final exam: Find a story about online censorship on Slashdot. Defend it.

Re:Some things cannot be taught by video

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no substitute for classroom discussion refereed by a Professor of Philosophy when you're learning how to construct an argument.

There is no substitute for classroom discussion about history and literature, or any other subject where the course is about forming and expressing opinions, not learning what the "right" answer is.

As those two items are the most critical things I felt I got out of my 4 year BScAdv in Computer Science, I definitely do not feel online education is a threat to the universities, though it is a game-changing supplement to the traditional university or college environment.

Do blogs, email and twitter count?

Tech schools are like automotive technicians schoo

[Joe_Dragon]

But why do they work for automotive technicians but HR does not like them and for IT jobs and I don't thing a automotive technician takes 4 years in school before starting the job. Now IT should be at most 2 years school before starting a job and then ongoing education.

community colleges have night / weekend drop in

[Joe_Dragon]

Make community colleges the place to take the interesting courses at a university.

they work for the part-time and non-matriculated students.

Gamification Fanboyism

[stephanruby]

Two weeks ago it was the iPad, today it's gamification. I wonder what it is going to be tomorrow?

Colleges and Universities have survived and adapted to the introduction of the Guttenberg press, the public library, the personal computer, and even the Internet, but now that the concept of gamification is around -- their days are numbered? This claim doesn't make a lot of sense.

This statement implies that (1) colleges and universities can not copy/adapt the practice themselves, (2) that the online concept of badges can not be cheated or gamed, (3) that the concept of gamification is going to be equally effective in all areas of education and on all web sites, and (4) that gamification is so freaking effective and disruptive -- it's probably even more disruptive than the printing press itself -- it's going to take over the World !!

To all of that, I say BS.

Colleges and universities are indeed in an existential crisis right now (which no doubt will shape them in different ways), but this was the case long before youtube or gamification even came along.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

In ten years, this is going to rip out all of the basic subjects; Language, Mathematics, Basic Sciences, Basic Civil Structure, Basic Economics and Finance, History, etc; and replace them with a nationally accredited certifications. These are things that simply do_not_change; it's amazing the most expensive component of our educational infrastructure is k-12. The 12-(14/16\18\20) isn't nearly as expensive in most cases and is the biggest part of what defines career success in most instances (although our lets have 4-careers-in-a-lifetime society is !%$!@#!%$!@#-ing rediculous).

We don't need over-expensive schools to teach the basics anymore. There are things schools should teach; Music, hands-on classes (How to build, cook, and design stuff), but by and large most schools can teach these things on the computer and most kids can pick it up with relative ease.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamification Fanboyis... To all of that, I say BS.

Those other things you mentioned like iPads and such. Yes I remember I got down-moderated for my opinions on those as well (being a proponent of auto-didacticism and electronic learning aides).

Like the expert said:

The biggest hurdle is the one I had, which is prejudice," says Cathy Davidson, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Duke University and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.

Too bad Trolls and Flamers like yourself always tend to get moderated up in these discussions. It's ironic that people like you can earn Karma and Badges for your Trolls against badges.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that they can't adapt, it's that they won't be able to offer the same old same old college experience for $4000-30000+ per year when you can goto an online school and do it in your spare time for the cost of nothing more than a pc and an internet connection.

The real threat comes to K12 education not college as colleges will just go back to their real/original mission which is research. K12 has stagnated badly due to gov't control and almost no competition which has resulted in lock step grade promotion based on age and very little in the way to keep advanced or those with the most difficulty motivated. I bet you are going to see alot of kids just side step this and go finish portions of their education that they fine triviallly easy in record amounts of time and then concentrate on the parts that interest them the most, or that they find the most difficult.

In other words home schooling is about to explode in a way we've never seen before, and the political fight that is coming between politicians, teachers unions/bureaucracy, and the parents is going to be one for the history books.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[dwarfking]

Colleges and Universities (at least in the US) exist to support colleges, universities and professors. And I have heard former professors say the same thing, not just people like me.

The university system does not prepare students for work in the real world, it simply teaches them some basic theory. It isn't until a person gets out of school and goes into an apprenticeship model (depending on the career path) that students learn anything useful. The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed. All the degree shows is the candidate is willing to waste 4-5 years in a classroom.

I hit a glass ceiling 10 years ago, the company I worked at (where I was considered one of, if not the top, technical leader) said I could not get promoted without a degree, so I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file. I had to show them during labs. And these were the same people that would apply for jobs I had posted claiming they had Master Degrees and were deserving of higher salaries. The head of the Computer Science department asked if I would consider coming back and teaching after I graduated.

What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[CrimsonAvenger]

The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed.

Wasn't the college system that did this.

Once upon a time, you apply for a job, you get handed an aptitude test which they use to decide if you can learn the job well enough to be worth the bother.

Then, someone decides aptitude tests are discriminatory (note that many of them probably were), so it became illegal/immoral to use them for the purposes intended.

So...we switched to using the high school diploma as an indicator that you could learn well enough to be worth the bother.

Segue forward a few decades, high school diplomas became meaningless when "social promotion" became the norm (note that it isn't universally used even yet), so they upgraded to college diplomas as an indicator that you can learn.

Now, with more and more remedial (what should have been high-school/middle-school) courses to be found in college, we're drifting slowly toward "you need an MS/MA to be considered for this entry-level job"....

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

"What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work."

Unionize?

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[datavirtue]

Troll badge, now that is AN honor!

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[tepples]

In other words home schooling is about to explode in a way we've never seen before

In what country? I've read that in Germany, it's illegal unless the parent has a teaching license (which isn't common).

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

I would bet that if you finish 4 years of college, you can very easy learn how to open a file stream in C++.

On the other hand, if you know how to program in C++, this does not mean you will know what functional programming is about, or 3D graphics, or algorithm complexity etc.

Maybe companies observed that in the long run it is better to have adaptable work force than only "implementors". Of course, half of the graduates are stupid, as I bet it would be half of the "apprentices".

You can say that you did not learn anything during your Bachelor? If you did, then it is good for you.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[TheRaven64]

It's not that they can't adapt, it's that they won't be able to offer the same old same old college experience for $4000-30000+ per year when you can goto an online school and do it in your spare time for the cost of nothing more than a pc and an internet connection.

All of my university exams had one or two external candidates sitting them. These people aren't enrolled on the course, but they turn up, do the exams, and get a degree at the end of it if they pass them (and any other relevant coursework). The university still charges them, but it charges them quite a bit less than it charges enrolled students. At the end, the degree that they get is indistinguishable from the one I got. Anyone sufficiently motivated could study the syllabus on their own time, take the exams, and get a degree. In spite of this, there were very few external students. I returned briefly last year and taught a module. That year had no external students.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that you managed to get a BS in CS and not notice the difference between CS and software development...

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[alexo]

I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file.

CS is about Math, not coding. I doubt that Donald Knuth knows (or even concerns himself with) "how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file" either.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[AthanasiusKircher]

What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.

Absolutely. College is not supposed to be a glorified trade school. I repeat: college is not supposed to be a glorified trade school.

Centuries ago, college existed to teach the "liberal arts." You were training for a specific trade, but rather being generally educated in a wide variety of knowledge and ideas. Exposure to lots of things that are unfamiliar will always be of a greater long-term usefulness than a bunch of specific facts, especially when you aren't using those facts for anything at the moment (as most students aren't while in college). If you have had to confront lots of problems and questions and ideas from a lot of unfamiliar territory, you might be better prepared to deal with new problems when you go out into the real world.

In the past couple centuries, college retained that function but also became a sort of credentialing vehicle for the rich -- somewhere for young men to go and hopefully learn something broader while "sowing their wild oats" and whatever else young men wanted to do when they had lots of money.

Then, in the past 50 years or so, the liberal arts were all but forgotten at most schools. Sure, there are still gen ed requirements, but very few students -- rich or poor -- take them seriously. The "major" became more important than the broad education.

In essence, college became a glorified trade school. Except, it wasn't (and isn't) a very good one, because rather than acting like a trade school, it held over all of the teaching and learning and class models from the old system for broader education, where direct application of individual facts was less important.

If you want to be able to do something practical, on the job training is by far better than sitting in a classroom or doing some sort of abstract assignment. If you want to broaden your mind and open yourself up to wider possibilities and great potential for problem-solving and thinking about deeper problems, focusing only on one area is probably not the best use of your time as a young person.

Essentially, we took the glorified credentialing/partying system of the rich of past generations, and now we've given modern young people a place to continue to act like kids while forcing information on them in an ineffective abstract way... but then we assume they are credentialed and competent for practical work.

It's all stupid.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[Anonymous Coward]

"I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file."

I agree that there are some people like that and I am also wondered myself how they passed the undergraduate level and why they wanted to go on the Master? Even though I somewhat agree with your statement, it is attempting to generalize every graduate to fit your view. What else do you know about the person? Has the person done any C++ before? Did the person do well in undergraduate level? Is the person is from the country which speak the same language as you are? And all others who go straight from undergraduate to graduate in any other classes are the same? I would not judge them all by seeing only one or two of them. I should not judge them at all because I do not know how they become who they are.

The requirement of a degree is also a generalization of what many people prefer. If one can at least obtain a degree from a creditable college, it is "some what" good enough for the qualification. Those who have no degree may have talents to do the same job, but it may not be enough to show that they are fit to the job to others that do not know them. To me, the degree is used as credential in the initial state. The result from experience will show while being in the job.

What you describe is not education

[Colin Smith]

self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies. A degree is in part a certification that you've successfully followed a series of requirements and tasks for four years

Which is kind of depressing.
 

Re:Tech schools are like automotive technicians sc

[ksemlerK]

Internships work for automotive technicians because it is, (at least where I work) a job where you walk in, submit your resume and application, and have a one-to-one job interview with the service manager or fixed operations manager. If you know your OBDII procedures, and can talk the talk, along with previous experience, with a good reference check, you will most likely be hired if there is an opening. The dealership where I work doesn't have an HR department.

First they came for the Engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

First they came for ...well other job titles....manager I suppose (instead of secretary or assistant or team planner?) then they came for the Engineers...and I did nothing and thought, why can't a janitor or garbage collector call themselves an engineer? I exaggerate my importance like everybody else does, why cant they?

Now they are coming for the 4year college degree and almost nobody is left to object (unless a hypocrite.) Next will be the masters degree which already is becoming what the college degree formerly was. PhD in music? seriously? In business? really? after all the damage MBAs have caused you'd think it would regress; or evolve past this Chicago school of economics.

Re:First they came for the Engineers...

[Dr Max]

Janitors are sanitary engineers.

Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi

[blackraven14250]

I've also had a far different experience with professors at DeVry. They're far more available than the local county college professors IME, and have largely been willing to help with problems outside of the set curriculum they're given to actually teach (for most of the full time faculty and the more passionate part timers). In fact, most of the professors are kinda bummed that they have to follow such a strict set of topics for class lectures due to the limited time and top-down curriculum structuring, but love being asked the kinds of questions that aren't quite directly related to what they're supposed to teach.

Worth of Badges

[Anonymous Coward]

The badges are about as valuable and authoritative as TSA badges.

I'll stick with my little piece of paper thats awarded by a comitee, verified against international regulations, and generally worth more than some pixelated badges.

badges:education::cat videos:Hollywood

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb article. The popularity of Khan Academy is being driven by kids who are trying to get through school, not to avoid it. As for other sites, has anyone anywhere gotten a job for getting badges from Treehouse? How about codecademy? How about anywhere?

well the online classes are more relevant / ongoin

[Joe_Dragon]

So the diploma part is carp but a easy to take on line class is a good starting point and a good ongoing education thing for people with years of experience.

rent a cop badges are not like boy scout ones

[Joe_Dragon]

The TSA badges are more of a ID badge like cop's / firemen / rent a cops.

But what about getting laid ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously though. College serves as much for extended babysitting and a assortive dating service as it does for education.

We simply don't have enough jobs to put younger people in the workforce and while a good on-line curriculum combined with some actual field work could streamline and speed up education, we still can't employ all those people. This will be especially tough for the smart teens who have the skills equivalent of a degree by say 18 or 19 . Yes they are an adult but their either be a slot for them or for the 30 year old who needs it more, not both. Take either out and you shaft them.

Also College/University is mainly used to teach certain political values, . Not critical thinking mind a Liberal as in Leftist education, or in some few case Conservative ones

Whether you consider these good or bad, the people that make a living peddling that will not be happy with less people to teach and with losing a lot of influence . College will lose a big chunk of its reach. Personally I think thats great, people need skills not education but thats me.

Re:But what about getting laid ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know there was a day and age when everyone was employed by the age of 15, what happened?

Fake it if you can't make it.

[SecurityGuy]

The problem with these is that as soon as they have any value at all, there will be a thriving market in having someone else earn the badge for you. I don't have any problem with distance education or self-teaching at all. It even works really well IF the person is actually motivated to learn the subject, but if they're just doing it to check off some HR drone's boxes, it's not going to work.

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, and why have real restaurants when you could just go to McDonald's every day of your life...

Anti-intellectualism at Slashdot (Yet again)

[Required Snark]

There are a large number of anti-intellectual posters on Slashdot. All the comments claiming that college/university are useless basically fall into this category.

University and colleges are not trade schools and they shouldn't be. For an accredited institution (as opposed to tech schools) the goal is education, not solely getting employment. Certificate program are even further removed from education. Online "badges" have even lower value.

At an accredited undergraduate school, you have to take general education requirements. You have to prove that you can learn and function outside you area of expertise. You have to be able to read various kinds of materials and understand them well enough to speak and write about the subject matter.

Attending classes gives the experience of working in a structured environment with over-site, well articulated goals and conclusive feedback i.e. grades. The students have to perform both as individuals and in a group. This is supposed to be an extension of the high school experience, but these days that is not a given. Succeeding in this environment is a reasonable preparation for the professional work environment.

Four year education is also specifically intended to weed out the unfit. It is expected that individuals will drop out, or change their majors to something they can accomplish. The school provides "quality control", and makes sure that grades are earned, rather then the result of cheating. (This is becoming a huge problem, even at the highest end institutions.) A school lives or dies in the long run depending on the qualities of the graduates. There is positive institutional pressure to maintains standards.

For profit trade schools operate on a different set of rules. Like any business, their goal is to make money. The primary source of money is student tuition. There is a strong incentive to not flunk people. Giving bad grades hurts the economic model. Any staff member who makes too many students drop out will eventually be asked to leave. Teachers are rewarded for keeping everyone in the system until they end the course of study, no matter how they perform.

So when someone makes a hiring decision, they know that the person with the four year degree has a lot more credibility then then someone from a non-accredited institution. Now it might be the case that they are just looking for the cheapest possible body, so they will go for the person who went to the non-accredited school, but that is not the fault of the school. It just means that they are a part of the current corporate culture of greed, thieving and incompetence. They screw the employees, customers and stockholders to put all the profit in the pockets of upper management. To the extent that is an education problem, rack it up to the MBA programs.

Also, getting a four year degree is not the end of learning, it is the beginning. Anyone who gets out and understands education has the tools to keep learning for the rest of their life. Anyone who expects to be a professional will always be a student, one way or another.

So how does a "badge" compare? Well, there is no assurance that cheating did not occur. There is no effective over-site of any kind. The person at the terminal could be a dog, for all anyone knows. There is no interpersonal interaction, it's all automated. There is no equivalent of general education. Objectively, a badge has no intrinsic value. Now someone might have other formal training which would show their competence, and then a badge could be considered in that context. Without other evidence a badge is just hot air.

Accredited education offers something that other kinds of institutions do not. If you don't understand this then you are ignorant. If you say things that degrade accredited education then you are an anti-intellectual. QED

Re:Anti-intellectualism at Slashdot (Yet again)

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "oversight", not over-sight. That was my required snark. ;-)

University education

[tsa]

Education at a university doesn't only learn you what's in the books. What is in the books may not even be the most important stuff that you learn. It's about learning how to find relevant data, how to do research, how to work together with people you may or may not like, and all these other little things connected to scientific knowledge that can not be found in books.

Raise the bar

[Anonymous Coward]

As a TA, I so hope all students will use self teaching a lot.

Now, the initial struggle of universities is to get all student to understand the basics. Then there is little time left to spend on the interesting parts.

If all students are better when they enter, we just raise the bar. We train better engineers and in a few years, industry will start to notice our engineers are superior. The value of our diplomas will go up, attracting more students The quality of our research will go up, opening up new funding opportunities.

And rest assured, we can raise the bar. All (decent) universities have professors running around that know vastly more then they teach.

Wouter

PS: no halfway decent educational institution is afraid of new ways to teach. And, even more important, no halfway sane research institution is afraid of cheaper ways to train new researchers.

Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi

[KillaGouge]

I agree as well. I am currently going to DeVry and it is nice to have teachers that are actually doing the job during the day, then coming and teaching at night. You get a better idea of how everything is playing out in the real world, rather than a professor who only teaches and hasn't been in the field for who knows how long. I do enjoy the discussion topics as you get to interact with people in different areas of the country who still have their own opinions rather than the localized opinions you get when you live and go to school at a campus. Now DeVry is also moving to use WebEx meetings for live lectures for online only classes, which is a great help for the higher level classes, and if I happen to not be available for the lecture I can always review it later rather than just having to rely on notes somebody else took.

College isn't so much about the classes

[Peter Simpson]

The four-year college experience is much more about learning how to learn, and developing the ability to research a topic in depth and to use what you've learned to develop something new. While I did learn a good amount of stuff in my college classes, it was all foundation building knowledge. The real learning took place when I started my first job, and it was here that the learning techniques I had developed in school helped me to gain the knowledge I needed to do my job. I don't think piecemeal skill-building from online sources will ever be a substitute for the four-year immersive learning experience that is college.

Marinol

[tepples]

From pain to PMS, from nausea to stress relief from glaucoma to boredom, marijuana does so much

How long does Solvay's U.S. patent or exclusive marketing rights on Marinol continue?

The Education Trap

[Rambo Tribble]

Education, like many other professions, has long sought to inculcate a dependency in students for the system's product. Little time is spent addressing the development of self-teaching skills as it is much more profitable to charge for academia's traditional services, needed or not. Accreditation and a monopoly on diplomas help to cement that profitable model in the social structure. Put simply, education has become just another racket that fails to really meet the needs of society, while charging a premium for their product and creating the illusion of necessity.

Of course, this is little different than law, medicine, or investment banking.

See? Bass!

[tepples]

And it's a problem that you can only get Sea Bass instead of Sharks.

Let me guess: you also got frustrated playing Animal Crossing.

K-12 more expensive than U? Say What?

[ResidentSourcerer]

How do you get that K-12 is the most expensive part? Typically public school costs 5-6 thosuand bucks a year plus infrastructure. (In Canada the school buildings are a capital expense picked up under a different budget. School construction costs are 200-300 per square foot, so if you go with 1000 square feet per classroom (20x30 room 400 feet share of hallways etc) then that's 300,000 per classroom. At 25 kids per room that's $12000 per kid. Amortize over 30 years...

1,070 year copyrights

[tepples]

The last thing our government wants is the average Joe living for 1000 years.

Of course the MPAA-controlled government wants that. It would mean that an individually-owned copyright would last 1,070 years.

Re:1,070 year copyrights

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What a scary thought. It occurs to me that cyrosleep before death for artists would be a way to have their copyrights- and therefore their recording contracts- last nearly forever.

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

University campuses aren't the only places where 19 year olds can meet, hang out, and hook up.

They are if you don't want to wait two more years to be able to enter a drinking establishment. Several states in the United States require all those entering a bar to be 21 even if they won't be drinking alcoholic beverages. What other places did you have in mind?

Re:Go away, you're not 21

[demonlapin]

I drank stuff purchased for me by older friends in my dorm room. I could have done the same thing in an apartment - indeed, I did just that during the summer. We'd invite people over and have a party. As long as you know to keep the noise inside after 10, the neighbors won't bother you.

"I'm a retard, I'm special" vs. dickish classmates

[tepples]

Not everybody who is bright in the subject matter but happens to be not yet skilled at dealing with dickish classmates "play[s] the 'look at me, I'm a retard, I'm special'".

Do they have a Medial license? ...

[fish_in_the_c]

Honestly, I have never seen no do i care what degree , from what medical school my doctor graduated.
What I DO care about is they are licensed to practice medicine in my state. ( hopefully the test for a license are sufficient to ensure they know what they are doing, because they are the only real safeguard in place , like it or not.)

Right now you have to be a 'good ol' boy' and prove you graduated from college to get your license, but it seems to me that if the test is sufficient to actually measure what you know then why not allow people to self educate. if it isn't sufficient then why give the test at all.