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Stanford Online Courses Delayed; More Time To Sign Up
mikejuk writes "Online Computer Science classes that have attracted tens of thousands of students have been put back for a couple of weeks. Is this on account of Sebastian Thrun's resignation from Stanford? Whatever the reason, providing certificates for online students seems to be a real point of contention. James Plummer, dean of Stanford's School of Engineering, said 'I think it will actually be a long time, maybe never, when actual Stanford degrees would be given for fully online work by anyone who wishes to register for the courses.' The good news is that the delay means that there is still time to sign up."
This has nothing to do with Sebastian Thrun. He had nothing to do with this batch of courses. Both schemes emerged from Stanford and launched alongside one another (presumably to maximise publicity), but they are not related.
There have been suggestions (from, most notably, Professor Jeffrey Ullman) that Stanford got spanked by disability advocates who complained that the courses were not accessible to the visually impaired and that the development team was working to get this fixed before launch; hence the delay.
As for certificates - it has always been made very clear that there would be no certification or credit of any kind, issued by Stanford for these courses or for the courses run by Sebastian Thrun's outfit. For there to be contention, there needs to be some area of disagreement - there is none.
The summary implies that it's too late to sign up when the course has started. That's bullshit. Last semester I signed up to db-class after the midterm exam. There is a 50% penalty on quiz scores if you submit them after the deadline, and exams aren't scored after their deadline, but that certificate is worthless anyway. People are taking these classes for learning, not for credit.
I would still be taking college courses just for fun, if I could afford it. There is something to be said for the idea of "never stop learning" and not resting on your laurels. I wish more people would adopt this philosophy, instead of getting to a certain place in their lives and just saying "Well, no need to learn anything new." I've worked with many programmers who hadn't learned a damn thing since they were in their 20's. They just become more obsolete every day they live.
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We're very excited for the forthcoming launch of Machine Learning. We're sorry for not to have gotten in touch lately - we've been busy generating lots of content, and the system is working really well. Unfortunately, there are still a few administrative i's to dot and t's to cross. We're still hopeful that we'll go live very soon. But since we don't have a firm timeline right now, we'd rather leave this open and get back to you with a definitive date soon (rather than just promise you a date that's far enough in the future that we can feel confident about it). We'll let you know a firm date as soon as we possibly can. We realize that some of you will have made plans expecting the course to start in January, and we apologize for any difficulties that this delay may cause. The good news is that the course is looking great, and we're thrilled that over 44,000 people have signed up - we can't wait for the course to start! See you soon online! - The Machine Learning Course Staff
Seems like technical/administrative issues? Maybe they weren't counting on so many students?
> 'I think it will actually be a long time, maybe never, when actual Stanford degrees would be given for fully online work...
Lots of fine universities already offer degrees entirely on-line (especially MS in engineering). Unlike the dean, I am certain Stanford will do this. But it'll cost... full tuition.
Some times colleges are very hard for people working to take classes. Tech schools and community colleges do have the class times that work for people with jobs. But HR does not like tech schools and community colleges. Also most community colleges are 2 year based but they have lot's of classes you can take DROP IN.
Now continuing education in the old college system is BA, masters, PHD and that comes with it's load of filler and other stuff that is over kill say if you just want to learn about new tech or take some classes as a refresher.
This is why IT / TECH needs to be more like the trades / apprenticeship / VOC school system where continuing education works along with real work skills that you don't get in the class room.
well it's the law and they have to do something so that blind people can learn and they do work in tech jobs.
Don't they require you to attend an actual exam or to submit a significant piece of written work?
Neither of those methods of assessment can be accomplished over the internet for free. That is the biggest obstacle these free courses face if they wish to become a major part of the educational landscape.
Given that one is reading /. And one cannot find out where the signup web page is? Then I think the answer to the first question gets zero points?
http://www.cs101-class.org/hub.php All the links are on there.
I think AC really needs that CS101 class.
I signed up for the CS 101 (Not that I need it, but everyone needs a little brush up on basics now and then, right?), Cryptography and Anatomy Classes and each one has sent emails detailing everything about the delay except when they expect to start. They were very vague but at least they reached out to those of us who signed up.
"I think you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr. President; We're gonna kill us a mummy!" - Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley
Here we go - this is the first stop on yet another copyright front we haven't heard much about - Education!
Think about it - many classes are lecture based - so an entire class would be like a TV Season DVD. Come in to the "certified exam", which is on the verge of becoming the only thing a "typical" university offers. I know, it's the "growing time", but that's not worth $150,000 per degree is it?!
The rise of the internet is handling the "first order questions". So then you'd just buy something like a $100 "Q&A consult" for three hours for the real tough questions.
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OK, OK, you get the same thing being taught to Stanford students. Big deal. You can get the same quality teaching material in any of the top 50 univs. What sets them apart is a degree from Stanford, nothing else. Stanford degree is just a filtering criterion. The quality of teaching has only a very minor part in it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"'I think it will actually be a long time, maybe never, when actual Stanford degrees would be given for fully online work by anyone who wishes to register for the courses."
Makes sense, but what would be cool is if they had some way built in to "scout" promising students, where if you do well enough in the online courses it gives you some sort of in to get into the school itself.
Universities are big business with long-term faculty and administrative staff being a large expense. It would be foolish to believe that they are going to allow online courses to replace their cash cow(campus students).
I know I missed it, but what's the URL to look at the available classes?
This is a very efficient way to discover or farm potentially high value talent.
Offer free high level courses to people. This equates to great PR (educating people is good) + sift through data to find high value talent. Provide high value contact information to Google or other high tech firms.
Awesome!
More effective than a billboard on a freeway.
Can anybody who's taken one of these courses tell me how much time commitment these things tend to require on a weekly basis? Trying to decide how many of these classes I can reasonably take at the same time without getting overloaded.
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