Slashdot Mirror
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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?
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.
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).
http://www.class-central.com
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.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay