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Stanford Online Courses Delayed; More Time To Sign Up

Posted by timothy on from the in-your-copious-free-time dept.

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."

1 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. *Sigh* There's no drama. by jholyhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.