MIT Master's Program To Use MOOCs As 'Admissions Test' (chronicle.com)

jyosim writes: In what could usher a new way of doing college admissions at elite colleges, MIT is experimenting with weighing MOOC performance as proof that students should be accepted to on-campus programs. The idea is to fix the "inexact science" of sorting through candidates from all over the world. And it gives students a better sense of what they're getting into: "When you buy a car, you take a test drive. Wouldn't it be a great value for prospective students to take a test course before they apply?" said one academic blogger.

Comments

MOOC = Massive Open Online Course

[wasteoid]

For those like me who don't automatically know what some random acronym means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Also, shame on submitter / editor for not including acronym expansion.

Re:MOOC = Massive Open Online Course

[Jack9]

I have heard of lots of acronyms. That doesn't mean I'm familiar with them.

> MOOC

Until I read the wikipedia entry, I had no idea what it meant even though I've participated in one (started on Stanford's machine learning).

> first introduced in 2008 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012

Popular? That's laughable. Easily accessible, yes.

Re:black market of test takers ...

[ranton]

This is already a solved problem for numerous certification testing programs. Just make sure all official tests need to be taken at a webassessor location, or something similar. If universities are serious about using MOOCs for credit or for admission, they have plenty of options that would significantly reduce* cheating.

* Obviously you cannot completely remove cheating, but that is true on campus as well.