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Coursera Commits 'Cultural Vandalism' As Old Platform Shuts (i-programmer.info)
Reader mikejuk writes: Coursera has announced that 30 June is the date when it will shut down the servers hosting courses that were the first, free, offerings on its platform. The new model isn't just a revised interface, it is also a new monetization model, and presumably the decision to throw out all the original free content, by shutting the platform, is motivated by greedy commercialism. You could say that the golden age of the MOOC (a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people) is over with the early enthusiastic pioneers doing it because they were passionate about their subject and teaching it being replaced by a bunch of "lets teach a course because it's good for my career and ego" with subjects being selected by what will sell.
Closing down the old platform is an unnecessary destruction of irreplaceable content. Coursera needs to rethink this policy that goes against everything it originally stood for. The courses affected are from the early days of the MOOC that are likely to be important in the history of their subject. The most relevant for us, but far from the only one, is Geoffrey Hinton's Neural Networks for Machine Learning which gave a "deep" insight into the way he thinks and how neural networks work.
Something has to be done to preserve this important record -- they don't have to turn off the servers just because they have a new platform.Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central has written about ways one can download Coursera's courses before they're gone.
Closing down the old platform is an unnecessary destruction of irreplaceable content. Coursera needs to rethink this policy that goes against everything it originally stood for. The courses affected are from the early days of the MOOC that are likely to be important in the history of their subject. The most relevant for us, but far from the only one, is Geoffrey Hinton's Neural Networks for Machine Learning which gave a "deep" insight into the way he thinks and how neural networks work.
Something has to be done to preserve this important record -- they don't have to turn off the servers just because they have a new platform.Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central has written about ways one can download Coursera's courses before they're gone.
So, some people are pissed off that someone that was free now costs money. How is this cultural vandalism? What the fuck is cultural vandalism anyways? Did someone graffiti some ethnic restaurants?
It's their platform. If they want to change it up, start charging or whatever, that's their right. People sure do whine a lot in 2016.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
You can't claim that someone is committing cultural vandalism and in the same breath provide instructions on how to preserve something. Just because someone created something or provided a host platform in the first place doesn't obligate them to preserve that platform at that price for eternity.
It's free. Download it. If you want to preserve it then do so, but don't have a whinge when someone else doesn't want to.
It's like the neighborhood vacant lot when I was a kid. The owner back then didn't seem to mind that we set up a great bicycle racetrack on it with jumps everywhere. We also built a treehouse in one of its trees. Then one day the owner decided to build a house on it. The construction equipment came in and started digging up our racetrack. We all complained and whined to our parents who told us that the property owner could build a house on his property if he wanted. We were not paying for anything and had no rights at all with respect to the property.
There's a lot of middle-class radicalization and social justice warrior stuff going on in this summary.
Indeed. Coursera is a for-profit company, so no one should be surprised that they engage in "greedy commercialism". That is what enables them to grow as a business and pay people salaries. They are not a charity, and should not be expected to behave as one. MOOCs are far from dead, and much of this same content can be accessed on Youtube, along with hundreds of other courses.
Disclaimer: I have competed several MOOCs, mostly free courses from MIT. I have never taken a course from Coursera.