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.

Comments

Cultral Vandalism?

[bhcompy]

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?

Re:Cultral Vandalism?

[smooth wombat]

As I stated in this post, people feel they are entitled to something someone else produced. It doesn't matter that the person or company has taken the time and effort to produce something other people want, everyone else demands it as an inherent right to have it instantly completely ignoring the fact they haven't lifted a finger to produce the product.

As I have always said, if people believe things should be free they can produce what they want and give it away. They shouldn't expect everyone else to do the same.

Re:Cultral Vandalism?

[mspohr]

I believe that was the point.
People created content for Coursera with the intention of giving it away for free. Coursera appropriated that content and is denying access to it so that it can sell it's other paid content.
So, it's not a question of "people wanting something for free" but "people being denied access to something they were given".

Summary is a bit over the top

[oakgrove]

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.

Nothing is destroyed.

[thegarbz]

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.