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

Re:they want the student loan cash cow

[bluefoxlucid]

Business is way more complex than that. Human group behavior often appears as something simple, especially when it isn't. In business, this often produces an effect whereby everyone in a business has honest, benevolent intentions, and manages to build a shambling, evil empire; actual malicious intent and selfish greed are rare events, but common outcomes.

Coursera has, for a long time, been molding itself into a corporate service platform. In reorganization, aligning the business with its strategic goals would rightly include removing out-of-scope practices such as providing open, free online courses. The major failure in that model is in evaluating those practices in the context of their *impact* on the business, rather than on the business strategy: not thinking about how the world interacts with you or how your actions will be seen by the world leads to taking actions that upset the population.

There's a lot of middle-class radicalization and social justice warrior stuff going on in this summary. There's even a direct attack on colleges and professors ("Let's teach a course because it's good for my ego"--teachers are all selfish assholes, right?), as if the entire practice of teaching is a pox on society, while the practice of learning is something cherished and valuable.

Free content

[corporate zombie]

Being in the middle of taking a Coursera course right now I can state that the content is still free if you audit the course. Auditing a course gives you access to the lectures, coursework, and the forums. You cannot submit coursework for a grade, nor receive a final grade and certificate (if you pass) unless you have paid for the course.

Having taken several of the original free courses I was concerned at first but once I read through all the fine print I think it's a fine way to monetize the system. Free for those that want information and a charge for those that want proof of having taken the course.

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".