
Coursera: 33 Universities, 200 Courses, 1.3 Million Students - Empro
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/09/19/coursera-doubles-university-count-33-now-hosts-200-courses-reaches-1-3-million-students-worldwide/
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djd
Any one being cynical about Coursera is definitely having a perspective of the
traditional college/school structure, i.e assignments, exams and grades equals
knowledge. That need not be true, because any one would be enrolling in the
courses just to get their curiosity fueled and gain some knowledge which or
else they would have absolutely no access to. I have been enrolling in at
least two courses a month and i make a point to finish all the lectures and
understand them before enrolling for more, but i have had no time to actually
do the assignments and take the quizzes. Ill not get a certificate of
completion i.e iam a drop out, but i have access to knowledge and i free to
choose what i want to learn.

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objclxt
Some of the cynicism around Coursera (and Udacity) isn't around the _way_ the
education is delivered, but the business model.

Both Coursera and Udacity are for-profit businesses, and both have yet to
reveal (or decide) how they want to make that profit. Many current for-profit
providers of education are not particularly well respected (University of
Phoenix, Kaplan, etc). Some non-profit universities are understandable a
little hesitant to work with Coursera and Udacity without a better
understanding of how exactly they propose to make money (both have many
suggestions, but nothing concrete as of yet).

This cynicism is one reason why some universities have decided to "go it
alone" (MIT/Harvard/Berkeley being the most notable with edX).

To be clear, I'm not saying this is my viewpoint: I think very highly of both
Coursera and Udacity. I just wanted to point out that some of the cynicism
stems not from the idea of open access to teaching and knowledge, but from the
worries over working with for-profit companies to achieve that aim.

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mogrim
My guess is that they're running it free as a sort of massive beta test, once
they've got the format sorted they'll start including paying courses - quite
possibly as follow up to free ones (for example Scala I is free, Scala II
costs you money).

And, personally, I'm very grateful to them for hosting such excellent free
courses at the moment - the quality has generally been pretty high on the ones
I've done, and the format is excellent. If they start making money off it,
good for them.

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thomaslangston
I'd more likely expect all the content to be free, but course completion
certifications to cost money.

Edit: This would be particularly useful if the certifications were convertible
into course credit at participating universities.

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mogrim
How would that work online? Cheating is already a problem - there's nothing to
stop you googling for the answer to a given assignment, or getting your clever
best friend to help you out.

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mysterywhiteboy
The Atlantic recently had an interesting POV that puts a positive spin on the
high dropout rates of MOOC courses[1]. Essentially claiming that it is a by-
product of the great fact that these courses are free and therefore have a low
barrier to entry - in contrast to traditional higher education.

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/overbl...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/overblown-
claims-of-failure-watch-how-not-to-gauge-the-success-of-online-
courses/260159/)

~~~
maurits
That and you need to sign up if you just want to have a (short) peek at the
content. One also picks up more than one book in the bookstore before buying,
if any.

Also, the real value in these courses is that they are the real deal. They
should be hard, and thus not for everybody.

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dagw
Yea, my dropout rate is around 80%. I'll sign up for 4-6 courses that sound
interesting, watch the first few lectures all of them, perhaps do the first
homework, and then decide which ones (if any) I feel I have the time and
interest to complete.

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noelsequeira
There seems to be a fair amount cynicism around the business model (rather,
the lack thereof) for these MOOC services. I personally believe that an
interesting monetization model lies in examinations. EdX seems to be exploring
proctored examinations with Pearson, but if someone can come up with a
credible, non-game-able, non-proctored alternative, there's a lot of value to
be created/captured.

Completing one of these courses along with the accompanying assignments only
takes you so far. Grades in a rigorous examination, however, represent a
credential, which in turn sets up much needed (by the candidates taking the
course) signaling. Eventually, a lot of employers might end up becoming
sensitive to this signaling. A crude example of this can be found here:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3353543>

If (and when) someone does crack this puzze and if employers in turn, react to
this change, I see a lot of universities more than breaking a sweat. This
latent potential is what, IMHO, most analysts / investors are really upbeat
about.

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zackham
I was involved in distance education at our local university for a number of
years and we vetted remote proctors. In the rare case where getting a proctor
to watch the student didn't pan out, I've seen webcam + screensharing used as
an accepted alternative. Seems like this approach could be improved upon and
scaled.

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vinayak
What are the other alternatives ? I know 1\. Udacity
[<http://www.udacity.com/>] 2\. Venture Lab
[<http://venturelab.stanford.edu/>] 3\. Class2go
[<http://class2go.stanford.edu/>] 4\. MITx [<http://mitx.mit.edu/>]

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henrik_w
EdX (<https://www.edx.org/>) - MIT, Harvard and Berkeley.

Also, Class Central (<http://www.class-central.com/>) lists courses on order
of starting date.

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lathamcity
Andrew Ng, who founded Coursera, is a professor of machine learning at
Stanford - I am taking his course right now. I wonder whether, once Coursera
has been around for a while, he might use his machine learning knowledge to
predict such things as how likely a person is to drop out of a course or to do
well in a course, or to compare people based on the university they attended
or other factors. Could be really interesting.

~~~
visarga
Maybe, now that they have almost 200 courses they would build also the
interconnecting web of notions so there are no holes.

Also, if possible, some kind of assistance to get over the difficult moments
and choose wisely the education path would be great.

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gailees
As much as I love Coursera, their statistics so far have shown that most of
the students actually benefiting from their courses already have degrees and
many even have graduate degrees.

It's still great that people are pursuing more knowledge; however, I'd much
rather see MOOCs find a way to penetrate the percentage of the population that
has less access to education.

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ncarroll
I'm taking Modern and Contemporary American Poetry (ModPoPenn) and I'm
thoroughly impressed by the fact that the professor, Al Filreis and his staff
of TAs maintain a strong presence in the forums. The discussion format videos
are excellent and the team is doing a super job of making this voluntary
learning experience an extremely valuable one. The coursera.org platform is
easy enough for my Mom to use. Now, as far as I can see, the only barriers to
entry are background skills and commitment.

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waterlesscloud
Yeah, the ModPo class is impressive thus far. They are producing a ton of
content in the video roundtables, and the prof seems to have endless
enthusiasm for the online forums. It's a tough subject to teach remotely, but
they're really pulling it off.

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henrik_w
Impressive! Coursera keeps growing at a rapid pace. As always, the limit will
be the time you have to put into it - there are already interesting courses
there to keep me busy for a year (if I had the time ;-))

I also noticed that they have a profile page for students now. This may not be
brand new (although I hadn't seen it before), but it's useful and looks good.

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timrogers
Great to see Coursera growing with more universities, especially
internationally. I'm really enjoying the courses that I'm studying - it is
without a doubt a force for good.

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kyriakos
my wife signed up and followed a few so i got to watch some of the lectures -
i was amazed by the quality of information they are giving out for free!

