
MITx Opens First Course for Enrollment - ernestipark
http://mitx.mit.edu
======
gabaix
Big news for me is: MITx certificate.

Last Fall Stanford took the initiative to organize live online classes. I took
"Introduction of DB" and got a certificate from the professor. Some students
complained that Stanford name was not on the certificate. Stanford apparently
did not agree to distribute free certificates to online students. When you
have a few CS students paying a high price to receive education, it's hard to
give an official document for free. coursera.com was created by Stanford
teachers who thought they would be better in a startup mode.

What makes MIT initiative unique is that its certificates will be MIT branded
("MITx"). This is a winning strategy, as more people will turn to those
classes. Some may continue by applying to MIT itself. It will also help MIT
brand reach. Note those certificates will only be free for this pilot course.

You can argue that having a certificate is something that matters or not vs
actually learn something. I think a lot of people around the world will feel
very proud to receive an official document that proved they know those skills.

~~~
aseembehl
They are offering MITx certificate for free for this pilot course because, I
quote from their website "In this prototype version, MITx will not require
that you be tested in a testing center or otherwise have your identity
certified in order to receive this certificate." As I see it, this certificate
will be more or less of equal value as the Stanford online course
certificates, since their is no way to ensure authenticity of the student.

Their plan in (near)future is to charge a small fee and conduct tests at
authorized testing centres(ETS centres for example) where ones identity can be
confirmed. Since that way they can confirm that their is no foul play
involved, the student will also be given course credits from MITx(Discussed
here: <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html> ). That for me
is really exciting.

~~~
DilipJ
it really is. I only hope that eventually these credits will be recognized by
employers. would they be be willing to hire someone who completes an entire
curriculum successfully through MITx over someone who took a similar education
at Big State U?

~~~
FD3SA
The quality of the graduates will bring the employers. Employers only want a
mechanism of sifting the wheat from the chaff. If MITx tests students at the
rigor of regular MIT courses, there is no reason why employers won't be
tripping over themselves to hire MITx grads.

Furthermore, this will annihilate the monopoly that sub-par institutions
currently have on conferring degrees and other certifications. Students who
have MIT level ability will no longer have to settle for second best. They can
prove themselves at the top institutions without having to worry about the 10%
acceptance rate.

If executed properly, this will revolutionize post-secondary education and
save students and taxpayers billions of dollars. It has long since been proven
that the majority of post-secondary institutions are nothing but glorified
testing centers. Why not cut out all the excess, and let MIT do the teaching
while a test center does the testing?

Also, this will dismantle the broken R&D incentive structure that is publicly
funded academic research via tenured professors. The research scientist will
be a dedicated profession unto itself, as will the post-secondary professor.
Public funding of scientific research will no longer involve the ridiculous
process of journal publication, and will instead focus on delivering results
to the taxpayer based upon a research contract (much like privately funded
research).

Structural inefficiency in academic research has caused an immeasurable
slowdown in scientific progress over the past few decades. With one fell
swoop, initiatives such as MITx have the ability to rectify this gross
misallocation of resources.

~~~
snikolov
Employers like MIT grads because MIT makes you learn 1) how to learn 2) to get
shit done. Soul-crushing courseloads may not be optimal for learning, but most
employers care more that you're smart, get things done, and can learn fast on
your own.

By allowing people to take things at their own pace, MITx will perhaps be more
optimal for learning the material, but will not provide the same intense
environment in which "hardk0re" MIT students are forged (for better or worse).

You could perhaps try to imitate this by taking a soul-crushing courseload
from MITx and having a support network of others doing the same. It also makes
a big difference whether your support network aspires to get certified so they
can get a comfortable job, or aspires to (or actually does) build brain
sensors or self-driving cars or musical Tesla-coil hats that play the Mortal
Kombat theme (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEgaI6WouQ0>).

------
xiaomai
As a college student, all these free online classes from MITx, Stanford, etc.
are killing me. I really want to take them, but I don't have time for these
and my regular school work (and full-time job).

~~~
vegardx
Signed. I wish my university would just start using these courses instead of
their own curriculum, as they tend to be highly outdated or even plain wrong.

~~~
tathagatadg
Couldn't agree more - I really want to spend more time taking such amazing
courses FOR FREE rather paying humongous tuition differential and sit in a
class where the course material is not challenging/thought provoking enough?

Instead of offering separate certificates for courses, why don't they make
this an open platform? Say I might be registered at a community college, and
instead of choosing to register for "CSXX - Artificial Intelligence" I
register for ai-class.com. ai-class/udacity/mitx validates my creds against my
university's database and whatever grades I get in quizs, mid terms and finals
are pushed from ai-class/udacity/mitx-s to my school's transcript generation
system. If ai-class/udacity/mitx-s give an API - kids who maintain schools
website should be able to integrate this within a semester.

How this'll benefit the current status quo:

For the students:

Not everybody can go to Standford, MIT for various reasons - but to have a
number of courses in your transcript from such prestigious institutions will
open doors for him - not only intellectually but also professionally. When he
registers for courses, at the beginning of the semester - the registration
software shows him the current offering which is a Plain Old Lecture center
class by an inhouse faculty and an online class from Prof. Ng. He decides
whichever works for him - or may be register for both and see which one suits
him and drops the other one.

I strongly believe in the phrase "You become average of the 5 people you hang
out with" - think if your classmates are as smart as people in hackernews.
[Gawd - no curves in that case!]

For Professors:

They'll be disrupted. I mean, right now the challenge a professor faces is
only when there is another professor in the same department offering the same
course that same semester. So they tend to use the same slides from the book,
same projects (this makes me mad) for generations really. The content is stale
compared to what's out there in the real world. Obviously, students paying
tuition would want value for their money and for many, going to a good school
is gateway to a great job - only to find what he learned in class has been
deprecated by industry standard. Students seeing more value in an online
course would ditch the stale professors. Furthermore, many hotshot professors
really don't give a shit about teaching - they really want to do research, but
the department wants them to teach as there's no substitute for that course.
If they adopt ai-class/udacity/mitx-s, burden on research profs can be
lightened a bit. But bottom line, Professors have to be innovators to bring
the students to his class. And if you really enjoy teaching like Prof. Walter
Lewin - the world will be tuning in and you'll get paid too (read next point).

For Universities: Oh you feudal system, you need to innovate to survive. Let
me show you why this will make your profits soar: (1) by allowing students the
flexibility to choose from you'll invite more clients (er, students) (2) Even
if you can't afford superstar faculty like Prof. Thrun or Norvig, you can
still pay udacity to use their course and get them in your portfolio. Think of
the savings! (3) If you have superstar profs - you can do this too! Just allow
other universities to use your courses and charge them for that! Then pay a
cut to the professors for doing such a wonderful job.

------
harichinnan
I come from India. We have the world's toughest entrance examinations to get
to public funded courses. I got an engineering degree through one of those.
However once I got through the admissions, I found the courses outdated. The
professors got into colleges after bribing the managers and were sub-par in
their teaching, the labs under-funded and there were frequent strikes at
school for things like proper lodging. However the tough entrance exams meant
that most of the students graduated and became successful self-taught
professionals. I think something like Mitx, has the potential to become the
single curriculum for the entire planet. Kids would be demanding this instead
of the stale university offerings. Some of them pay ridiculous amounts of
money for getting into private colleges without any merit scholarship. Check
the below link. Mitx could become the university of alderaan for planet
earth!!! Think about a million hungry Mitx grads a year getting through
grueling MiT level coursework. That could take technology to unforeseen
levels.

<http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan>

------
evoxed
Does anyone know of any downsides to enrolling? Like others, I'm doing
school/work full time already but I'm letting my curiosity get the better of
me (enrolled on Udacity only so far). Is it wrong to assume that if you pass,
you pass, if not you can just try again when you have the time (and it's being
offered of course)?

Edit: add MITx and some coursera courses as well... this semester's been
gentle so far, why not liven it up?

~~~
replax
I have this question as well. I read through the TOS, Honor Code and what have
you but I did not find anything concerning re-enrolment/negative implications
when not able to finish the course/drop out half way or be just really bad at
it.

I would really like to do it and could most likely also take the time to do so
but for me there is a possibility of something more important coming up in the
future resulting in me having to cut back on the curse. If something like: "If
you want to enter the next course/a different one and your record shows that
you began a course which you did not finish, then you have to do X/will be
given a lower priority etc." applies, I would reconsider enrolling.

Does anyone have any further information on that?

------
paulitex
"features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student
and student-to-professor communication"

Gerald Sussman is one of the professors (coauthor of SICP and father of
Scheme). If the first statement is true, this is quite an opportunity.

~~~
ja27
He and Agarwal seem like odd choices to teach this lower-level undergrad
class. Maybe because it's so high-profile?

~~~
nessus42
I'm not sure I get you. At MIT it is encouraged for the most prestigious
professors to teach even freshman level classes. In fact, Sussman and Ableson
themselves taught 6.001 (SICP) when I took it as a first semester freshman. I
was taught by all sorts of famous people all throughout my undergrad MIT
education. The big names especially chose to do so when they were developing a
new approach to teaching the material.

~~~
ja27
Ahh, ok. I'm not sure you get the more average university experience then. I
spent 5 years at a fairly large research state university without ever having
a class from the department head, despite the fact that his main focus was
also AI. I've even had a few lower-level undergrad classes taught by under-
qualified first year PhD students.

~~~
nessus42
Ah. I'll never again whine about how much my MIT education cost me! (Even
though I never got to take a linguistics class with Chomsky.)

------
hodder
I look forward to the day independent learning is respected, and education
quality can be decoupled from expense.

I believe portfolios will become increasingly important in differentiatiing
candidates in the future.

As I take these courses, my goal will be to build up a strong enough github
profile, and project list to get past any online course discrimination.

------
sriram_sun
I am looking forward to the labs. How are they going to give us remote
students the much needed hands on experience? Anant Agarwal is an
exceptionally good teacher as can be seen from the 6.002 ocw videos. Lots of
energy and enthusiasm! This is wonderful!

~~~
learc83
I'd assume with a circuit simulator.

------
ctdonath
The announcement notes " _The book can be purchased on Amazon._ "

Amazon notes " _Only 17 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)._ " Such
"free" courses will have a very interesting impact on book sales.

ETA: Now 15.

~~~
camiller
The announcement also notes: "While recommended, the book is not required:
relevant sections will be provided electronically..."

Amazon now states ships in 1 to 3 weeks

and

24 new from $80.00 / 29 used from $51.49

so it won't be hard to get a copy before coursework starts in March.

------
csomar
I'm interested in CS, IT and Business. I'm also looking to see a rigorous test
after the class. I'm ready to pay the equivalent cost of running the courses
and taking the exams.

This has a lot of value for someone thrown in a third world country with no
financial possibility to join a decent University in the developed world.

------
imrehg
I'm so signed up :D

There are so many offerings, even since I last made a little list of them for
myself ( [http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-
online...](http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online-
learning/) ) that it's incredible.

Let's get down to knowledge...

------
keithvan
I'm really excited for this -- I think MITx will continue where Stanford left
off. Is this the disruption that will finally open a high-quality, reputable,
higher education for the masses? It's going to be awesome to be a part of
history with this course. :)

------
ekm2
Honestly,i dont care about certification and employers.I just need the right
knowledge to help me create my own stuff.

------
ernestipark
6.002x Circuits and Electronics is the first class and is open for enrollment.
The class will begin in March!

~~~
taurussai
Pretty cool. Looking forward to the release of some CS classes

