
Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course  - gtCameron
http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb
======
timr
It cracks me up that all of the early comments on this thread are so insistent
that course completion shouldn't be a goal. Anyone who has taught a college
course can tell you that self-reported satisfaction rates are _useless_ as an
educational metric. Everyone "wants" to learn, but almost nobody puts in the
effort. MOOCs have provided this hype-driven protective bubble where the
people who "want" education get to pretend that they're learning without
actually doing much of anything.

The self-delusion is so strong that people are denying what _Thrun himself_
said: Udacity was (is?) a lousy product [1]. It doesn't do what it was
supposed to do, which is educate more people for less money.

The world doesn't need another way to spoon-feed infotainment to well-off
people with good academic backgrounds (or at least, maybe the world _wants_
that, but that isn't what Thrun wants, and I admire his integrity -- a lot of
folks in his shoes would just be desperately trying to keep the party going,
rather than admitting early failure). If MOOCs are nothing more than a place
where half-interested techies go to pretend to learn about AI, then they're
pretty useless.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-
education...](http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-education-
revolution-drifts-off-course)

~~~
randomdata
_> The world doesn't need another way to spoon-feed infotainment to well-off
people with good academic backgrounds_

Actually, that is exactly what the world needs, and the comments here further
emphasize that the demand is there. Before these MOOCs appeared on the scene,
the resources were almost non-existent. I don't care about school, I just want
to learn. A service like Netflix, but with MOOC-like content would be perfect.

It saddens me that Thrun, who I have found to be exceptionally good at the
job, is more interested in schooling than learning – but I get it from a
business aspect. These results dash the hopes of what Udacity hinted would
become their business model.

~~~
timr
_" Actually, that is exactly what the world needs, and the comments here
further emphasize that the demand is there."_

It emphasizes that lots of people on the internet want something for nothing,
which has a surprise quotient of exactly zero.

~~~
randomdata
I could see paying for a quality educational service. I already pay for
Netflix and only spend a fraction of the time watching it compared to what I
spend on watching MOOC-style videos. Udacity isn't really there though. The
videos are top notch, but the user experience is not very good.

~~~
saraid216
Out of curiosity, would you be willing to pay for it if you were explicitly
subsidizing students who couldn't pay for it?

------
fernly
Right. The people who create MOOCs are professors who think of what they are
making as _courses_ with all the attendant assumptions (grades, exams, success
as completion with certain scores).

The people who consume the MOOCs treat them as they would _books_ -- to be
picked up, sampled, read for the good parts, saved for future reference.

The "courses" offered by MOOCs are in fact, _multimedia books_ with an
optional social component. If they were viewed this way, a different business
model might emerge.

~~~
mhurron
> saved for future reference

I wish that was possible with Coursera. I often need way more time then the
structured course time. I don't interact with people on the forums so I don't
care about that but locking me out of the videos means I don't get to see a
lot of things I would like too.

~~~
michaelochurch
If you start a Coursera course and don't finish it, you usually have
persistent access to the course videos.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Not true for all courses (on Coursera), most of them will stop letting you
access the videos after about 1 month from the course completion.

However, you can download the videos once the course is finished.

~~~
waterlesscloud
It's definitely not my experience that "most" Coursera courses do this.

Of my 12 completed classes, only one does not allow access to the videos. Some
of these classes are 2 years old. The one that doesn't have the old videos
sent out an email saying they were removing them when they re-ran the class
with new videos a year later.

------
sown
> the shockingly low number of students who actually finish the classes, which
> is fewer than 10%. Not all of those people received a passing grade, either,
> meaning that for every 100 pupils who enrolled in a free course, something
> like five actually learned the topic.

That's still _thousands_ (tens or hundreds) of students who passed. So perhaps
the 'click-through' rate for MOOC is the same as it is for ads?

I feel Professor Thrun's work has had a positive impact on my work, even
though I'm one of the students who didn't pass on time. I gradually worked my
way through the material while riding the Caltrain and have a greater
understanding of ML and AI topics. So it's not a total wash.

Also, by admitting he may not have been right publicly he disarms critics
overall. Smart.

~~~
berberous
Personally, I have signed up for maybe 50 MOOCs, but only completed 2, and
really engaged in any level with maybe 3-5. But this was intentional. Signing
up lets me:

1) Access the videos/materials for all time (even when the course is no longer
open).

2) Try out different courses / professors

3) Learn the basics (i.e., watch only week 1 out of 6); or perhaps watch all
videos but ignore the testing materials. After all, if there is no real
credential involved, I might only care about gaining an understanding of the
subject, rather than prove I understand it through testing.

I am a full time student (not in CS), and in addition to my real life course
load I am currently taking Networking, Cryptography, and Algorithms. There is
no way I will have the time to complete more than 1, or MAYBE 2, of the 3.

In other words, I view my low completion rate as a huge success. Coursera
seems to have realized this fact. They have just started doing pre-course
surveys that ask you how many videos you intend to watch (none, 25%, 50%,
all), and they ask how much of the homework you intend to do.

Of course, offering degrees or college credit, especially in exchange for
cash, will obviously increase completion rates, but mainly by dissuading
people like me from signing up.

~~~
seren
I am pretty sure that if most MOOCs would offer a demo of the first few week
courses without having to sign "officially", the attrition rate would be much
lower.

I see plenty of interesting courses on Coursera, but the one page + one video
description is not enough to understand how the course will feel like and if I
want to commit few hours of my life to follow it.

I always hesitate to sign because I have the feeling that by signing, I take a
solemn oath that I will finish the course... (so at least I am not
contributing to the bad metrics, but I feel like the metrics is skewed for
wrong reasons anyway)

~~~
randomdata
I'm not sure I agree. If the course is interesting, I will sign up anyway,
while still not completing it. That is, unless I can access the content
without signing up, but that does not seem to be common.

I think the real problem is that MOOCs are not brick and mortar schools, and
any attempts to mirror a brick and mortar school will only detract value from
the offerings. I don't sign up to do homework or take tests, I sign up to
_learn something_. I will then take what I learned and apply it to something
practical in my own life. If successful, it proves to me that I understand the
content well enough to accomplish what I set out to achieve. I don't feel the
need to prove that to anyone else. A certificate of achievement hanging on my
wall means nothing.

Of course, the real issue here is that the business model was based on the
idea of selling graduates to interested industry partners. If I don't
successfully complete the tests, I'm not valuable to them.

------
mlyang
The thinking about MOOCs and their success metrics is flawed. We wouldn't
measure the success of Wikipedia by the percentage of people who've read an
entire Wiki article top to bottom for a particular topic they've searched for,
why would we expect the same for MOOC courses? The reality is that it's just a
great social good that these courses are available online and accessible to
the select few who should choose to fully utilize them.

Everyone's too fixated on the completion rates for these courses. The reality
is that the people who are checking out these courses are doing it mostly out
of intellectual curiosity at this point, so they have no reason to finish
certificates, or finish courses, or watch lectures that they're not interested
in. These people have no incentive other than to pick and choose, and to
idealistically expect that people will put themselves through the downsides of
education (HW, exams, watching the boring lectures when they can just pick the
interesting lectures) is unrealistic, and certainly not an indication that
"MOOCs have failed."

~~~
sown
I think what changed Thrun's mind was the less than successful SJSU
experiment: [http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-
education...](http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-education-
revolution-drifts-off-course)

~~~
mhurron
I'd love to finish that math course if I could log back in.

------
aashaykumar92
MOOCs can't expect to replace universities right now, it just won't happen.
But if they integrate their platforms in a way to HELP college students and
even adults, their popularity will blow up so that in the future, it will be
more realistic to think that MOOCs may be THE go-to for a higher level
education. Focusing on the college population and growing that is the best way
to begin...being ubiquitous from the start has not and will not work, it's
just too big of a problem.

There are two large problems with MOOCs right now that are documented in the
article but not well enough supported IMO: 1) There are no transferrable
credits to colleges and 2) They are free.

And the two problems go unsurprisingly hand in hand, and they both have to be
solved simultaneously if MOOCs are going to work. The ideal scenario would be
that each course costs somewhere around $150 and courses can be transferred
WITH credits to as many accredited institutions as possible. Why? Well
firstly, once you pay for something, the average persons's conscious will
naturally have that commitment in the back of their minds and will not want
the investment to be a sunk cost. Furthermore, if credits are offered, college
kids will be able to take a variety of courses in fields that they may want to
try out and the more institutions that allow credits from MOOCs, the more
students will feel comfortable taking these courses. It will be a great outlet
for students to use in a variety of ways. The SJSU example is extremely poor
as the sample is way too limited and as mentioned in the article, the bulk of
students who signed up for courses were in limited situations.

~~~
varelse
If I had to pay $150/course, that would end my usage of MOOCs.

In contrast, I'd be happy to pay $5-$10/month for overall access to Coursera
or Udacity (probably just Coursera actually given the quality issues I've seen
on Udacity). But the minute you try to shoehorn me back into the traditional
mode of learning, I'm going back to reading books at my own pace and timing.
Can we pretty please finally have the 21st century that should have started
sometime during the last decade?

~~~
aashaykumar92
That doesn't solve the problem of completing a course, though.

~~~
varelse
The problem IMO is believing that not completing the course is in any way
actually a problem. Ala carte learning for fun and profit works for me. I'm
saying what it's worth to me as well. Maybe such beliefs should be studied
across the customers of Coursera and Udacity to refine their business model?

Bonus points for figuring out that I download and save a lot of lecture
material for later viewing because some professors force their content to
expire and go away. This stuff is _gold_ for passing the time on
transcontinental flights.

Negative points for the absolutely godawful official Coursera mobile app in an
age when Coursistant is both free and 100x better. Why did they even bother
with such an obvious Acqui-hire in plain sight?

Finally, if people pay $X for a fancy certificate and then don't complete the
course, sometimes it really should be considered their problem, not yours. You
can't save a world stuck in a infinite loop of its own making. What's the old
joke? How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but
the light bulb has to want to change.

------
capnrefsmmat
I don't see why MOOCs are pitched as revolutionary in teaching. They're still
fundamentally lecture-based, and lectures are a terrible way to teach. I'm
most familiar with research in physics education, where an average intro
physics class fills only 24% of students' gaps in understanding.

On the other hand, some professors are experimenting with more interactive
methods -- not less interactive MOOCs -- and getting three times better
results:

[http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/shutup.html](http://www.refsmmat.com/articles/shutup.html)

~~~
my_username_is_
Udacity, Thurin's MOOC platform, is interactive and was designed to not simply
follow the lecture style of current classrooms

~~~
saraid216
"Interactive" how? The quizzes? These have been a staple in current classrooms
for a decades. Is there something else?

------
varelse
I enjoyed the Udacity AI course, but I was repeatedly frustrated by the many
errors that were never corrected and especially Peter Norvig's nails on
blackboard scribbling sounds with his felt tip. Am I the only one who could
hear this?

Overall, I think there was a real lack of attention to detail after an
excellent job on getting the big picture right.

That said, MOOCs have revolutionized my ability to keep up with technology
trends and I spend 1-2 hours daily on Coursera and Udacity. I do not care
whatsoever about certificates or completing courses. I just care about raw
knowledge acquisition and reviewing previously learned material (i.e.
refreshing my calculus, statistics, algorithms, and linear algebra skills).

I personally think the future of this business will involve celebrity teachers
like Andrew Ng and Sebastian Thrun putting together more polished versions of
their courses and then allowing a cottage industry to grow around tutoring
people through them at their own pace rather than shoehorning a freestyle
approach to learning into effective semesters and quarters.

If this is infotainment, it sure beats the likes of Fox News and MSNBC.

~~~
saraid216
> I personally think the future of this business will involve celebrity
> teachers like Andrew Ng and Sebastian Thrun putting together more polished
> versions of their courses and then allowing a cottage industry to grow
> around tutoring people through them at their own pace rather than
> shoehorning a freestyle approach to learning into effective semesters and
> quarters.

This is actually fairly similar to my own classroom designs, so I wanted to
call it out for emphasis.

------
monochr
I don't sign up for courses that have self paced study unless I feel like I
want to take the final exam which may at some point mean something.

But courses with deadlines I spam subscribe the hell out of. The majority are
available indefinitely once you subscribe and I may be interested in
revisiting them at some point over the next year or so. Even if they delete
the content after the class finishes I just use a small script to keep track
of the dates and download everything once the final lecture is delivered.

You can try and recreate scarcity online but it will backfire. I only complete
about 1-5% of the classes I've signed up for because I want the option of
picking one that might turn out to be interesting later. Places like udacity
and coursera would be much better off having class material public forever
while having recurring deadlines for submissions only. The only people who
would sign up to classes then would be those who are interested in submitting
materials.

------
slowjoe
+1 to the "high course join, low course completion" crowd.

One thing that I did at work was establish a betting pool with two other co-
workers on the Coursera C++ course that finished in December - completers
would collect from non-completers. That is my one Coursera completion.

I'm pretty sure that attaching betting pools to MOOC sites would make a major
difference to completion rates for participants.

------
xiaoma
I put about 20 hours a week of my time over the past 6 months or so into
MOOCs, primarily on Coursera. I've also used Khan Academy, edX, and some non-
MOOC materials like Code School in the past. I've definitely learned some
great things, but it hasn't actually been the most efficient use of time.
Rather than write a mini blog post here, I'll link to the actual blog post I
recently wrote on it:

[http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-
com...](http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-computer-
science-study-through-moocs/)

To summarize the problems, the pre-requisites aren't always clear and are
sometimes incomplete, the courses don't generally offer enough work that
students can get help on, and set-up for the computing classes is often a huge
pain. Finally, for me personally, the set pace is a serious detriment. I do
much better if I can get the materials all at once and do 25% or more of a
course in a weekend.

------
russelluresti
Thrun's new objective - to give industry a voice in the education process, is
a valid objective. Most of the research shows that what people learn in school
only contributes in a minor way to what they do - they learn most of what they
need to know on-the-job. Udacity's new direction will allow companies to help
potential prospects acquire those skills beforehand, in this general
education-augmented way. It's not a bad idea, and it's definitely something
that was needed.

However, it is sad to see one of the most vocal people toss aside the original
goal of providing education to the under-priveleged to help them escape
poverty. Just saying that poor people have a different set of challenges that
make online classes a "poor fit" for them is the easy way out.

It's also sad to hear him say that the true value proposition of education is
employment. The notion that education and employment are hand-in-hand related
is the thing that holds back the education system the most. Education is about
allowing people to move forward - advancing culture, science, technology, etc.
so that we're not all stuck plowing fields with oxen. While capitalism ties
these advancements to employment and profit, the connection is based entirely
on how things are done now, and not how things could or should be done (or
even how they were done in the past).

------
johngalt
While I like the idea of making courses as independent as possible, some kind
of suggested course track might help completion rates.

I passed the original ai-class on schedule with distinction. Then when Udacity
started I zipped through intro to CS as a review. When I took Norvig's 'Design
of computer programs', it was a kick in the teeth. I knew pretty quick that I
wasn't going to finish on schedule, then that I wasn't going to finish at all.

------
hojoff79
I disagree that these are simply "books" and cannot supplement courses. There
are many college students who simply attend lectures, turn in homework, ask a
few questions and take their tests. MOOCs provide everything you need to have
that experience virtually. I agree this model does not describe everyone, but
I believe this is more an issue of motivation than resources.

Going back to the comparison with textbooks, there are a good number of people
who could teach themselves subjects purely out of textbooks if they were
motivated. But even after mastering several subject in this way, your
employment prospects and marketability are not significantly increased.
Instead, people do their learning (online or in person) under the umbrella of
a College, who can offer them "credit" / verification to the rest of the
world, which in turn increases employment prospects and marketability. The
MOOC product does not offer that benefit upon completion (they give you a
certificate, but right now it is not respected at all and therefore does not
give the desired effect), so only those interested in the intellectual
knowledge have motivation to complete the MOOC courses (not surprisingly, a
very low number of people).

But I think if they give it more time they / the market could develop products
that provide value for completion of these courses. Maybe some sort of
independent service that tests and certifies completing students (i.e. what
College Board has done for high school courses with the AP program). They
could even track combinations of courses students complete to ensure a rounded
knowledge of a subject area.

That is just one idea off the top of my head, but the point remains that this
is an economic issue of motivation and benefits for completion, not an issues
of resources.

~~~
xiaoma
> _" Going back to the comparison with textbooks, there are a good number of
> people who could teach themselves subjects purely out of textbooks if they
> were motivated. But even after mastering several subject in this way, your
> employment prospects and marketability are not significantly increased."_

I intend to put that assumption to the test. I suspect that once GRE subject
tests start falling, both my prospects and marketability will jump
dramatically.

------
joyofdata
I took and take several classes, so far on coursera and edX - and I love it.
Taped lectures with quizzes, weekly assignments, exam and maybe even a peer-
rated project are definitely a great way to learn something! My goal always is
to finish with a certificate because this gives me an idea on how well I am
doing.

As a matter of fact I do not like Udacity very much. It is too playful and too
unorganized compared to a lot of courses on coursera and pretty much all
courses on edX. Udacity tries too hard to educate everybody by being very
friendly at all times - this either leads to courses which start out all
bubbly and funny and all of a sudden turn complex too suddenly - or courses
that stay on that trivial level.

MOOC is awesome but what Thrun apparently doesn't get is that this concept
still requires dedication and disciplin from the student. And you can design
your class whatever way you like - either the student has it or s/he doesn't.

Also he is comparing apples and pears with his ratio #succesfull/#registered.

#registered of course is a marketing driven KPI and sould be as high as
possible, so every time somebody clicks "Learn free" it is counted. But you
have to "register" to just figure out what the course really is about and
whether it is worth taking!

Also he is a business man and by switching to the new course format it is much
easier for Udacity to monetarize - what a surprise. Opposed to edX and
coursera, Udacity is kind of a one-man-show and he is maybe too ambitious and
lacks patience (see biking with somebody else).

An article on my experience: [http://www.joyofdata.de/blog/social-network-
analysis-lada-ad...](http://www.joyofdata.de/blog/social-network-analysis-
lada-adamic-coursera/)

------
djs1sjd
As others have noted, these MOOCs work great for people who already have a
solid foundation in the skills of learning, whether they are highly-driven and
parentally-supported high school students, college degree holders, or people
who are equivalently self-taught.

If you don't fall into one of the above categories, it is _very_ difficult to
overcome the practical, and motivational challenges that stand in the way of
success in these classes.

Examples: a poor inner-city kid with serious challenges at home and at school,
an out of work high-school/college drop-out who is years out of any sort of
academic setting.

At least in the US, the disadvantaged side of educational inequality spectrum
is defined by these types of of people. Without a great deal of in-person
support (whether by government via schools, their communities, or their
families), it is unlikely that such people will be able to increase their
education, MOOCs or otherwise.

EDIT: added some clarifying wording.

------
bakul
May be they need to incentivize people differently: charge money to _sign up_
for a course. If you finish it, you get it all back (or a certificate - your
pick! If you are in the top 10% of the completers, you get a degree as well as
your money). If you get through 75%, you get half back. If you get through 50%
you get 25% back.

------
nicholas73
Another thing that lowers course completion rates, unmentioned yet, is that
most of Udacity's classes are on the challenging side of college courses. They
are mostly STEM classes and many equivalent to upper division courses as well.
So it isn't surprising the NPR article reports only the most studious SJSU
students benefited. The vast majority of SJSU students, and students from
other colleges as well, would find these courses challenging also, with or
without in-person support.

I don't think that's an insurmountable problem, with the course notes being
better designed and readily available (as compared to a disinterested
professor + textbook). On the other side, many students don't bother talking
to their professors and TAs anyway.

------
Executor
I have been using online courses for a while, here is my pitch:

Most online courses are still under the old mindset of the conservative
education model. Why does a course have a start and end date? I learn on my
OWN time since I'm constrained by full-time employment. Why does a course have
tests/exams? I came here to learn not obtain a badge, degree, or a set of
meaningless numbers/grades. Why does a course NOT have a
programming/application-centric method of learning? Why does an online course
not have GREAT material and resources (i.e. lackluster application tests,
labs, programming projects)? All these block me from doing what I want when I
join an online course - to learn.

------
mcguire
I think the point here is that if the goal is to provide at least some
information (and entertainment, which is not worthless) to at least some of
the numbers of students that sign up, then Udacity specifically and MOOCs in
general are successful.

On the other hand, if the goal is to provide an education that is as solid and
as valued as a university, which Thrun seems to think his goal was, then
Udacity and MOOCs are not succeeding.

Further, if Udacity, which is a company that needs to make a profit, is going
to succeed then it needs to change its focus.

------
joyofdata
Udacity does not equal MOOC - It is just one platform offering online courses
and it is inferior in quality and conception to most courses on edx.org and
coursera.org. Thrun has a big ego and thinks because he didn't succeed with
HIS goals - then the concept of interactive and gradid online learning is
doomed. No matter how smart he might be - but that is simply stupid.

------
jero25
[http://www.freeitonlinecourses.com/free-online-courses-
with-...](http://www.freeitonlinecourses.com/free-online-courses-with-
certificate/)

For free online courses with certificate have a look at the above link

------
michaelochurch
_As Thrun was being praised by Friedman, and pretty much everyone else, for
having attracted a stunning number of students--1.6 million to date--he was
obsessing over a data point that was rarely mentioned in the breathless
accounts about the power of new forms of free online education: the shockingly
low number of students who actually finish the classes, which is fewer than
10%. Not all of those people received a passing grade, either, meaning that
for every 100 pupils who enrolled in a free course, something like five
actually learned the topic._

1.6 million times 5% = 80,000. Still an impressive number.

I've probably started 20 MOOCs and completed 3.5, so I'm part of that "low
completion" statistic. I often fall behind the posted deadlines because I have
so much on my plate. That's not a knock on MOOCs; if it's a knock on anyone,
it's on me. The quality of MOOCs is (IMO) as high as for most big-lecture
college courses. (It's not yet as good as for a 20-person course.) However,
when you have a full-time job plus side projects plus family, and you don't
have the social pressure of having to pass 8-10 courses per year, you have to
be really motivated to complete the work, especially within the deadlines. But
is it a loss or gain to the world if someone completes a MOOC 6 weeks late? Or
gets only 60% of the material? It may not be as much of a gain as the
traditional college course provides, but it's a gain in absolute terms.

If those 80,000 students are getting the same quality of course as they'd get
at Stanford, that's _fucking huge_. Not a small accomplishment at all.

I wish people wouldn't write off MOOCs because, yes, they're the crappy first
iteration that only early adopters care to power through. They're not ready to
replace traditional education, the latter being a gigantic trillion-dollar
problem that touches all sorts of deep sociological problems.

The problem is that you have a lot of hucksters in education ( _cough_ Knewton
_cough_ ) who massively overpromise, raise a lot of money, and don't deliver
much. They've damaged the reputation of the space immensely. The truth,
however, is that online education is a good thing and it's (albeit slowly,
with fits and starts) getting better. If there's anything worrying to me, it's
that our ability to educate each other is, while improving, not doing so
_quite_ as fast as the rate of technological change. But I guess that's a good
problem for the world to have.

