
Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers - JayBlanton
http://udacity.blogspot.com/2012/06/udacity-in-partnership-with-pearson-vue.html
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juanre
For those of us with kids and without access to a world-class university this
is huge news. I had to study in Spain. Becoming and engineer here was
difficult, but the difficulty laid not in the things we had to learn, but in
the hoops they made you jump through. With a few exceptions ---there are some
great teachers here too-- it was more survival training than a learning
experience. Later, when working for HP, I had the opportunity to take Stanford
graduate courses. The quality of the teaching was mind-boggling. How lucky
these guys are, I kept thinking. Such opportunity!

Of course I jumped at the chance of taking the first AI class, eager to see if
it would go towards the (possibly hugely profitable) world-wide higher
education framework I was hoping we'd manage to build. I was disappointed by
the certificate at the end only mentioning Stanford to make sure that we
didn't think this was associated with them in any way. They were clearly not
getting it.

But Sebastian Thrun was, and I think Anant Agarwal at MIT is as well. The
extremely high teaching standards they have already shown: add a way to give
trusted certificates, and this could be the way out for millions of kids
throughout the world. And, I assure you, people everywhere _will_ pay for a
paper from a trusted source that shows the degree of excellence they or their
kids have achieved.

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Alex3917
The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete, so it
sounds like these are actually going to be significantly less difficult.
Still, I think this is a step in the right direction. Of all the online
education programs out there my money is definitely on Udacity (or at least
the Udacity model) to be the winner, and I think ten years from now people
will recognize that this announcement was every bit as big as the X-prize or
the recent SpaceX docking.

That's not to say there isn't room for other programs that are run in
different ways, not only will there be but many will be insanely successful
and profitable, but I think that the Udacity model is going to sort of the
default way of doing things that every other program is compared against.

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drcube
"The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete..."

From the article: " For the first round of exams, programming will not be
included."

I don't think you can demonstrate programming competence with a 90 minute
multiple choice test, so I'm interested to see how they end up tackling that
challenge.

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mcguire
"...students wishing to pursue our official credential and be part of our job
placement program should also take an additional final exam in a Pearson
testing center."

It sounds like the Pearson exams are in addition to the online, coding test.

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Alex3917
Interesting, it's a little ambiguous as to whether they mean a second final
exam or whether they mean in addition to the regular course. Assuming they
mean a second final exam though this would be good as a clever checksum just
to make sure you are who you say you are and can answer basic questions.

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johnohara
Humble and understated announcement of what is arguably the most important
part of making online education sustainable.

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hkmurakami
Not just sustainable, but perhaps more importantly, _credible_ , for
redefining education.

After all, educations need the signaling factor, and credibility is required
for the signal to be effective.

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Jun8
This is fantastic and a required piece of the online learning revolution. You
have to prove that it's _you_ and take an exam to get the credit and currently
this can only be done by physically going to test centers. I predict that in
the _very_ near future (~1-2 years) taking such tests to get credit for online
courses will be as common place as taking the GRE or GMAT.

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salimmadjd
THIS IS HUGE! Wow, an amazing move by Udacity. I love (as others commented)
how understated and under-hype they've made this announcement to be.

Talk about closing the loop further in enhancing the viability of online
education.

I consider this one of the biggest turning point in Udacity, if not online
education space as a whole.

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keithnoizu
I'd rather see web-cam based proctoring or a similar solution that would allow
for some accreditation while letting udacity still control costs and provide a
cheaper overall examination process to its end users.

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learnyearn
I came across this recently: <http://www.proctoru.com/>

The endpoint is a model that will satisfy the employers - whether that's
webcam or live proctoring or any combination thereof is irrelevant.

One variant of live proctoring could be an arrangement in which universities
give students a number of online options to fulfill a particular requirement -
cs, math, physics, etc - and administer their own exams. So the university
would simply use it's brand to issue the stamp of quality. In a sense - this
is cannibalism for the university. But I think there are public schools that
are struggling to serve their students in a financially feasible way. This
could be a good way to streamline...

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pauljburke
I'm reminded of the old microsoft certification hoops I was required to jump
through for a previous job (I think I ended up with about 30 or so of the
things and a load of letters to put after my name that I now cringe to think
about, mainly because of how absurdly pleased with them I was at the time. HR
departments and management were impressed by it, the people who worked at the
coal face, not so much.

Be interesting to see how it turns out.

EDIT - and of course for things slightly more academic, I'd expect there to be
not quite the same set of issues as there were with vendor qualifications
(before someone points it out). Yes, I too would prefer to hire people who
maintain an interest in learning over someone that didn't (I'm signed up for
four of these things as soon as my MSc is out the way), so not intended as a
derogatory comment.

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evoxed
I _hate_ Pearson products with a passion (save for a few imprints and assorted
acquisitions). This is a great step though for both companies, so hopefully it
works out for both. Pearson's online components has included some of the worst
software I've ever had to deal with– maybe thanks to this, future students
will never have to deal with it again. Udacity on the other hand has been
great, so it's all very exciting anyway.

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Johnyma22
Pearson are just a big acquisition/sales company so have some good/some bad
products. Their model of business is not where I would personally hedge my
bets if I wanted my product to be successful. Udacity probably have no idea
how difficult it will be to work with Pearson yet.

If the partnership gets it right then Pearson will look to acquire Udacity,
given Pearson's track record of how little they innovate after acquisition
this may be damaging to Udacity's long term goals however if the stakeholders
of Udacity are looking for a quick out of the market then it might be ideal
for them.

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EGreg
Inversion of the classroom is an idea whose time is come. In the university
setting it's easier to do than in a junior high school setting. People can all
learn at their own pace. And then schools will primarily do testing and
accreditation.

The question is, should the lesson plans (for the overall year) be open
source, or a marketplace of proprietary competition, or both?

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learnyearn
This is absolutely huge.

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unabridged
Every time I see VUE I always think of The Falls.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080715/>

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dataisfun
I love udacity!

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TheCount
Awesome. Aping the accreditation, credit and degree system of brick and mortar
academe doesn't make sense for the latest generation of educators - udacity,
Coursera, Khan Academy, et al. Proctored exams to verify that the student
knows the material are the way to go.

For final exams that cover an entire course, a test independently designed by
a third party, using input from employers, entreprenuers and academics, might
be a great supplement. Where you took the course would be irrelevant, so long
as you could pass the test. It would allow for easy comparison of students in
different programs.

Testing is a vital step in providing a credential at least as valuable as a
college degree.

