
Coursera’s co-founder Daphne Koller set to start anew at Calico - doppp
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/17/courseras-co-founder-daphne-koller-set-to-start-anew-at-calico/
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mark_edward
I never understand all this hubbub. Does anyone actually think millions of
Americans suddenly found a love of knowledge in the past couple decades? I
know I'm in college to get a piece of paper to get green pieces of paper. I
learn what I care about on my own time.

The majority of people are in college because you get (rewarded for |
penalized for not) going by Mr. Market, however you want to spin it. It
doesn't matter whether it becomes apparent in your work that your degree was
basically irrelevant. Booming education among a market where the fastest
growing and largest job sector is shit jobs in service is just nation wide
stack ranking.

We're all on a treadmill and we can't _all_ win.

~~~
Perceptes
That's a very cynical, narrow, and depressing view of what education is. I
very much doubt that view is shared by anyone that started or worked on
Coursera or any other MOOC.

~~~
mark_edward
It's a view about why people get education, not what education's potential is.
If I felt I had the luxury to go to college and spend 4 years and thousands of
dollars broadening my horizons, I know what I would study, what classes I
would take, what professors I would talk to. But I don't feel that secure and
so I am doing something completely different.

I enjoy learning, I really do. I spend my freetime reading texts about what I
love and talking to other more educated people who've studied it. It's not why
I went to college, and not why people told me to go to college ever since I
was old enough to understand arguments about my future life prospects and
career and etc. It's not why my aunt who's been a nanny for 20 years is going
to com-college, It's not why my mom is becoming a CPA, it's not why my dad
went to engineering school, etc.

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ryporter
I do not believe that both Koller's and Andrew Ng's transitions out of
Coursera reflect badly on Coursera or on MOOCs in general. Instead, what
you're seeing is two incredibly brilliant professors (I was a grad student in
the same lab as both, and I TA'd for Koller) returning to their area of
expertise. The world will probably be a better place for it.

~~~
Jormundir
I was an early user of Coursera. I really enjoyed and completed three classes
and thought it was the future of education. Since then, they've tried to
monetize and in the process thrown quality out the window and ignored their
users. I think Koller leaving is just another sign that coursera is run by its
investors, in it for money instead of making a great education platform. The
site no longer has any value to me, and I haven't even browsed the course list
in over a year. I'm sure Koller is making a good decision, moving on from it
to something she can be passionate about again. Best of luck.

~~~
yazaddaruvala
So on point. I took Andrew Ng's first machine learning course, it was the
future of learning!

In stead of building a framework for iterative improvements, and an online
educational material, Coursera focused on building "classes" and "credentials"
and trying to monetize. It isn't surprising that I learnt the most in college
from Wikipedia. Which isn't even meant to be a teaching material.

Truly a shame.

Hopefully Khan Academy or even Wikipedia doesn't eventually disappoint.

~~~
perseusprime11
Unless those credentials are accepted by employers and schools and count for a
real degree, they are meaningless.

~~~
icc97
That's a bit like saying there's no point in reading a book because employers
don't ask for the books you've read.

The courses are awesome just for you to learn things. It wouldn't even matter
if you got nothing at the end. However they do provide a genuine way to show
that you've taken a course. It shows willingness to learn above and beyond
your degree. You can stick it on your Linked In profile and Stack Overflow
profile, it's a way to differentiate yourself from the masses.

Also it's a way of finding better employers. If you're employer is open-minded
enough to take your Coursera courses seriously then they're more likely to be
a good employer.

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untilHellbanned
MOOCs seemed like a good idea at the time until everyone realized you go to
college for the rubber stamp. The actual knowledge is an illiquid thing
available on YouTube/Google or wherever. It is most definitely not a business.

What's surprising is that people who've been professors for 18 years at
Stanford or frickin heads of a Ivy League university didn't realize this until
5 more years into the business side of education. Shows how narrow academic's
wheelhouse is.

~~~
dragonwriter
Huh? All of the MOOCs very early made it clear that their business model was
selling certifications, drive that's where the marketable value was. It didn't
take anyone involved 5 years to recognize that.

~~~
ghaff
Yes, they knew that the business model was to sell certifications--not sure
what else it would be.

However, that Coursera certifications would be valued (presumably by
employers) on a mass scale was always an aspiration without an awful lot of
evidence behind it. (Yes, there are certifications that people pay a lot of
money for but they're essentially all focused on a very specific set of skills
and tied into some sort of ongoing program.)

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thebeardedone
Although I disagree with this view I cant help but get the sense that people
are expecting to replace a 3-4 year education which is filled with 6-12 of
these types of courses with 5 courses and think they will be valued just as
much. Getting knowledge in a topic is one thing, years of problem solving
across different topics is another.

I use these classes as additional support to my education (when i dont
understand something or if my class just scratched the surface and i want
more). Other cases are classes that aren't offered that i find interesting
like advanced databases from CMU that was posted a couple of months ago.

It is definitly not a replacement, but helps you dwell into topics that you
may not be able to or are unsure of.

~~~
icc97
I can't see how anyone would expect that Coursera certificates will be a
replacement for a degree. There's quite a clear difference between the two.

Having said that each of the individual courses that I've taken on coursera
were significantly better than any courses I took during my degree.

------
kercker
As to Coursera, I really don't like the specification concept. When I browse
the course list, I want to see a clean interface, not an interface cluttered
with specifications.

I don't have the data. But I guess that although Coursera has 20 million
members, their overall engagement rate is decreasing. Because without new
courses, many users will likely not return to the site.

~~~
wolfgke
> Because without new courses, many users will likely not return to the site.

In my opinion rather without free Statement of Accomplishment many users will
likely not return to the site. It might be different in the US, but in Germany
there is a culture of "certificate or it did not happen". I have heard that
the same holds in Brazil, too. Thus being German I stopped attending Coursera
courses as soon as free Statements of Accomplishment were dropped. I also have
the impression that after this step the quality of courses dropped.

Originally I remember that it was seriously considered that as a way of
monetizing MOOC sites there was the thought that MOOC participants are people
that love to learn new stuff on their own. This is something many employers
like. So the idea for monetizing was: why not allow employers give (for money)
access to the list of participants to find potential employees. Does anybody
know why this route to monetizing MOOCs was left?

~~~
ghaff
> Thus being German I stopped attending Coursera courses as soon as free
> Statements of Accomplishment were dropped.

Did you feel that being able to list the free statements of accomplishment has
some specific value to you as an employee or a job seeker? (But, presumably,
not sufficient value to pay for a certificate?)

Otherwise, it seems a bit of an odd attitude. Do you avoid reading books for
educational purposes or watching videos on professional topics because you
don't get a certificate for doing so?

I do get that there's value in some certifications. But, except for some
limited circumstances (continuing education requirements, as _something_ to
show in the absence of a traditional degree) my impression is that Coursera
certifications don't have a lot of value. Which has been sort of their
problem.

~~~
wolfgke
> Did you feel that being able to list the free statements of accomplishment
> has some specific value to you as an employee or a job seeker?

I have never been in this situation (but I will be in near future), so take
the following with a grain of salt. I think employers see Coursera Certificate
of Accomplishments not as a qualification that I know the topic inside out.
But having a Certificate of Accomplishment to show for MOOCs that I took is a
clear sign to potential employers that I'm willing to invest a lot of my free
time to learn about new topics on my own. Which shows willingness to learn,
being able to work independently on hard topics on my own under difficult
circumstances (only help in the forum instead of having a tutor etc.). This is
something that I think employers like.

> Do you avoid reading books for educational purposes or watching videos on
> professional topics because you don't get a certificate for doing so?

I read lots of books for educational purposes. But I read them because I'm
deeply interested in the topic. I will probably never get any monetary gain
from it (as I said: certificate or it did not happen). Videos on professional
topics are rather uncommon in German culture (as I see it in opposite to the
US-American culture). One reason for this is indeed that they don't deliver a
certificate.

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antman
But I just got an email from her as a registered coursera user that she will
soon rerun the Propabilistic Graphical Models course which is now split to
three separate courses. I hope that her new position won't change that, her
course is very good.

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zump
Will Geoff Hinton's Neural Network course still continue?

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dannylandau
This is very sad! I for one think that MOOCs have huge potential to disrupt
higher education even if it becomes a non-profit at the end.

~~~
ghaff
edX is already a non-profit. Which is probably why, notwithstanding pleas to
pay for certifications, you still have full access as a free user.

~~~
wolfgke
> notwithstanding pleas to pay for certifications, you still have full access
> as a free user.

No, just look at the "XSeries" and "Professional Education" programs at edX.
These are not free.

~~~
ghaff
I believe the XSeries are just track certifications for courses you can still
take for free.

However, the Professional Education programs--which I think are relatively new
--do seem to be fee-based only. I stand corrected.

Of course, even though it's a non-profit, edX is doubtless still under
pressure by its sponsoring institutions to more or less pay its own way.
That's a lower bar than "make VCs a bunch of money" but it still can't survive
as a bottomless money pit.

~~~
wolfgke
> I believe the XSeries are just track certifications for courses you can
> still take for free.

I stand partly corrected, but there are also XSeries tracks for courses from
Professional Education.

