

Ask HN: College without college (idea) - coryl

HN'ers, I had an idea about opening up education to everyone.<p>So if you've been to college, you know some of your profs upload content and documents like presentations, slides, notes, syllabuses, etc. to share with students.<p>I was wondering, why isn't this available to anyone who wants to see it? Organized/aggregated efficiently and relevantly? Why isn't it available on the web forever? Or for free?<p>A regular joe who isn't enrolled in university could buy the text book and follow along the lesson plan just like a freshman. They wouldn't get the kind of quality of learning that attending lectures gives, but its valuable content nonetheless.<p>There could be some sort of publishing platform that lets teachers openly share the lessons they have. Something as simple as a dropbox for every professor/course. Imagine having access to the lectures of some of the smartest professors out there.<p>Objections I could see to this:<p><i>Profs don't want their content publicly shared</i><p><i>Educational institutions are opposed to giving away free content</i><p>What other objections would people raise? Do you think theres a market for accessing university course content alone (rather than an immersive educational experience)?<p>Thanks guys
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swolchok
I'm surprised you aren't aware of OpenCourseWare (<http://ocw.mit.edu/>). It's
been around for several years now, and its existence could cause one to read
your post as sardonic or tongue in cheek.

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coryl
Thats actually what I was thinking, but on a global scale.

So not just MIT's site, aggregating content from all universities. A lot of
the content on MIT's site is from 5 years ago. When you tend to have the
content managed by one party, it'll get bogged down and not work as well as it
should over time.

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hga
MIT's emphasis on teaching foundations means that 5 year old content is
generally going to be just fine (and if it uses a prior edition of a textbook,
a whole lot cheaper as well).

One thing you're not considering is just how expensive doing this is:

The content has to be captured. If you want video of the lectures, that and
most of the subsequent steps get a _lot_ more expensive. And for a lot of
courses lecture notes just don't cut it.

Publication rights have to be ironed out. You're got to iron this out with the
professors involved, which at the very least will cost you some lawyer time
plus political negotiations etc. etc. What's Fair Use (real or practical) for
a classroom may not work for the web, and this kills some courses where the
reading consists of a bunch of research papers. Etc.

The content has to be prepared for the web site. E.g. convert various word
processor documents into PDFs.

Running the web site costs money.

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python123
I pay thousands of dollars for tuition, and you don't. I earned my right to
attend my school, and you didn't. I deserve access to my course material, and
you don't. I would be so pissed if I went to MIT, and they just started giving
things away like that.

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coryl
Interesting point. So you think students would be opposed to having their
professors/universities give open access to educational content? I personally
wouldn't care. The value in a college education isn't the notes or content
alone, its the teacher/student interaction.

Also, other people aren't "attending" your school (taking up class spots), and
they certainly aren't graduating with a degree. I have a comment regarding
elitism, but I'm not interested in a debate and I appreciate your post.

