
Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free - cpfohl
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx
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rauljara
Just to clarify: These aren't the same thing as the ai-class (<http://www.ai-
class.com>) that has gotten all the buzz. This program has been around for a
while and only(1) offers downloadable materials (videos of lectures + pdfs of
assignments/handouts etc.)

(1) "only" seems a terrible way of putting it. The materials/lecturers are
amazing even if you never have your assignments graded.

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nirvana
The Machine Learning, and Databases classes are like the AI class on the new
system, with quizzes and a statement from the professor about how you did at
the end. At least the intro videos for the ML class stated as such and I got
that impression from the database class as well.

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thisuser
Am I the only one yearning for the convex optimization I & II classes to be
offered in the new style?

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dvse
Indeed, best courses on SEE by quite a wide margin.

~~~
dsimms
I took those via HCP (which is like SEE but for 3x the usual grad student
rate) and he's a great teacher. He's not one to let his smarts get in the way
of teaching, which is not true of all the professors at Stanford.

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hvass
2\. How is SEE being funded? SEE’s pilot program was funded by Sequoia
Capital, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that helped launch Cisco,
Google, Yahoo, NVidia and many other successful technology startups.

They deserve a shoutout.

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thebandrews
As universities offer more and more curriculum online, would you hire someone
who had self taught himself through a CS degree? Or would you want to see the
diploma?

~~~
steve_b
I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a
degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more
because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.

~~~
Swizec
What about people who do both at the same time? Personally I find this model
to really work for me, Uni opens up my eyes to what exists out there, and I
dig deep into the specifics of what piques my interest on my own time.

I find that most programmers who are only self taught are missing breadth.
They're great with what they encountered and had to try, but usually suck at
even knowing of the existence of what lies just beyond the edge.

Or at least the ones I've had the pleasure of talking to :)

~~~
randomdata
> They're great with what they encountered and had to try, but usually suck at
> even knowing of the existence of what lies just beyond the edge.

That is one area where the internet could use improvement.

Google can teach you anything... if you know what you're looking for; but
there doesn't seem to be a good system for exploration beyond that. If you
follow the right discussion/link services and keep a general watchful eye out,
the stuff out beyond the edge will eventually flow to you, but there is
certainly room for improvement.

I believe it is a solvable problem and the company that gets it right will
have amazing growth potential.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Wikipedia's List of Algorithms page is a start. The category pages are often
useful too.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_algorithms>

You can also look up what textbooks are used at major universities, then look
up their tables of contents on Amazon or Google Books.

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drallison
HN readers may enjoy EE380, the Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium. It is
listed in this article, but is easily overlooked.

The Colloquium meets w4:15-5:30 throughout the academic year and moves re-runs
during summer quarter. Lectures can be seen live, viewed in real-time over the
web, viewed on-demand over the web, and eventually find their way onto
YouTube, iTunes, and elsewhere. <http://ee380.stanford.edu>.

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cpfohl
Each class has been announced individually, thought I'd give the full list.

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misuse-permit
Thanks for this. Do you know why the courses aren't all hosted on
Standford.edu, though?

~~~
cpfohl
Yeah, see the above comments about how these classes are different from the
www.(ai|db|ml)-class.com classes. They're not quite the same thing (albeit,
they're quite similar).

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ThomPete
All the HCI semesters I think back from 2007 have been available on itunes
University forever.

[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcas...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=384230043)

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theclay
This is the future of education. Stanford is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Tichy
I just saw that the Machine Learning course mentions homework assignments
involving Matlab. Might there be a way to use some open source software
instead? I have no experience with Matlab, and not being a student anymore it
could be expensive to buy.

~~~
wisty
GNU Octave is a free Matlab clone (though I doubt the GUI is as nice). They
actually mention this on <http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs229/materials.html>.

~~~
Tichy
Thanks, missed that on the web site

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coecoventures
Searching on iTunes U doesn't always return these courses. Thankfully there is
an iTunes link available from the lectures link on Course page.

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dvse
These materials have actually been released in late 2008 - the three new
courses will follow a completely different arrangement.

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anthonycerra
This is amazing to me. It hints at a new business model for education. Give
away the education and charge for accreditation.

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vancouveryou
Anyone have any idea if either the AI or ML course might help someone
interested in building Watson Jr?

[https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/In...](https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/InsideSystemStorage/entry/ibm_watson_how_to_build_your_own_watson_jr_in_your_basement7?lang=en)

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araneae
This is the database one: <http://www.db-class.org/>

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skrebbel
I don't understand this move. To study at a renowned US university, you need
to cough up a forture. To learn _exactly_ the same but not get a piece of
paper that says you did it, you can just take the classes online.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free stuff, but I'd feel pretty cheated if I'd
be attending Stanford on half my relatives' latest savings and they use my
contribution to give it all to freeloaders.

Note, I'm not against it per se, I just don't get it. Isn't this very unfair
to the people paying the bill? Can someone explain the reasoning behind it so
I can stop complaining about this? :-)

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rogk11
67,026 people have signed up for ai-class

The largest class ever ...

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arpit
Booo....the video is in Silverlight.I cant watch it on any of the devices I
own (besides a desktop :( )

~~~
ardakara
I'm sorry for that. We had to build it in Silverlight at the time since
Microsoft was a significant contributor to Stanford Center for Professional
Development. However, you can also find the same original material on YouTube,
iTunes or BitTorrent.

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badalyan
Harvard: <http://cs50.tv/2010/fall/>

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DrHankPym
Step One: Learn Bayes' Theorem

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suyash
The iPhone class is from Winter' 2010. Any updates for Fall'2011 version?

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cpfohl
Has anyone taken these courses and is willing to offer a review?

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kpierre
how to watch this without itunes? and what is this itunes thing, by the way?

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dennyferra
iTunes has iTunes University where a lot of educational videos can be found.
If I'm not mistaken you can find the same videos on YouTube at Stanford's
YouTube channel: <http://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordUniversity>

~~~
ishu161
You can also view them on this site: <http://www.cosmolearning.com/> in the
computer science department.

I've found this site to be really helpful. Many of the universities' lectures
that are available online have been submitted here. makes much easier to find
them.And I occasionally run into some pretty interesting documentaries and
stuff. ;)

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guildchatter
HN study group?

=]

~~~
ImprovedSilence
haha that would totally be worth it, as well as provide a little extra
motovation to finish.

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shixx1521
wetgwew

