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As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

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Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#51

Post by dhawalhs »

tboyd47 wrote: post #5

> The company has created a series of courses that add up to mini-degrees that students can earn quickly, and pay a small fee to certify that they successfully completed them. “It’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s who are interested in learning more skills and making themselves prepared for better jobs,” said Mr. Levin. Has anyone else noticed that since this recent pivot, the quality of Coursera's classes have de…

We launched yesterday reviews for modern day credentials like Specializations and Nanodegrees to tackle this problem. Sorta like 'Credentialing the credentials'. It can be found here:

https://www.class-central.com/certificate

It still early but this might help potential students get a sense of quality of the credential before hand.

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#52

Post by riffraff »

dhawalhs wrote: post #51
tboyd47 wrote: post #5

> The company has created a series of courses that add up to mini-degrees that students can earn quickly, and pay a small fee to certify that they successfully completed them. “It’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s who are interested in learning more skills and making themselves prepared for better jobs,” said Mr. Levin. Has anyone else noticed that since this recent pivot, the quality of Coursera's classes have de…

We launched yesterday reviews for modern day credentials like Specializations and Nanodegrees to tackle this problem. Sorta like 'Credentialing the credentials'. It can be found here: https://www.class-central.com/certificate It still early but this might help potential students get a sense of quality of the credential before hand.

OT, but let me mention this: the contrast of white on blue on this page is so strong it made me close it.

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#53

Post by hsparikh »

sanderjd wrote: post #43
bunderbunder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the video-only thing is problematic. But I think they're stuck there. If you're having a hard time convincing students to pay $50 for the class, can you really ask them to buy a $200 textbook?

I think the "only" part isn't referring so much to the exclusion of a textbook as the exclusion of projects and exercises. Videos and textbooks are both too passive. The biggest issue with MOOCs in 2015 is the relative lack of active engagement with the material through checked exercises and with teachers, tutors, mentors, and peers through one-on-one engagement (whether in person or via phone or chat) rather than on…

At Tuva (tuvalabs.com), we are creating an environment to learn foundational statistics and data analysis concepts and skills that go well beyond just video instruction. To get a feel for experience, check out a 30 sec demo here: https://vimeo.com/137256993

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#54

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #43
bunderbunder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the video-only thing is problematic. But I think they're stuck there. If you're having a hard time convincing students to pay $50 for the class, can you really ask them to buy a $200 textbook?

I think the "only" part isn't referring so much to the exclusion of a textbook as the exclusion of projects and exercises. Videos and textbooks are both too passive. The biggest issue with MOOCs in 2015 is the relative lack of active engagement with the material through checked exercises and with teachers, tutors, mentors, and peers through one-on-one engagement (whether in person or via phone or chat) rather than on…

[deleted]

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#55

Post by riffraff »

tboyd47 wrote: post #5

> The company has created a series of courses that add up to mini-degrees that students can earn quickly, and pay a small fee to certify that they successfully completed them. “It’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s who are interested in learning more skills and making themselves prepared for better jobs,” said Mr. Levin. Has anyone else noticed that since this recent pivot, the quality of Coursera's classes have de…

I think I did some classes of the data science nanodegree (forgive me for not remembering the exact name) and I found the quality to be on par with other courses.

But having taken a dozen of them on coursera, I feel there isn't really a standard that is declining, it's just that some classes are fantastic, some not very much so, and it has been like this since the beginning.

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#56

Post by Yhippa »

minimaxir wrote: post #8

Do people typically put qualifications from a Coursera class on a resume? The credibility of a college education in the professional world can't be replaced as easily. I've taken a few Machine Learning / Big Data courses using MOOCs and done enough homework such that I get a certificate. But I'd never put it on a resume because that would imply mastery of the subject, and no MOOC is as sufficient in coverage as a nor…

For that matter how about taking individual MS CS courses like cryptography?

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#57

Post by cosmie »

6stringmerc wrote: post #33
randomwalker wrote: post #24

I'm the instructor of an upcoming Coursera course [1]. A couple of observations from my point of view: * I wish there were a way to fund online education through philanthropy/donations. Coursera being for-profit leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. At a practical level, it complicates what images I can use in my lectures and qualify as fair use. * After several years the site is far from being at a point where a…

Interesting observations and notes. Glad to see a little bit of background / context regarding the mechanics. Regarding my perspectives, I have a background teaching and an advanced degree in education course design. Regarding point 1, my understanding of Fair Use within an Education environment is that an instructor using protected material in the context of a lecture or assignment is, by default, an instance of Fai…

> This scenario strikes me as counter-intuitive from a savings perspective, because now there's two layers involved: Instructors and IT Support. Actually, it sounds like a terrible waste of overhead and expense the University is laying out. Will Coursera reimburse your institution for the burden, or is it so small compared to the revenue brought in through Coursera that the expense is immaterial?

If it's anything like my university was, the team he's referring to didn't exclusively support Coursera; their purpose is to provide faculty assistance with managing online content in general. Whether it's the university's internal Blackboard site or Coursera, they support whatever platforms the professors are using (assuming it's a university approved platform).

So the marginal expense of supporting Coursera is likely negligible, unless they've somehow managed to make a worse interface than Blackboard and it's particularly resource intensive to support.

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#59

Post by picardo »

I completed 23 courses on Coursera and I love the platform. But I don't buy the notion that Coursera is becoming the lead generator for the traditional universities. I would never trade in my learning experience with one where I have to be physically present in a classroom to learn. And by and large most universities are still organized around the classroom experience. Until that changes, I don't think I'll be applying for a traditional college degree.

Re: As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

#60

Post by Kalium »

randomwalker wrote: post #24

I'm the instructor of an upcoming Coursera course [1]. A couple of observations from my point of view: * I wish there were a way to fund online education through philanthropy/donations. Coursera being for-profit leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. At a practical level, it complicates what images I can use in my lectures and qualify as fair use. * After several years the site is far from being at a point where a…

> * I wish there were a way to fund online education through philanthropy/donations. Coursera being for-profit leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. At a practical level, it complicates what images I can use in my lectures and qualify as fair use.

There are ways to do this. The problem is that they don't readily scale. Self-funding systems scale much better than systems that require ever-increasing amounts of external funding.

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