Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As Coursera Evolves, Colleges Stay On and Investors Buy In

chronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 90 posts

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

#61

Post by vanderZwan »

Kalium wrote: post #60
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 ext…

That's a bit hand-wavy. Can you elaborate why you claim this?

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

#62

Post by crypto2222 »

new_hackers wrote: post #18
withzombies wrote: post #9

I like Coursera, but I've been waiting on a class to happen for the past two years and they keep rescheduling it. I really wish they'd address it by either canceling the listing or actually making it happen. The class is Dan Boneh's Crypto 2 course.

I can testify to the quality of this course. I completed both Crypto 1 and Crypto 2. Both were very well presented.

Could you post the Crypto 2 course materials somewhere online?

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

#63

Post by jtouri »

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…

There are ways for the developers to earn the donations asked. Edx is an example of the other one. I live off of mooc courses I learn everything from there, and that's coming from a current college student.

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

#64

Post by weej »

6stringmerc wrote: post #37
weej wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit harsh. You might want to check your perception. According to U.S. News and World Report its graduate school ranks #20. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

Yeah a bit harsh but with reasons. When I look over that list I see UT Austin up at #9 in a tie. I've known for years that the UT Austin program was worthwhile, because it is. I'll stand by the assertion that Rice isn't known as a hotbed of tech, but it is a very fine institution with, I'm sure, excellent metrics in the U.S. News & World Report scoring system...mostly because it's expensive, small, and extremely pick…

Agreed, and this is coming from a UT Austin grad. Hook 'Em!

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

#65

Post by wolfgke »

I personally don't like that Coursera dropped free certificates of accomplishments for many courses. While this might not be such a problem in the US, I (living in Germany) see this as a serious problem in countries as Germany, Austria or Brazil, where it is essential that you have some certificate to prove that you really took the course.

What I'm particularly angry about is that in former days you could get a free certificate of accomplishment for the courses from the Data Science specification

> https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/

A few weeks ago Coursera changed the policy even for these existing courses. That's why I completely lost any trust that I had in Coursera and will actively avoid taking courses from Coursera (and instead look what edX has to offer).

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

#66

Post by Kalium »

vanderZwan wrote: post #61
Kalium wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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 ext…

That's a bit hand-wavy. Can you elaborate why you claim this?

It's a matter of requirements for external resources. If a system needs constant infusions of external money, its ability to grow will be determined by its ability to bring in such external money. This is how non-profits tend to work and why they dedicate such attention to fundraising.

Systems that generate what they need to grow don't have the same constraints. If money is what your business needs to grow and it generates a significant yearly profit, then your business can meet its own needs to enable growth.

Is that clearer? Some sorts of systems, when functioning correctly, will tend to be self-perpetuating. Others will, as an artifact of structure, require endless external resourcing.

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

#67

Post by gavazzy »

wolfgke wrote: post #65

I personally don't like that Coursera dropped free certificates of accomplishments for many courses. While this might not be such a problem in the US, I (living in Germany) see this as a serious problem in countries as Germany, Austria or Brazil, where it is essential that you have some certificate to prove that you really took the course. What I'm particularly angry about is that in former days you could get a free…

Do employers look at certificates at all?

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

#68

Post by Nursie »

new_hackers wrote: post #18
withzombies wrote: post #9

I like Coursera, but I've been waiting on a class to happen for the past two years and they keep rescheduling it. I really wish they'd address it by either canceling the listing or actually making it happen. The class is Dan Boneh's Crypto 2 course.

I can testify to the quality of this course. I completed both Crypto 1 and Crypto 2. Both were very well presented.

Wait what?

I did't think crypto 2 had ever run?

I took the first round of crypto 1 and have been waiting for 2 ever since!

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

#69

Post by anjanb »

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…

hi @randomwalker, I enrolled to that course a few hours ago! I hope that the course is not too bad because of the limitations you mentioned above.

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

#70

Post by kageneko »

gavazzy wrote: post #67
wolfgke wrote: post #65

I personally don't like that Coursera dropped free certificates of accomplishments for many courses. While this might not be such a problem in the US, I (living in Germany) see this as a serious problem in countries as Germany, Austria or Brazil, where it is essential that you have some certificate to prove that you really took the course. What I'm particularly angry about is that in former days you could get a free…

Do employers look at certificates at all?

My current employer is requiring everyone to get Security+ certifications because our clients are starting to require that.

edit: oh, certificate vs certification. I don't know of anyone who cares about the Coursera certificates, but it seems certifications are still in vogue.

Post reply on HN