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Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

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Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#151

Post by glogla »

ikeboy wrote: post #143
znpy wrote: post #116

In case you want to download as may courses as possible before they fade away, here are some notes. Please forgive me some mistakes, I wrote this a bit in a hurry. =========================== 1) Spawn a virtual server on DigitalOcean. I am using the 40$/month in order to have 40GB of space, but my plan is to shut it down in a day or two. The advantage is to have storage space AND super-fast connection. If you don't w…

Can someone get the archive team on this?

I don't think that would be legal. Coursera ToS definitely prohibits something like this.

I can see a case for a torrent with the courses mysteriously appearing on some torrent site and someone linking it here, though. Man, those cheeky pirates! They can't leave anything alone.

(I don't personally have bandwidth for something like that, sadly. Of course I'm also not a pirate.)

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#152

Post by raldu »

I have been feeling more and more disappointed with their step-by-step implementation of paywalling learners, and a general decline in community engagement. This decision to cut access to the old material is very short-sighted, and it would do more harm than good to their "business".

The old content would have been perceived as having a historical value, as being among the first courses published in the first actual MOOC platform, not to mention the tremendous value those courses contributed by successfully reaching wide audiences around the world, changing many lives. Now they are making a bad image out of themselves.

Coursera has been getting progressively worse. There is no community engagement. I cannot be surprised or engaged by non-discussion going on, which is also the case with edX, by the way. I have done mentorship in one of the paid courses at Coursera and all I could do was to mechanically answer technical questions. Nobody cared about the critical aspects, nobody cared about generating interesting and thought-provoking discussions, even when some mentors have encouraged it. As mentors, what we were doing was just free technical support for the course providers.

Further, the recent content is at best feels like "best seller" stuff for whatever trending industry anyway. Even the UI has been getting slower.

This example provides the meaning of backing up (and further sharing) data stored in the cloud. Mostly we do not think it would be necessary to backup since the data is going to stay there "forever", right?

As a final note, I was surprised that nobody mentioned FutureLearn (https://www.futurelearn.com). It is a new MOOC platform with somewhat "European" feeling to it. I have surprisingly had the best community experience with quality discussions in one of the courses provided there. The overall content is very diverse and interesting. And yes, the UI is faster!

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#153

Post by shock »

raldu wrote: post #146
znpy wrote: post #116

In case you want to download as may courses as possible before they fade away, here are some notes. Please forgive me some mistakes, I wrote this a bit in a hurry. =========================== 1) Spawn a virtual server on DigitalOcean. I am using the 40$/month in order to have 40GB of space, but my plan is to shut it down in a day or two. The advantage is to have storage space AND super-fast connection. If you don't w…

So why not share all the downloaded content through a p2p torrent network, rather than to keep them in our own servers to ourselves, so that everyone else benefits?

The Coursera TOS prohibit this. Specificaly, "You may download content from our Services only for your personal, non-commercial use, unless you obtain Coursera's written permission to otherwise use the content."[0]

[0] - https://www.coursera.org/about/terms

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#154

Post by jaked89 »

latenightcoding wrote: post #113
jaked89 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coursera is willing to have the same amount of money you're willing to keep. How are they greedier than you? Expecting a service without giving anything in return is the definition of "greedy".

You just don't get it. I can afford to pay for a MOOC and I would consider it, but there are millions of people who can't afford it. Coursera's about page used to say this: "committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it". Now they have removed every instance of the word "free" https://www.coursera.org/about/ Nothing wrong with being a for-profit company, but they went…

So? They have changed their business model. They're entitled to do so.

If you care so much about the poor, you might as well subsidize a MOOC for them, instead of demanding Coursera to do so.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#156

Post by mamon »

saganus wrote: post #77
HugoMelo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat. Found https://github.com/coursera-dl/coursera-dl and was able to download part 1 and 2.

What course names did you use? I could not find the ones from Prof. Sedgewick, only the one from Prof. Roughgarden

try algs4partI-010 and algs4partII-007

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#157

Post by veddox »

sotojuan wrote: post #6
tgokh wrote: post #3

Coursera actually converted a course I was enrolled in to paid-quizzes-only, while I was actively enrolled in the course and on the second to last week of eight. They finally converted it back after 2 days of many of us contacting support but never gave me a straight answer as to whether it was accidentally or intentional :-/ Definitely lost my faith in Coursera as a platform over these recent changes.

I never liked Coursera because they offered classes only sometimes... I know a "real classroom" experience is what they were going after but it sucks finding a great looking course that will be offered a year later or worse, no upcoming dates. Sad to see they're going to downhill though.

Yeah, it did suck when a course you wanted wasn't available any time soon, but I have to say their model did make sense. I took part in a timed/dated course (however you want to call it) and it did actually give one something approaching a "classroom feeling", as compared to doing a course completely on your own.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#158

Post by clintonb »

srikz wrote: post #128
sreeramvenkat wrote: post #25

I hope edx does not follow coursera way.

If I remember correctly edX is a non-profit. So I guess at least the content will be freely available even if they charge for the certification. I think both Coursera and edX have some financing schemes for those who can't afford the price, although I haven't found out how it actually works.

edX is a non-profit, and the majority of our code is open source. However, course content belongs to the course creators—professors and universities. We have agreements in place to keep most content public, and re-run courses, for multiple years in some cases.

Learners who want a verified certificate but need financial assistance can learn more at https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/sections/203392988-Financia....

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#159

Post by znpy »

raldu wrote: post #146
znpy wrote: post #116

In case you want to download as may courses as possible before they fade away, here are some notes. Please forgive me some mistakes, I wrote this a bit in a hurry. =========================== 1) Spawn a virtual server on DigitalOcean. I am using the 40$/month in order to have 40GB of space, but my plan is to shut it down in a day or two. The advantage is to have storage space AND super-fast connection. If you don't w…

So why not share all the downloaded content through a p2p torrent network, rather than to keep them in our own servers to ourselves, so that everyone else benefits?

As someone else pointed out, that is not allowed by the TOS.

But quite frankly... now that such content is not freely available anymore, I expect that to begin circulating on the p2p networks anyway.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#160

Post by znpy »

ikeboy wrote: post #143
znpy wrote: post #116

In case you want to download as may courses as possible before they fade away, here are some notes. Please forgive me some mistakes, I wrote this a bit in a hurry. =========================== 1) Spawn a virtual server on DigitalOcean. I am using the 40$/month in order to have 40GB of space, but my plan is to shut it down in a day or two. The advantage is to have storage space AND super-fast connection. If you don't w…

Can someone get the archive team on this?

I would like to point out that I am only downloading such content for my personal use, and I am just helping other people do the same.
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