Coursera should ONLY allow access to IPs from .GOV -- Clearly these are the most desperately in need of an education.
Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
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Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#12This is ridiculous! What is the use of being the premier institute in the world, and do just about nothing about such a obvious immorality!? The kids in these countries are already suffering under oppression/war/famine/ you name it.. things you won't want upon yourself, much less on your kids.I know a guy who plays a rpg with me who is from Syria, he is 14 year old, and his school is defunct. Just few months back I r…
Actually, edX did something like this a while ago too.
edX is, however, working on opening its doors to anyone who wants to learn:
> Tena Herlihy, edX’s general counsel, said the company has since last May worked with the U.S. State Department and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and has so far applied for and received company-specific licenses for its MOOCs to enroll students in Cuba and Iran (a third license, for Sudan, is still in the works).
source: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/state-dept-blo...
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't on Coursera. Take it up with your elected officials.
>Take it up with your elected officials. Yeah, how's that working out? But I totally agree this is not on Coursera.
>Yeah, how's that working out?
It isn't, of course. But that's not the topic on hand.
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#14Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#15Someone should create a Coursera clone that's not hosted in the US.
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#16Interesting that coursera mentions that they only have a IP address block. It seems like they just want people to workaround that and access the courses.
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#17Someone should create a Coursera clone that's not hosted in the US.
I suppose they could, but they'd fall into the copyright netherworld in most every case.
Some faculty have chosen to release MOOCs under creative commons and other similarly permissive licenses, but those are few and far between.
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#18A startup in Europe should create a free proxy to use Coursera for these guys living in those unfortunate countries. Berlin, London, Munich, etc. anything?
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#19A startup in Europe should create a free proxy to use Coursera for these guys living in those unfortunate countries. Berlin, London, Munich, etc. anything?
So that startup can have their Paypal account frozen? No thank you. Probably the best way is to create a Coursera competitor.
Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria
#20Interesting that coursera mentions that they only have a IP address block. It seems like they just want people to workaround that and access the courses.
This gives you a good idea of how difficult it is to comply with regulations in the US. And, conversely, how (in)effective regulations which don't respect the underlying technological capabilities can be.
A few things to think about: -What if students try to access once from a blacklisted IP? Is their account now blacklisted? -Does Coursera need to comb its logs for past accesses from those countries? -What if a student mentioned their home country on the message board? -What if the person claims to be an American working in Sudan?