I'm all for what Udacity, Coursera, and others are trying to do, but there have been proper online universities such as the Open University doing this for years with hundreds of types of degrees, and with bigger classes.
Let's put the "massive" back in "MooC".
Also, $7k? I can get a on-campus CS masters in a world top 100 university here in Ireland for that price. I guess education in the US must be ultra expensive.
Everything that is near-socialized in other western industrialized countries is paradoxically more expensive here. 3 Years of law school is $150k, not counting actual cost of living. Schools run in the realm of $14k to $50k a year in tuition costs alone.
That isn't all -- none of the classes actually have 375 students. There are several classes being offered per semester, and most students are doing only one or two. I can't find the figure at the moment, but iirc class sizes are ~150.
Most interesting to me was this: "88% of the applicants are US-based as compared to 10% for the on-campus degree." My guess is that the $7K price that seems revolutionary in the US is just too expensive in a worldwide context. At lot of international students do come to the US, but that's for traditional on-campus education. If you're not going all-in in that manner, might as well attend a local institution for a fraction of the cost. This kinda puts paid to some of the MOOC rhetoric of opening education to the masses.
On the other hand, I'm really happy to see Udacity developing a viable business model. Coursera has received a lot more publicity, with their wider range of courses, but haven't seem to put as much emphasis on developed a sustainable income stream. I like what both of these companies do and would like to see them stick around.
>My guess is that the $7K price that seems revolutionary in the US is just too expensive in a worldwide context.
Yep! That would be my guess too. As an American who immigrated to Europe for an affordable Master's degree, I can understand both sides of this. $7K would have sounded completely reasonable to me 5 years ago, but now after I have paid only 500 Euros a semester, that is my new threshold for what I'd probably be willing to pay... Not that there is any strict logic behind what an education is or is not "worth," but compared to other opportunities there is no reason for me to pay more.
That would be correct. In Portugal, university fees are around €1000 per annum. A private university costs around €5000. So by our standards, this is expensive.
A second disadvantage is that American degrees are not automatically recognized here - you have to ask for an equivalence; and very likely an online degree would not be recognized, because it does not follow a traditional format in terms of course attendance and examinations.
The only advantage of this degree is the fact that you can take it online, and that is not very compelling, as you can find most of this material for free.
I think many MOOC studies show that while "the poor girl in Afghanistan" is theoretically possible and a nice heart-warming story, the reality is that it's mostly used by already fairly well educated Caucasian males from well developed countries.
[classes are also mostly not completed etc.]
I'm really wondering why that is the case and feel like they should focus a lot on fixing this because bringing great education to people that otherwise can't get it would be the real breakthrough (insert solar powered mini-TV story by Christensen for the old compete with nonconsumption here)
Either way I hope this prototype succeeds and which them luck.
I'm one of the students that was admitted to this first round of classes. I've been taking MOOC's since the first round of Stanford courses in 2011, so I was excited to see this program develop just as I was applying to other graduate schools.
Admission for the first round was very limited to keep it manageable while they address any issues that come up early in the new program (and there have been a few, though nothing major). I think the original idea was to offer 6 classes and allow 100 students per class - 600 total. But only 5 classes ended up being offered, and the total acceptance was lowered further as students will take more than one class at a time. Within a few semesters they intend to accept anyone who meets the qualifications, with no regard to class size.
Regarding the cost, it is in fact revolutionary for US residents. My bill for the one class I'm taking was $700 ($400 in flat fees and $100 per credit hour). My next choice of school was NC State which would have cost several times that even though I'm an NC resident. A good out of state school, even a public one, would have likely been unaffordable to me. At this rate my employer's limited education reimbursement program will cover the entire cost of my degree with GaTech.
I am very interested in this program and will be applying for the Summer 2014. I've also been taking online courses off and on at Coursera, Udacity, and Stanford. Currently, I'm writing my statement of purpose and background essay. Do you think your history of taking online classes was significant to your admission? I'd also appreciate any pointers for SoP...
2,360 people applied, each paying a $50 admission fee [0]. That's a cool 118k for admissions triaging. Also on that page, we can see they originally said up to 600 people would be admitted for the pilot program. They admitted 375, with some deferring admission. Maybe the entire 225 other people deferred, but if not I wonder why they scaled back the pilot program.
The average age is 35 for the pilot program vs. 24 for on-campus masters. Interesting, but not very surprising. I'm not far past the on-campus age, but I'm keeping my eyes on such programs for the future.
The specialities they plan to offer is also in [0]. When I first read that page, I was saddened not to see any options related to programming languages. My only other major speciality interest was operating systems, but I burnt out on that a little. The software development process material sounds interesting. I bet there will be a lot of interest in the AI/Robots and machine learning specialities through this program.
I wonder when the courses will be made available for free? An early post about the program promised that "the bare content will be available free of charge." [1] I was hoping to get an idea of what the courses would be like early this year. I don't see anything on Udacity about the courses at the moment.
All that said, I'm excited about this program by Udacity and Georgia Tech, even given the apparent failure of MOOCs we have been hearing about. I say apparent, as I think measuring percent-to-complete is misguided, as I know I have gained plenty of knowledge from courses being offered without completing them. The movement to corporate sponsored project courses is interesting, but I'm not a big fan of the idea to pay to "commit to your success" [2]. The extra guidance will be a boon for some people, though.
I'm rooting for this to work out. If you can do it alongside a job they could very well "compete with nonconsumption" of sorts. This already exists on somewhat large scale in some countries. The biggest (by enrolment) university in Germany is a "Fernuniversität"
Ultimately I hope these take off, prices go down (they become essentially free with payments for taking tests i.e. universities become more certification agencies). Hope the brand name of universities will be measured by the quality of the free education they provide in the future. 7k$ is not a price point that excites me.
And of course I hope this leads to the non-online classes getting better and better as they have to provide truely great value.
[especially for CS I could also see companies tapping in and offering some sort of mentoring/intern programs]
You can't get a visa to study this degree inside the US, but Georgia Tech has said that the actual degree given at the end will be the same as that given to on-campus students. It is a "Masters in Computer Science" -- the "Online" bit is only for marketing and internal administrative purposes (or so I've been led to believe.)
It's a not particularly massive online degree program using similar mechanisms to those used in MOOCs for classes—but it's not the first such program by any stretch of the imagination. Such programs are actually older than free MOOCs, and a number of instutions have had them for years; Kaplan has several, including a JD program.
This seems to be the first to try to leverage the attention to MOOCs in te marketing, and might be the first non-professional graduate program of the type.
Funny, as I have found most of the newer courses seriously lacking any tangible depth or usefulness (Intro to Hadoop/MapReduce took a few hours and barely covered the basics). The old Artificial Intelligence or Parallel Programming are probably some of the best on the site.
Why would anyone pay for a degree, let alone online degree, is still a mystery for me. You don't need a degree if you are really interested in computer science.
Btw it seems they found a solution to some of the problems faced by MOOCs. Lower the drop-out rate by introducing an entry barrier. And also restict the class size to reach a manageable amount for actual class-like experience. Also, offer an ACTUAL degree, thus providing incentive to students to carry on with the program.
"it seems they found a solution to some of the problems faced by MOOCs ... "
So its exactly the same as a traditional distance course then?
In what way does this solve any of the problems of MOOCs? (And I question whether MOOCs should even look at drop-out rates as a failure, but thats another rant)
Its not "massive" by any stretches of the imagination. It just happens to be an online course. I welcome the age of online degrees and I hope the trend continues and that they can scale it to become 'massive' in the future without damaging the prestige of the degree. But they have a way to go yet.
[+] [-] RafiqM|12 years ago|reply
I'm all for what Udacity, Coursera, and others are trying to do, but there have been proper online universities such as the Open University doing this for years with hundreds of types of degrees, and with bigger classes.
Let's put the "massive" back in "MooC".
Also, $7k? I can get a on-campus CS masters in a world top 100 university here in Ireland for that price. I guess education in the US must be ultra expensive.
[+] [-] navyrain|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmanfrin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] repsilat|12 years ago|reply
That isn't all -- none of the classes actually have 375 students. There are several classes being offered per semester, and most students are doing only one or two. I can't find the figure at the moment, but iirc class sizes are ~150.
[+] [-] eonil|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noelwelsh|12 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I'm really happy to see Udacity developing a viable business model. Coursera has received a lot more publicity, with their wider range of courses, but haven't seem to put as much emphasis on developed a sustainable income stream. I like what both of these companies do and would like to see them stick around.
[+] [-] tinkerdol|12 years ago|reply
Yep! That would be my guess too. As an American who immigrated to Europe for an affordable Master's degree, I can understand both sides of this. $7K would have sounded completely reasonable to me 5 years ago, but now after I have paid only 500 Euros a semester, that is my new threshold for what I'd probably be willing to pay... Not that there is any strict logic behind what an education is or is not "worth," but compared to other opportunities there is no reason for me to pay more.
[+] [-] atlantic|12 years ago|reply
A second disadvantage is that American degrees are not automatically recognized here - you have to ask for an equivalence; and very likely an online degree would not be recognized, because it does not follow a traditional format in terms of course attendance and examinations.
The only advantage of this degree is the fact that you can take it online, and that is not very compelling, as you can find most of this material for free.
[+] [-] kriro|12 years ago|reply
I'm really wondering why that is the case and feel like they should focus a lot on fixing this because bringing great education to people that otherwise can't get it would be the real breakthrough (insert solar powered mini-TV story by Christensen for the old compete with nonconsumption here)
Either way I hope this prototype succeeds and which them luck.
[+] [-] norswap|12 years ago|reply
I don't understand why studying in Europe is not a more popular choice amongst young Americans.
[+] [-] someguy235|12 years ago|reply
Admission for the first round was very limited to keep it manageable while they address any issues that come up early in the new program (and there have been a few, though nothing major). I think the original idea was to offer 6 classes and allow 100 students per class - 600 total. But only 5 classes ended up being offered, and the total acceptance was lowered further as students will take more than one class at a time. Within a few semesters they intend to accept anyone who meets the qualifications, with no regard to class size.
Regarding the cost, it is in fact revolutionary for US residents. My bill for the one class I'm taking was $700 ($400 in flat fees and $100 per credit hour). My next choice of school was NC State which would have cost several times that even though I'm an NC resident. A good out of state school, even a public one, would have likely been unaffordable to me. At this rate my employer's limited education reimbursement program will cover the entire cost of my degree with GaTech.
[+] [-] Omnipresent|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmunoz|12 years ago|reply
2,360 people applied, each paying a $50 admission fee [0]. That's a cool 118k for admissions triaging. Also on that page, we can see they originally said up to 600 people would be admitted for the pilot program. They admitted 375, with some deferring admission. Maybe the entire 225 other people deferred, but if not I wonder why they scaled back the pilot program.
The average age is 35 for the pilot program vs. 24 for on-campus masters. Interesting, but not very surprising. I'm not far past the on-campus age, but I'm keeping my eyes on such programs for the future.
The specialities they plan to offer is also in [0]. When I first read that page, I was saddened not to see any options related to programming languages. My only other major speciality interest was operating systems, but I burnt out on that a little. The software development process material sounds interesting. I bet there will be a lot of interest in the AI/Robots and machine learning specialities through this program.
I wonder when the courses will be made available for free? An early post about the program promised that "the bare content will be available free of charge." [1] I was hoping to get an idea of what the courses would be like early this year. I don't see anything on Udacity about the courses at the moment.
All that said, I'm excited about this program by Udacity and Georgia Tech, even given the apparent failure of MOOCs we have been hearing about. I say apparent, as I think measuring percent-to-complete is misguided, as I know I have gained plenty of knowledge from courses being offered without completing them. The movement to corporate sponsored project courses is interesting, but I'm not a big fan of the idea to pay to "commit to your success" [2]. The extra guidance will be a boon for some people, though.
[0] https://www.udacity.com/GeorgiaTech
[1] http://blog.udacity.com/2013/05/sebastian-thrun-announcing-o...
[2] https://www.udacity.com/success
[+] [-] kriro|12 years ago|reply
I'm rooting for this to work out. If you can do it alongside a job they could very well "compete with nonconsumption" of sorts. This already exists on somewhat large scale in some countries. The biggest (by enrolment) university in Germany is a "Fernuniversität"
Ultimately I hope these take off, prices go down (they become essentially free with payments for taking tests i.e. universities become more certification agencies). Hope the brand name of universities will be measured by the quality of the free education they provide in the future. 7k$ is not a price point that excites me.
And of course I hope this leads to the non-online classes getting better and better as they have to provide truely great value.
[especially for CS I could also see companies tapping in and offering some sort of mentoring/intern programs]
[+] [-] GFischer|12 years ago|reply
I guess you're referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernUniversit%C3%A4t_Hagen
"a public research university focused on distance teaching"
[+] [-] eonil|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] repsilat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|12 years ago|reply
This seems to be the first to try to leverage the attention to MOOCs in te marketing, and might be the first non-professional graduate program of the type.
[+] [-] James_Duval|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busoni|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freigeist|12 years ago|reply
Traditional education is far too detached from what is required in industry, and has trouble keeping up with the pace of innovation.
[+] [-] nightski|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjjw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marsay|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] th0114nd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xerophtye|12 years ago|reply
Btw it seems they found a solution to some of the problems faced by MOOCs. Lower the drop-out rate by introducing an entry barrier. And also restict the class size to reach a manageable amount for actual class-like experience. Also, offer an ACTUAL degree, thus providing incentive to students to carry on with the program.
[+] [-] polymatter|12 years ago|reply
So its exactly the same as a traditional distance course then?
In what way does this solve any of the problems of MOOCs? (And I question whether MOOCs should even look at drop-out rates as a failure, but thats another rant)
Its not "massive" by any stretches of the imagination. It just happens to be an online course. I welcome the age of online degrees and I hope the trend continues and that they can scale it to become 'massive' in the future without damaging the prestige of the degree. But they have a way to go yet.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sarojt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eleutheria|12 years ago|reply
That's disruptive.