MITx positions to offer certification for completing courses online
web.mit.edu
web.mit.edu
The article made it clear that MIT was desperate to avoid diluting their own brand equity ("we'll grant certifications using a subsidiary with some other name so there's NO confusion"), but it looks to me as though the industry is heading in the direction I'm talking about one way or another.
The sort of content that MIT offers is exactly what I would rather have. Task-based learning about subjects that interest me. Generalized learning is a waste of my time and effort. "Professional Certifications" like the A+ or Net+ are highly regarded pieces of paper that prove the holder knows how to read a book and take a test which requires no practical knowledge of the material. If the employment industry can embrace this type of learning, and focus on the candidates abilities instead of resume, open learning could have a very bright future.
Also, I have found my education to be very useful in my work, both at home and for my employer. Mainly the math though (discrete, linear algebra, and stats). The programming not so much, as I already knew how to program.
I have considered local colleges, but with two small children and a wife that is a social worker, it is very difficult to find classes that fit my schedule. The premium for online schooling is absolutely ridiculous, but it is the price I pay for the convenience. Also, I have no interest in changing careers, so going full-time is not really an option either.
As for learning experience, an AA in IT is about as basic as it gets. I'm a Systems Administrator taking classes like 'Introduction to LAN Technologies.' I had the most fun in my two Web Design classes because that is something I had not tackled previously... though, to be honest, I could have learned everything those two classes taught me in a weekends time on my own.
When I was in community college, finding night classes and online classes was easy. Once I switched, I had to take more day classes. Glad I had a flexible employer.
As a Sys Admin, I think certifications are king. I work for a global engineering firm and most of the IT guys here need the MCSE and CISCO stuff.
This is a very brave step in the right direction. In the long run they can NOT justify to give those remote learners not a "real" MIT degree (and I am sure they know this).
The remote learner won't be getting the same experience as the residential learner. If nothing else, the remote leaner will be missing out on the lab work (remember "Mens et Manus") which is just as important as the academic work. As an MIT ME my lab work involved transducer work (accelerometers, strain gauges, microphones, LVDTs, DAQs, filters, etc) and manufacturing processes (CAD/CAM, injection molding, welding, machine shop, vacuum forming, CNC, etc) and actually having hands-on experience greatly assisted in my understanding of the academic work - for example, it's one thing to look at the calculations for plastic shrinkage, it's another thing to actually see how shrinkage can vary in your freshly-injection molded part, especially when the dyes used for color can affect shrinkage rates.
Why can't they justify it? If the deal is MIT degrees for residential students and 'distance' degrees from an MIT subsidiary, that's just fine.
Edit: It's trivial to argue that a 'real' MIT degree includes the experience of being resident and directly interacting with profs and other students.
This is seriously one of the coolest things I've heard about in a while.
(I wonder how much "mastery" in some of these classes could play into applying to the school, proper?)
MIT is one of my favorite things, period.
I hope to somehow use their open source video course infrastructure at the university that I work for.
MIT is being a leader for all universities in this field. And it's not like they are 'giving away the milk for free'; because the most valuable part of MIT, besides the diploma, are the people sitting next to you in class. Networking is king, and where better than to network at MIT?
If credentials are awarded, will they be awarded by MIT? As online learning and assessment evolve and improve, online learners who demonstrate mastery of subjects could earn a certificate of completion, but any such credential would not be issued under the name MIT. Rather, MIT plans to create a not-for-profit body within the Institute that will offer certification for online learners of MIT coursework. That body will carry a distinct name to avoid confusion.
The true paradigm shift in education will happen when a student takes an "independent certification exam" related to a specific subject and is recognized as proficient regardless of how it was learned.
MITx is taking one more step in this direction.
The CollegeBoard's Advanced Placement Program does this now. High school students are allowed to take an AP exam whether they have taken an AP course or not. Their score on the exam (1 - 5) is a "recommendation" value that colleges agree to use to grant course credit.
It costs AP students $80 to take an exam. What would happen if MIT adopted this approach and charged $99 to "take the final?" Or consider the Machine Learning course at Stanford with 100,000 registrants. Were 1/3 of them to pay $99 to take the final, the benefit to Stanford would be north of $3.2M dollars! One course. They posted 20 new courses in November alone.
Compare that to what universities make by offering a residential class and the model gets clearer.
At last, the final piece of the puzzle. With a fee structure in place they can afford employees to grade more intensive assignments. It looks like we might finally get a viable competitor to traditional degrees.
You need to hire a programmer, well look, this guy took intro CS, algorithms, compilers, software engineering, Java etc... from MITx.
Keys needed:
* quality teaching and teachers
* highly relevant courses
* learners in batch
* online office hour weekly
* feedback mechanism, sense of connection
* discussion forums - e.g. reddit
e.g. Engineering and Computer Science: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#electrical-engineering-and-compu...
Awesome.
* A way to pay for it.
Will be exciting to see whether the disruption comes top-down from the institutions or bottom-up from startups like codecademy/khanacademy.
I'm bullish on the startups at this point, but happy to see the institutions giving it a go.
I've begun working on something in my spare time that is extraordinarily similar to this MITx. It's not exactly the same, but the model essentially is; all content is free and always will be. Paying for certifying that it was you is the only optional cost. Considering it's so similar, though ideally my version is more open in a number of ways, what does a lowly student trying to build something like this do in light of this news?
Even though this is good news for education overall, I'm literally sitting here, somewhat devastated, hearing that this precise model and idea I've been obsessing over for months is gaining so much talk as 'the final piece to the puzzle,' etc. Do I continue with it and make it better than theirs?
Any advice would be awesome.
No. MITx will begin by offering a portfolio of selected courses, which will grow over time. The selection of courses will depend on the interests of MIT faculty and online learners and will be determined on a course-by-course basis.
I'm guessing that 6.00 will be one of those classes, but Stanford started with AI/ML/DB so I might be wrong. In any event, the prototype should pretty much correspond with Stanford's new batch of online classes.
http://www.db-class.org/ and more to come in January.
I took part in two of them and it was a great experience, so I welcome the competition :-)
Perhaps they've been encouraged to say something publicly about existing plans, since profs at Stanford have just opened a slew of new courses from next Jan onwards.
Aside: It would be really interesting to know how the profs at MIT felt about the Stanford courses. AFAIK, Stanford wasn't 'officially' involved in the online courses and it was primarily driven by the profs themselves.