Hacker News Reader

Comment by kahawe | Hacker News Reader

I think it is great that Harvard and Stanford open their course material on the internet but can someone explain to me why they would do it? I mean, what is in it for them - a bit of PR and friendly headlines aside? Their name and status alone is enough to stay "in business".

View on HN

Harvard and Stanford (and other big name universities) are in the business of "selling" diplomas, not content. You cannot put on your resume that you "aced" a Harvard iTunes course, but only that you graduated from Harvard. I applaud these institutions for realizing it and allowing others to benefit from the content. Think of it as the public library model -- you can certainly pick up Tocqueville or Newton writing and read it, but it offers no guarantee of your mastery of the material. The diploma (supposedly) gives you that badge.

Yes, I understand that but the question then still is... why would they spend time, money and resources to give you all that material for free? Other institutions in the "diploma business" will surely peek and try to keep up and I do not see or understand the benefit for Harvard, Stanford et al. if we are not talking altruistic purposes.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is fantastic they do it and I applaud them - it is just really surprising and I am wondering about their motives, just my own (economic) curiosity.

I think the prestige of a university is tied more to the quality of their research, their legacy as an institution and the reputation of instructors they attract (which need not have anything to do with actual ability to instruct) than the quality of the content or instruction. I don't think the other institutions in the "diploma business" can replicate that as easily.

And these are all good points why it does not HURT them to do that.

But my question was... why DID they do it?

You said "Other institutions in the 'diploma business' will surely peek and try to keep up and I do not see or understand the benefit for Harvard, Stanford et al. if we are not talking altruistic purposes."

My response was on the point of whether other institutions in the "diploma business" would peek to keep up. I was merely stating why Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the like have nothing to fear by opening their courseware. My intentions were merely to diffuse the notion that replicating instruction would suffice to compete with Harvard.

As to why they do it, I think other comments have covered that.

In one word: reputation. These schools want to be seen as social-responsibility leaders, etc. I don't want to sound so negative about it, but there's some element of publicity these institutions are seeking.

Think of this: how many people criticized Steve Jobs for not getting involved in charity, although he had billions in the bank? Do you think it looks good for Harvard University, with over $15bn in endowment to not do any good will project?

Lastly, some of these schools already offer remote learning via video. Putting the videos on iTunes is a sunk cost.

Disclosure: I went to one of those "big name" institutions as an undergrad, grad student, and I also worked there. Few are the projects that are TRULY out of the goodness of somebody's heart

I believe that it is about being adopters to new technology. Some of these things will be incorporated into the future of learning.

No Ivy League school is suffering from profits and, as was posted, the degree from the school holds the most value. It also would help future potential students be aware of what is demanded of them in these academic institutions and potentially give them a chance to learn more should they choose to do so.

I used to work in academia, including a pretty well known university. As much as I like to be cynical at times, I sincerely believe there are lot of good professors at these institutions who sincerely believe that education should be free. Take for example MIT's push to have all their publications made open access, this was driven (in it's early stages) largely by Hal Abelson and a few other dedicated faculty/staff.

Top professors at top universities have a lot of clout, and despite the many issues there are with the current system of higher ed, I do believe that a lot of this work is sincerely driven by the ideals of good professors. Look at the interviews with Sebastian Thrun regarding the AI course, he clearly believes in finding a models of maximizing the quality to cost ratio for education.

Culturally I think places like Stanford, Harvard and MIT know well that many times you don't find your business model until you experiment, and if you want to be in charge of the future you have to be the one doing the experimenting. I think the angle that sells this to admins is that if you're a leading university you want to be pushing these boundaries, and if you want to be a head of the curve you need to be.

In a way, I think that Harvard (and probably Standford, MIT, etc.) have done this all along. It's just getting publicity now.

I am class of '08 at Harvard and actually took this course (taught be a different professor--excellent when I took it). There were a handful of Boston and Cambridge locals who sat in and took the course with me. No one ever said a word to them. When I took a course on the history of Hollywood Cinema--where we watched 2 movies a week on the big screen--there were probably 30 or so locals who sat in on the lectures. No one ever said anything to them.

So Harvard has been a part of the community for some time now .. it's just more public now that you can disseminate lectures on iTunes and the internet instead of actually sitting in the lecture hall.

This being on itunes, i bet it's a pilot to a paid version later, differently from mit, Stanford, et al.

Showing off.

Showing off their tutors, jesus people.

Here is a crazy theory that I don't necessarily subscribe to, but perhaps it is what you are looking for: They are doing this to crush the smallest players in the education business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com