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Comment by prezjordan | Hacker News Reader

Definitely a step in the right direction, but I wish the degree didn't have the word "online" in it. I'd like to see them advertise the same integrity of their "offline" masters program.

I imagine the work is equal, and the word "online" shouldn't carry a negative connotation, but it sort of does.

Best of luck to anyone taking this on - again, I'm sure the program is great.

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Looks like the degree will not contain the word "online". From the FAQ:

> How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript? The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science.

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/

They said the same thing on their Twitter Q/A https://twitter.com/GTOMSCS

"@GTOMSCS Is the Degree Awarded same as that for a residential program?"

"@sahuja79 Yes. The degree is the same as that for a residential program. Recommendations are not required but strongly encouraged."

Pretty black and white.

I can understanding hedging on the first class; nobody knows if this will work well or not, so GT might just be trying to protect its current alumni from dilution in prestige if things go wrong. In the long run though, I agree that the "online" label must go.

Based on the FAQ the "online" label is gone!

How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript?

The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science.

EDIT: jophde posted the relevant link to the FAQ where I searched for this question.

There is no online label.

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/ See the thread below too. It's the same degree.

Source? It seems that it does.

"The Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS CS) is now accepting applications "

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program/

In my understanding this distinction makes the degree essentially worthless.

Udacity and Georgia Tech are comparing the real master's and online master's as equivalent, but there hasn't been any evidence that employers or other universities (for PhD programs etc) would treat the online master's any better than a string of MOOC completions.

While usual bachelor and master degrees offer a "costly advertising" function, the lowered barriers should actually make the degree less attractive to employers. They could always hire self-taught engineers at a considerable discount if they wanted to.

This is a chicken and egg scenario though. By producing masters online grads into the world employers will encounter them and firm their own opinion on the quality of their education.

Yes, chicken and egg. But the chicken (students) are putting up the eggs (tuition). So I'm not extremely sceptical about the whole thing, but I consider it a very high risk for students eligible for an established master's program...

On second thought I just learned that the "online" prefix is abandoned now, so I am much more optimistic about the whole thing. And yes, it worries me that I would worry about a one word distinction...

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6512943

I'd be very surprised if the work is equal. I know in theory it should be, but I think reality is that it will have to be much more programatically grade-able and won't be.

From my memories at GT near the turn of millennium, most work in CS was already programmatically gradable. The course descriptions look every bit as rigorous. Seems the only real difference is the level of access to personal assistance in the class.

Same memories here for the everything through senior year of BS, but after that things were more self defined projects with a lot more gray area for functionality, API definitions, etc.

I thought/have heard secondhand here that MS was more along those lines, but I may be completely wrong there.

I only did undergrad there, but was friends with several MS students. It seemed to largely differ course to course. Some were more research/project oriented, and others seemed more like an undergrad course with a narrower focus. Format might have even differed based on professor. Either way it doesn't seem a stretch to use autograding for a MS, at least for non-thesis options.

Perhaps, either way I'm always hoping for the alma mater to do well in all areas its involved in.

I'm taking classes for an online program right now where the courses allow online-only part time, in-person part time, and in-person full-time students (a few in both undergraduate and graduate tracks). The last two had many hundreds of enrolled students.

Especially at larger universities, the question is the availability of TAs -- every assignment in all three classes so far has had writing components that require human grading.

Online students require a significantly lower load of in-person support (office hours, multiple lab sections, etc) because they're expected to do more self-teaching.

Stanford's public machine learning and other CS courses with their 10's of thousands of completing students, or EdX's Harvard CS50 class with its 1000's of students are good examples where grading against a rubric seems to scale.

Seems like a fair trade for the discounted price. Their normal program rates are about 5-10x more than the OMSCS program.

Is it a necessary or fair trade if the per-student cost to GT is proportionally less, and the work is reasonably equivalent?

I really don't care how much it is to produce. I do care about the value I will derive from it. To me, 7k for a GT MS is a steal, especially if I don't have to move or disrupt my family's routine in any way.

It depends whether you think it is fair if someone sells a product for what people will pay for it instead of what it costs to produce plus a set margin.

Well of course fair is what people will pay for it. If it wasn't fair, people wouldn't pay for it. If you think "cost + some fixed preset margin" is fair, and they don't, then you won't pay for it.

Having just completed an MS CS here, I can tell you that the most important part of my experience was not the course work, but rather the research opportunities. I spent far more time working on research projects with professors and they developed me far better than my classes did. Though the class-work might be the same, the total work will not be the same. You're getting what you paid for: an elite graduate-level education for a small fraction of the cost for people who might not be accepted otherwise which can be completed remotely at each person's own convenience.

That being said, there are some pretty great professors here and you will probably learn a great deal from the classes you wouldn't be able to elsewhere. But the reality is that the two degrees will never really hold the same weight, and to pretend like they do devalues the "offline" program we worked hard and paid more money and time to get.

I disagree here.

What GATech is showing with this introduction of the course is the start. There are numerous links in the page referencing the College of Computing Website, which in turn discusses the Project Option and Thesis Option of the MS CS degree. As such, it seems likely to me that GATech will be putting their online students through the same ropes as their offline students.

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