Inside higher education highlights two programs, with the delightful opening
"Self-employed professor" could soon be an actual job title, thanks to two companies that are helping a small group of college professors market their own online courses, set prices for them and share the tuition revenue.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/14/two-companies-give-faculty-more-control-online-courses#ixzz2GqMXDr5V
Inside Higher Ed
The article highlights Straighterline and Udemy.com. the more interesting to me is straighter line, especially reading this quote in the article:
Smith calls the new course offerings an “eBay for professors,” who can now “hang out their shingle” with the company's help. “It used to be that students paid professors directly,” Smith said. “We’re rebuilding that model, but with a baseline for assessments.”
I've inquired after this point, because as far as I am concerned, I am the only one advocating students pay instructors directly, a resumption of the medieval model. Straighterline has confirmed he refers here to the medieval model, and the article comments sections takes up this point.
I search constantly to find someone doing the revolution in education right, and this is pretty close. But to my mind accreditation is the Berlin Wall of education, and although straighterline is not accredited, they are associated with schools that can get the students credit for classes taken with straighterline.
Now Straighterline gets criticized for some iffy content, to which the CEO has responded. To my mind this is no big deal, since innovations are always pretty junky at first. Think about the first Apple ... yeccch!... computers and their products today. That will get cleaned up over time.
What is far more interesting is the CEOs defense of his courses, after being trashed by Inside Higher Education, this in the comments section after the article:
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/16/review_of_straighterline_online_courses#ixzz2GqUji5iK
Inside Higher Ed
Correct! Since the basis of accreditation is whimsical, yet it is mandatory for qualification for student loans, that which drives up the cost, and then with cheap money flowing to the schools they ladle on admin on top of admin, with payola to textbook makers, it is clear accreditation is the problem.
My quest continues: unaccredited education, where students pays the instructors directly.
Read especially the comments sections in both articles.
"Self-employed professor" could soon be an actual job title, thanks to two companies that are helping a small group of college professors market their own online courses, set prices for them and share the tuition revenue.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/14/two-companies-give-faculty-more-control-online-courses#ixzz2GqMXDr5V
Inside Higher Ed
The article highlights Straighterline and Udemy.com. the more interesting to me is straighter line, especially reading this quote in the article:
Smith calls the new course offerings an “eBay for professors,” who can now “hang out their shingle” with the company's help. “It used to be that students paid professors directly,” Smith said. “We’re rebuilding that model, but with a baseline for assessments.”
I've inquired after this point, because as far as I am concerned, I am the only one advocating students pay instructors directly, a resumption of the medieval model. Straighterline has confirmed he refers here to the medieval model, and the article comments sections takes up this point.
I search constantly to find someone doing the revolution in education right, and this is pretty close. But to my mind accreditation is the Berlin Wall of education, and although straighterline is not accredited, they are associated with schools that can get the students credit for classes taken with straighterline.
Now Straighterline gets criticized for some iffy content, to which the CEO has responded. To my mind this is no big deal, since innovations are always pretty junky at first. Think about the first Apple ... yeccch!... computers and their products today. That will get cleaned up over time.
What is far more interesting is the CEOs defense of his courses, after being trashed by Inside Higher Education, this in the comments section after the article:
The course taken by the writer has been reviewed and fully recommended for college credit by the ACE Credit service, a service to whose recommendations more than 1000 colleges profess to adhere. This course was reviewed by DETC. This course was reviewed by the College Board’s AP service. Our partner colleges, who award transfer credit for our courses, have been given complete access to the courses. What is the appropriate way to evaluate courses – a single student’s perspective or course-level reviews conducted independently by dozens of professors, dozens of accredited schools and several higher ed associations?
Unfortunately, the standard used by most colleges for the award of transfer credit, the presence or lack of regional accreditation, is not only insufficient to determine course quality but is also unavailable to us. Despite the fact that credit (and courses) are the unit of academic currency in an age when students can take courses from anyone at anytime, individual courses cannot be accredited, only degree granting programs. This means that colleges can offer, and accept for transfer credit, taxpayer-subsidized courses of wildly varying and indeterminate quality under the umbrella of accreditation. If industry-wide course level, outcome based standards existed, we’d be thrilled to follow them. Unfortunately, such standards are always resisted by colleges and accreditors alike, resulting in entirely subjective decisions about what constitutes college credit. Such subjectivity lets colleges keep those with threatening business models out without having to examine their own standards of course delivery.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/16/review_of_straighterline_online_courses#ixzz2GqUji5iK
Inside Higher Ed
Correct! Since the basis of accreditation is whimsical, yet it is mandatory for qualification for student loans, that which drives up the cost, and then with cheap money flowing to the schools they ladle on admin on top of admin, with payola to textbook makers, it is clear accreditation is the problem.
My quest continues: unaccredited education, where students pays the instructors directly.
Read especially the comments sections in both articles.
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