I received this e-mail from Udacity today. Hello fellow Udacians, We’re excited to announce that as of today, in partnership with San Jose State University, we are extending our for-credit pilot this summer—and adding really cool classes to the mix. Anyone that enrolls and completes these pilot courses will get SJSU credit—credit from a California State University school that transfers into most major US colleges and universities! For just $150, you’ll get transferable college credit in key general education subject areas such as: Intro to Programming Intro to Psychology Elementary Statistics College Algebra Thanks for helping us broaden education beyond the brick walls of traditional institutions. Know someone that would benefit from getting ahead with college credit? Give them that opportunity and share this today.
Delete this thread. I just noticed this was discussed. And I thought I was brining something new to the table. You guys know every damn thing.
The SJSU/Udacity partnership started in January, and was discussed in another thread at that time. However, the initial offering was rather limited -- three lower-level math courses, capped at 100 students per course. It looks like SJSU/Udacity are now expanding the program. They are adding courses in psychology and programming, and increasing the enrollment to 1,000 students per course. So that's new.
It looks like Udacity and SJSU are on to something. I wonder how many classes and students would be needed to make this MOOC venture profitable? Also, $150 for a 3 credit hour class from a State Uni can't be beat.
Note that this refers to "Amherst College" -- not the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. Amherst College is a small, very selective, private liberal arts college, with a total enrollment of about 1,800. Their education model (since 1821) is to offer small classes to highly qualified students, with lots of personal attention from the professors. This is an expensive model, but they can afford it, because they are also one of the wealthiest private schools in the US (on a per-student endowment basis). However, it doesn't seem like Amherst College is a natural fit for the MOOC model -- which involves offering huge classes on an open basis with little or no personal attention from the professors.
For comparison, UMass-Amherst will be starting its first MOOC -- a free noncredit class on web design -- in May. Another branch of the same system, UMass-Boston, has announced a couple of free non-credit MOOCs as well.
Amherst College has indicated that they are not rejecting online education entirely -- they just don't think they are a good fit for edX specificially. Amherst may be the first school that has turned down a chance to join the edX Consortium, which was founded by Harvard and MIT. Besides Harvard and MIT, the only other US schools that have been accepted are Berkeley, Texas, Georgetown, Rice, and Wellesley (there are also five non-US schools). It's interesting to note that at least one Amherst prof actually conducted a direct evaluation of edX, by signing up for a course herself. Apparently she was not totally impressed:
