On the Internet, a university without a campus

Article is at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/25/technology/university.4-415520.php


jim

 

I heard about this around 5 years ago. It's a very interesting idea but what real world applications would it have? I know that college should be about learning and it certainly looks to fulfill that gap but even on this site we have pages and pages of free training, courses etc. for non credit. So how would this differ? We all know that accreditation is a huge issue here in the U.S. so this might be a major barrier for him here. I wonder how other countries will treat it. Good article though...thanks...

 

The difference is that in this, the courses will be taught by instructors, most of whom will be volunteers (hopefully, with the appropriate educational background).

 

This isn't a new concept. Michael Saylor had the same plan back in 2000.

The Free Online Degree

The plan never got off the ground because Saylor's company lost about 6 billion dollars due to accounting irregularities.

Here is an article from the NY Times with more details about Saylor's planned "free degree". Interestingly, the same article mentions something called Unext, which led to Cardean University.