MIT to offer its courses free online by year end

[kalimeeri]

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will become by year's end the first U.S. university to offer all of its roughly 1,800 courses free on the Internet, a school official said on Friday.

 

"We started this project because MIT believes that one of the best ways to advance education around the world is through the Internet," said Anne Margulies, head of online curriculum.

 

Online students will not be able to earn an MIT degree or have contact with faculty at the university, located across the river from Boston in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

MIT launched its "OpenCourseWare" program in 2003 and already offers hundreds of courses online. A small number of other U.S. schools are following suit. Stanford put some classes on line last year and Bryn Mawr plans to do so soon.

 

Last month, 1.5 million users went to the MIT course site, sampling offerings like Cognitive Robotics, Inventions and Patents, and Superconducting Magnets.

 

Most users -- 60 percent come from outside the United States -- gravitate toward the subjects MIT is best-known for: computer science, physics and mathematics, Margulies said.

 

Even MIT students who pay thousands of dollars in tuition fees for each course use the free online service to study for exams or sample what courses they may want to take on campus, Margulies said.

 

I wasn't aware of this. It's a bit early in the a.m. to think about what effect, if any, programs like this will have on the college/university community or on grade-point averages for those students who are or will be attending. But it does dispel any doubt that might be left as to why a person would attend uni in the first place. (Hint: not to learn--but then we knew that).

[Diamond]

Well, this is not exactly groundbreaking, as most universities do not hide their course lecture notes, you can find gazillions of them online. Also it is not a replacement for attending the university, because the main value of it is not course lecture notes.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Diamond

[taks]

just getting into MIT requires the ability, and probably drive, to learn in the first place. what this will be good for is folks like me, with significant education already, but lack of access to courses that could be beneficial to their career. i've taken every single upper-level DSP/comm course that UCCS offers (actually, i'm thinking about proposing a few to teach, but that's another story). MIT has more.

 

taks

[Hurlshort]

When I go to school, I'm not paying to learn stuff. I'm paying for units, which in turn increases my salary. It's great that they are making the information readily accessible, but the information isn't exactly top secret. I don't see how this is much different than buying a book on a subject.

[Walsingham]

I think it's a great idea. And distance learning notes are not the same as regular notes.

[taks]

hmm... in my field, classes actually benefit in more ways that simply "credits" for higher pay.

 

taks

[Hurlshort]

I'm not saying that the credits are the only benefit, I'm just saying that cost of these classes are only worth it because of the credits. Paying thousands of dollars just for the knowledge, when it won't affect your chosen career in an upward fashion, is a bad investment.

[metadigital]

Me likey.

[taks]

I'm not saying that the credits are the only benefit, I'm just saying that cost of these classes are only worth it because of the credits. Paying thousands of dollars just for the knowledge, when it won't affect your chosen career in an upward fashion, is a bad investment.

oh, don't get me wrong... i agree with what you're saying. i was really getting at the fact that what i do requires the credits, but also the knowledge that comes with them (e.g. the adaptive filter theory class i had 2 years ago is paying dividends now). my classes, however, are only $359/cr. hr. MIT's are probably 5x that.

 

unfortunately, my new company does not pay for my school, so i get to foot the bill for the remaining hours (i have 21 hours left).

 

taks