You can’t get a full undergrad or masters at either school based on your ability.
You can get a “certificate” or some asterisked form of diploma, or you can enter the traditional applicant lotto where a significant number are rejected yet go on to do great work.
The old lotto model is based on the legacy of having enough seats to put students into.
Some newer programs, including one from MIT are experimenting with a scalable online model.
You want a degree from us? Take some classes for a while, prove your ability, you could get in.
The lotto application process besides being limited is imperfect in so many ways. The GMAT if I recall correctly correlates to success only around 65% of the time.
It’s time for these elite schools to decide how important an issue brand dilution (maybe) is for them, and come out and be straight about how much they factor it into their strategy vs. limiting how many diplomas they grant based purely on scalability while maintaining quality.
Ones a logistical problem. One is profit (endownmenrm prestige) motivated.
The issue you have identified is finding scalable method of accreditation. Other schools have certainly tested online-only degree programs and produced many graduates. As an alum, I do struggle with the question of, "would an online-only graduate be 'real' alum"? That's my own personal bias. I imagine the institute does think about brand dilution to some extent.
That said, while colleges may be gatekeepers to degrees, it is employers that require the degrees to get jobs. Why bother with degrees in the first place if the candidate can prove they have the necessary skills for a job despite not holding a degree?
I realize I'm deflecting, but it's worth pointing out that there are multiple parties in play here, not just universities—MIT or otherwise.
On the other hand if talented teachers can get paid for doing what they do best then they can offer a personal experience as opposed to a diploma factory. I strongly suspect that there will always be a market and mechanism to support that.
* High-quality courses (or at least as good as the original few!)
* Open-licensed courses (as originally promised and intended)
* Real checks-and-balances and not-for-profit structures
* Investment in research in improving teaching-and-learning
* Commitment to integrity in results presented to the public, in respect for student privacy, and in general, a strong set of core values and to keeping what's working in education
The collaboration component of MOOCs ranges from mediocre to god-awful. And it's hard to see how it could be otherwise at scale.
A lot of courses are run asynchronously which blows a lot of meaningful collaboration out of the water right there. And even when they're run like a real-time course (which a lot of people who have other schedules/travel/etc. tend to hate), you have such a wide range of skill/language/etc. levels that it's hard to have sensible discussions.
Courses that try to be explicitly discussion-focused are even worse.
Autograding for coding assignments is nice when it works. But I'm honestly not sure the average MOOC is really any better than just reading a book and doing some related exercises.
I do think you need to have deadlines. They can be more flexible but deadlines help at least keep groups of the class at the same pace. The more people participating, the more relaxed the deadlines can be. I've seen some courses that have so many people, you could honestly take the class at your own time & always have people to discuss the current lecture with.
In the case of a real MIT online degree, I would support a schedule that mimics the campus schedule. If you have other schedules/travel/etc., then sign up only for 1 course at a time & understand what you're committing to.
I get scaling is hard the more "real" you make the course. I feel you can have a nice balance between hiring assistants to help with grading & discussions by increasing the cost somewhere in between on-campus & average MOOC prices.
>I feel you can have a nice balance between hiring assistants to help with grading & discussions by increasing the cost somewhere in between on-campus & average MOOC prices.
Blended models have a lot of promise--at least in theory. My understanding is that post-pivot Udacity does some things along these lines. And, of course, there are more traditional degree programs that have a large online component.
One of the nice things about CS/programming is that, in many cases, you don't really need the physical resources of a university campus. And even if you can't handle 100% of a full degree program, "nanodegrees" and the like are a big win. It's also nice that computer systems can handle a lot of the grading of problem sets--and, as you say, it's not super-expensive to have TAs handle the rest. (Source: I remember what I was paid to be a grader for a few courses in grad school :-))
I would say that most if not all subjects taught at the undergrad level can be implemented in online platforms. You can have in-person seminar courses for all the subjects that actually need hands on practice. Even in those situations, you can still have a significant impact by having simulations using AR/VR or similar. There is a lot of potential in this space that no one really taps into. I see some people doing x and others doing y. It is all good but there is no one doing a unified approach to this so it just ends up going no where. People want the whole picture, not bits and pieces.
You can get a “certificate” or some asterisked form of diploma, or you can enter the traditional applicant lotto where a significant number are rejected yet go on to do great work.
The old lotto model is based on the legacy of having enough seats to put students into.
Some newer programs, including one from MIT are experimenting with a scalable online model.
You want a degree from us? Take some classes for a while, prove your ability, you could get in.
The lotto application process besides being limited is imperfect in so many ways. The GMAT if I recall correctly correlates to success only around 65% of the time.
It’s time for these elite schools to decide how important an issue brand dilution (maybe) is for them, and come out and be straight about how much they factor it into their strategy vs. limiting how many diplomas they grant based purely on scalability while maintaining quality.
Ones a logistical problem. One is profit (endownmenrm prestige) motivated.
Pick a side for the future.