[spacemanaki]

I'm not sure if you're just trolling or if you have an actual critical comparison to make. Can you elaborate?

There are a number of things you could be referring to when you say the Stanford lectures are "way better". Which Stanford lectures are you talking about? The recent AI, DB and ML classes? The general Stanford open course stuff? Are you talking about the content, presentation, selection of material, structure of classes, file formats, editing, ... ?

I've watched a lot of the Stanford AI and DB lectures, and I've cherry picked from the other stuff. The list of courses here (http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative) includes some things that aren't offered by Stanford, and based on 5 minutes of sampling, the video quality looks passable. Some of the Stanford open course videos are pretty terrible in video quality (check out the web applications one) altho the content seems very good. I can't speak to the content of the Harvard lectures without actually watching them. Have you?

While it would be great if Harvard started to offer structured online classes like the recent Stanford ones, it's pretty cool that these are available at all, given that Harvard is about as old-guard as you can get.

[shon_]

I'm a current cs major at Harvard so I might be qualified to comment on the structure of Harvard's classes. If you are an undergrad and physically present at the lectures, then the instruction and individual attention are both phenomenal. In that regard, I would say that Stanford and Harvard classes are equivalent.

As far as online classes, I would say Harvard is fairly behind Stanford. While Harvard films nearly all of its lectures so that students in the extension school can still take regular courses, there is little if not zero attention given to them in lectures and assignments. In one class I took last year, a professor actually made fun of a few of the submissions from extension school students in front of the class.

Furthermore, attending office hours as an extension student is nigh out of the question. I'm unsure if some of our TF's (TA's) are available for extension school students are not. Probably so, but I've never witnessed it. All that is to say, from the AI lectures from Stanford I've watched, I would say their online instruction is superior to Harvard.

edit: formatting

[natch]

[moved from top post to reply here]

I have not seen the Harvard lectures yet, but if you want some specifics, here are some areas where Stanford is doing a fantastic job:

* HD resolution, with SD as well for those who want that.

* Excellent picture (good lighting, etc.)

* Tight editing

* Tracks between instructor, board, and slides very well. You don't get those moments where you wonder why they won't show you the presentation.

* Very high quality audio. Good mic placement and use. Cannot emphasize this enough.

* Courses are being refined in successive semesters, using what they've learned. They don't just put out one semester and then consider their job done.

* Closed captioning.

* Instructor repeats every question.

* Great, useful topics of wide current interest.

* Great web sites to go along with the course, with links to videos and course materials as PDFs and zip files.

* Instruction quality (of course this is a given at most good schools; professors don't get where they are by being bad. No problems with this at Stanford).

* Really the key thing you can see with Stanford videos is that someone is actively thinking about the quality and doing everything they can think of to make the entire experience great. My guess is it's because they see a future looming where online is more and more important, and they want to continue to be a leader in that new world, not just in the current one, and they realize that the quality of the whole package matters.

[huherto]

The Stanford online classes are way better. See the top comment by roman_v