Open (Public) Data

Here are the slides for our last session.  The sources are in the slides ... Jocelyne Bourgon and Beth Simone Noveck.  Gordon Brown's argument is in his book (probably), but otherwise you could look at this Cisco white paper or the executive summary.  The New York Times coverage of Brazil (Mayara Vivian) is here and here or download here and here.  If you are interested in how to deal with the positive and negative effects of technology you should read this book by Kevin Kelly.



MOOCs: Sounds like a horror movie

There is too much stuff on MOOCs out there, so here is selection relating to some of the issues we discussed in class.

Sebastian Thrun blames students for the failure of the San Jose State University experiment - "It is a group for which this medium is not a good fit".  So nothing wrong with the medium or concept!

Coursera calamities - here are two.  The first was mentioned in the case - Fundamentals of Online Education, which supposedly flopped due to technical glitches and "lack of instruction for assignments and group activity".  The second was a Microeconomics course that I happened to have enrolled in.  I only just looked at the first few sessions so I did not know that the instructor essentially walked out on the students in the middle of the course.  His institution said he was not used to a "diverse audience including those who were not seriously committed ...".  Professor McKenzie from UC Irvine was apparently "dismayed" that students were not buying the textbook - guess who wrote the textbook?  He also did not like the quality of the Coursera videos and was unhappy about the fact that less than 2% of the students were actively engaged in the course.  In my few weeks of lurking in this course, I observed a few things.  Firstly, Professor McKenzie's examples were all from an 'American context' and would likely have made no sense to someone from Asia or Africa.  Secondly, he was very keen on selling his book and complaining that Amazon had increased the price since his online course started.  Lastly, I was quite impressed by the quality of the student discussion and the response to assignment questions.  Clearly many students were spending a lot of time responding to the assignments and in discussions.

The 'quality education' goal - I am sure some Professors spend a lot of time and energy in preparing the courses but there are others who do nothing.  Here is an example from UC Santa Cruz:

 “The film already existed,” Kenez said, “so we didn’t have to do anything. They hired our TA to put together the material at their website; we had nothing to do with that.” He said he had never looked at the Coursera video. As for the forums, the writing assignments, the student questions and student problems, “I have nothing to do with any of the online activity,” Kenez told me. “I haven’t even checked in. I have nothing to do with the evaluations.” 

So why did he do it? (well he really did not "do" anything!)
And he didn’t get paid. He did it, he said, because “it cost me nothing. And whatever the students get out of it, I am all for it.”
Others do it because they want attention:
A number of the professors in the survey said they hoped to use MOOCs to increase their visibility, both among colleagues within their discipline (39 percent) and with the media and the general public (34 percent).
And if you think its worth something ... think again - the people who teach the courses don't think you should get credit


And what about the Statement of Accomplishment?

“PLEASE NOTE: THE ONLINE OFFERING OF THIS CLASS DOES NOT REFLECT THE ENTIRE CURRICULUM OFFERED TO STUDENTS ENROLLED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA. THIS STATEMENT DOES NOT AFFIRM THAT THIS STUDENT WAS ENROLLED AS A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA IN ANY WAY. IT DOES NOT CONFER A UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA GRADE; IT DOES NOT CONFER UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA CREDIT; IT NOT CONFER A UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA DEGREE; AND IT DOES NOT VERIFY THE IDENTITY OF THE STUDENT.”
And there is a lot of plagiarism ... And what of Mr. Andrew Ng of Coursera?  Well I had the pleasure of attending a talk he gave at our University last summer.  He seemed most excited about how he could reach 100,000 people instead of just 200.  An Indian MBA student in the audience asked him if he had spoken to any telecommunications companies or otherwise discussed internet access issues with anyone in developing countries.  The answer was "No".

So I wonder why the Cubans, Syrians and Iranians among others are upset that they cannot access to American MOOCs (due to U.S. export regulations for sanctioned countries).