They are part and parcel of the unbridled freedom of the Internet and open source software. They are called MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – and they may just be a viable alternative to traditional education with its increasingly oppressive debt load.
The obvious benefit of MOOCs, besides their astonishingly low price tag, is that they offer education with a real value in the job market. Instead of wading through four years of courses that may or may not translate into jobs, students opting for MOOCs can take courses in the specific skills that employers are looking for.
The downside is that MOOCs have not offered any credentials that students can use to prove their educational achievement.
That is changing.
Udacity, the online educational organization founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky, has launched the Open Education Alliance that will provide students with a free certificate. And the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with its MOOC partner edX, is launching what are called “XSeries” courses. For about $700, students taking these courses will be able to earn a verified certificate in several subjects, such as computer science and supply-chain management.
Nay-sayers worry that MOOCs will turn out too many students with too narrow an educational focus. And MOOCs are too new to have a proven record of accomplishing the educational goals they tout.
It may be that the modern world will need to make a distinction between “education” and “job skills”. While both are commendable and necessary in a free society, they may well not be interchangeable.