Open Culture: Harvard Now on iTunes: A New Model for University Podcasts?
ephraim ross
· 2 years ago
Fascinating news. Is Harvard's lecture content so much better than MIT, Stanford, Princeton, or Berkeley's (to name a few) that it's just not right to give it away? Breaking from what has become a tradition of open courseware is definitely a bold move by the Ivy-League powerhouse. It's also a tad bit elitist and, perhaps, dangerous.
When you're competing with free alternatives you'd better be confident your product is significantly better. One of the unique byproducts of open courseware is that students have an authentic means of comparing potential university programs for the first time. I imagine Harvard would be wise to begin by making only their most highly regarded courses online. My instinct, however, is that Harvard's new model won't last.
"I feel ... an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to American Philosophical Society, 1808.
chalres darwin
· 1 year ago
college: all a college does is sell Admit tickets.
1. yes, can come to class.
2. no, cannot come to class.
The idea that only a select few can access knowledge is going way of dinosours.
One Real class can reach 100-500 people in the room.
One digital class can reach one, two, three billion people around the world, around the clock.
Time to free knowledge from the few. Knowledge belongs to All people of earth.
Digital knowledge, digital education can reach billions of people around the world, around the clock.
Harvard, like Berkeley, MIT should offer All courses free to the world.
All Comments
When you're competing with free alternatives you'd better be confident your product is significantly better. One of the unique byproducts of open courseware is that students have an authentic means of comparing potential university programs for the first time. I imagine Harvard would be wise to begin by making only their most highly regarded courses online. My instinct, however, is that Harvard's new model won't last.
"I feel ... an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings."
--Thomas Jefferson: Reply to American Philosophical Society, 1808.
1. yes, can come to class.
2. no, cannot come to class.
The idea that only a select few can access knowledge is going way of dinosours.
One Real class can reach 100-500 people in the room.
One digital class can reach one, two, three billion people around the world, around the clock.
Time to free knowledge from the few. Knowledge belongs to All people of earth.
Digital knowledge, digital education can reach billions of people around the world, around the clock.
Harvard, like Berkeley, MIT should offer All courses free to the world.