Subscribe to our weekly newsletter
Udacity Pearson Partnership - Sell-Out, Buy-In or the Future of MOOCs?
The recently announced partnership of Udacity with Pearson VUE testing centers has caused quite a stir in Higher Education community. I have read opinions that range from sell-out to a possible new legitimacy for the open university or MOOC movement.
Let’s have a look at the different facets of this new partnership and what might be some of its consequences or even benefits in the long term. Udacity calls itself a virtual university on a mission to democratize education. It first made the news when Udacity founder and Google employee Sebastian Thrun famously quit teaching at Stanford to now teach the world instead of some 200 students only. As Udacity state on their blog, they will still continue to create free online courses, but the Pearson partnership will allow students who wish to take an exam at the end of the course do exactly that.
The testing environment has been created to show “academic honesty” and will most likely give students an edge over their peers in Udacity’s job placement program. The exam itself is a multiple-choice and short answer mix of 90 min. Interestingly, the virtual university’s wildly popular programming class is not included in the new exam option. At least not now.
At this point, I see it as a logical move for Udacity. It builds trust, particularly on the employer side and allows students to show off what they’ve learned and have “proof” of it. Of course, Udacity could have taken another, more practical approach with employers, letting students demonstrate their skills upon real problem given to them. But calling themselves a virtual university, it is maybe not a bad move to go for something more traditional.
Pearson’s advantages are quite obvious. You may criticize this 800-pound gorilla in the education space for many things, but not for missing opportunities. Over the past few years Pearson has proven that the company knows very well what’s going on in online education and that’s true for both K12 and Higher Ed. I have written quite a bit on partnerships and also acquisitions and their impact on the online education landscape on this blog and also my personal blog. Let’s face it, Pearson is and will be present where the next disruption in the education market is going to happen. Whether we like it or not, or as my co-host on ENT like to put it, Pearson is like shopping at Walmart. It makes us feel bad, but everybody does it.
Besides, the exams offered on Udacity will take place in the some 4000 Pearson VUE testing centers worldwide and are not free, talking the economics of education here.
What might be the impact of this partnership? Top universities like Stanford or Harvard won’t have to worry. This partnership and a 90 min exam will not question expensive but high quality teaching and degrees or even make them look bad. We’re still some years away from the scenario of a skill-based society where what you know if you can prove it means more than a degree from a top tier university. We might come closer though.
The ones who really have a reason to be worried are the smaller or average, if you want to call them like that, universities and colleges. If we now start seeing more and more of the top professors, like Udacity or Coursera bring their courses online and teach the world for free, where is the incentive to study at an average college or university and pay tuition fees?
Picture via Shutterstock
Stand up against religious discrimination – even if it’s not your religion
As religious diversity increases in the United States, we must learn to channel religious identity into interfaith cooperation.
- Religious diversity is the norm in American life, and that diversity is only increasing, says Eboo Patel.
- Using the most painful moment of his life as a lesson, Eboo Patel explains why it's crucial to be positive and proactive about engaging religious identity towards interfaith cooperation.
- The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles Koch Foundation, which encourages the expression of diverse viewpoints within a culture of civil discourse and mutual respect.
8 ways to halt a global food crisis
The future of food sounds bleak, but it doesn't need to be this way.
There are serious challenges to global food supply everywhere we look. Intensive use of fertilisers in the US Midwest is causing nutrients to run off into rivers and streams, degrading the water quality and causing a Connecticut-size dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
10 new things we’ve learned about death
If you don't want to know anything about your death, consider this your spoiler warning.
- For centuries cultures have personified death to give this terrifying mystery a familiar face.
- Modern science has demystified death by divulging its biological processes, yet many questions remain.
- Studying death is not meant to be a morbid reminder of a cruel fate, but a way to improve the lives of the living.
Where the evidence of fake news is really hiding
When it comes to sniffing out whether a source is credible or not, even journalists can sometimes take the wrong approach.
- We all think that we're competent consumers of news media, but the research shows that even journalists struggle with identifying fact from fiction.
- When judging whether a piece of media is true or not, most of us focus too much on the source itself. Knowledge has a context, and it's important to look at that context when trying to validate a source.
- The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles Koch Foundation, which encourages the expression of diverse viewpoints within a culture of civil discourse and mutual respect.
