Ciro Santilli Generally, if something is labelled as "e-learning", it's not a good sign, as it implies that it adheres to the "teacher"/"student" separation which Ciro Santilli much despises: E-learning websites must allow students to create learning content.
Charging for certification is fine. Creating exams and preventing cheating has a cost.
Another thing that is fine charging for is dedicated 1-to-1 tutor time. This is something Udacity is doing as of 2022.
www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042815/how-coursera-works-makes-money.asp has a good mention:
and it links to: www.freecodecamp.org/news/massive-open-online-courses-started-out-completely-free-but-where-are-they-now-1dd1020f59/, very good article!MOOCs were first created by people with utopian visions for the internet. This means the idea for platforms like Coursera was likely conceived without a business plan in mind. Nonetheless, Coursera has managed to monetize its platform. It is worth noting, however, that monetization has lead to the effective elimination of the original MOOC idea, which is predicated on ideals like free and open access, as well as the building of online communities.Coursera users must pay to engage with the material in a meaningful way and take courses for individualistic purposes. This has been a consistent trend among all major online education platforms.
That is a fundamental guiding principle of OurBigBook.com. The educational content must be licensed CC BY-SA!
Perhaps the most reliable way of reaching this state is E-learning websites must allow students to create learning content.
Bibliography:
- academia.stackexchange.com/questions/86179/is-it-financially-worth-it-to-teach-a-mooc-e-g-coursera Is it financially worth it to teach a MOOC (e.g. Coursera)?
- www.classcentral.com/about amazing, they can make money just from ads! I wouldn't expect that they could scale like TripAdvisor, because travelling means very local knowledge, I would expect there to be much fewer MOOCs and for them to be more easily findable on Google. Good thing though, this website.
This is a key philosophy of OurBigBook.com!
MOOCs are a bad idea. We don't want to simply map the pre-computer classroom to the Internet. The Internet allows, and requires, fundamentally new ways to do things. More like Stack Overflow/Wikipedia. More like OurBigBook.com.
A more specific type of E-learning website generally run by a specific organization.
A website, usually hosted by an university, that takes what is done in class, and pastes it online. It is already much more rational and efficient, and opens up the way for potential sharing outside of the institution (or by default paywalling as the University of Oxford did.
The fundametnal problem with VLEs is that they tend to not have enough incentives for students to contribute at all to the content. This is basically the major motivation behind OurBigBook.com.
Some courses at least allow you to see material for free, e.g.: www.coursera.org/learn/quantum-optics-single-photon/lecture/UYjLu/1-1-canonical-quantization. Lots of video focus as usual for MOOCs.
Some are paywalled: www.coursera.org/learn/theory-of-angular-momentum?specialization=quantum-mechanics-for-engineers
It is extremely hard to find the course materials without enrolling, even if enrolling for free! By trying to make money, they make their website shit.
The comment section does have a lot of activity: www.coursera.org/learn/statistical-mechanics/discussions/weeks/2! Nice. And works like a proper issue tracker. But it is also very hidden.
November 2023 topics:
- quantum field theory: no
- condensed matter: 1 by Rahul Nandkishore from Colorado Boulder: www.coursera.org/specializations/the-physics-of-emergence-introduction-to-condensed-matter
Harvard University + MIT combo.
As of 2022:Fuck that.
- can't see course material before start date. Once archived, you can see it but requires login...
- on free mode, limited course access
Also, they have an ICP.
November 2023 course search:
- Condensed matter: 4 hits, so not too bad
- quantum field theory: no hits
By the Open University. "Open" I mean.
Some/all courses expire in 4 weeks: www.futurelearn.com/courses/intro-to-quantum-computing. Ludicrous.
Kudos for being a not-for-profit. Also, anyone can create content: e-learning websites must allow students to create learning content. Oh, but TODO is possible for anyone to make content publicly visible? Course join links lik: www.khanacademy.org/join/MJZ6NSV7 require login. webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/165132/how-to-create-a-course-that-is-publicly-visible-without-the-need-to-login-on-kha If that's the case, it is a fatal flaw not shared by OurBigBook.com.
Another cool aspect is that they have the "physical world teacher pull student accounts in" approach built-in quite well at course creation. This is a very good feature.
As of 2021 they were a bit struggling for money it seems: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8XdUy-wyyM?
Like Jimmy Wales, he used to work in finance and then quit. What is it with those successful e-learning people??
These people have good intentions.
The problem is that they don't manage to go critical because there's to way for students to create content, everything is manually curated.
You can't even publicly comment on the textbooks. Or at least Ciro Santilli hasn't found a way to do so. There is just a "submit suggestion" box.
This massive lost opportunity is even shown graphically at: cnx.org/about (archive) where there is a clear separation between:Maybe this wasn't the case in their legacy website, legacy.cnx.org/content?legacy=true, but not sure, and they are retiring that now.
- "authors", who can create content
- "students", who can consume content
Thus, OurBigBook.com. License: CC BY! So we could re-use their stuff!
By Rice University.
TODO what are the books written in?
- github.com/openstax/openstax-cms Uses Wagtail CMS. So presumaby they just Wagtail's WYSIWYG.
- github.com/openstax/os-webview
It is a shame that they refocused to more applied courses. This also highlights their highly "managed" approach to content creation. Their 2022 pitch on front page says it all:
for as few as 10 hours a week, you can get the in-demand skills you need to help land a high-paying tech jobthey are focused on the highly paid character of many software engineering jobs.
But one cool point of this website is how they hire tutors to help on the courses. This is a very good thing. It is a fair way of monetizing: e-learning websites must keep content free, only charge for certification.