MIT Everyware

TeachingMachines writes "David Diamond has written a very readable article at Wired News titled MIT Everyware that follows up on MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative (previous story). It turns out that one of the most popular courses has been '6.170 Laboratory in Software Engineering, Fall 2001.' Diamond notes that '[u]ltimately, MIT officials know, OpenCourseWare's success depends on the emergence of online communities to support individual courses.'"

Good Project

[Kronos666]

Well, this is a pretty good idea for people who don't have time, or even, the transportation for university. Of course, there will probably be debates to see if these courses will be admissible for diploma...

Something to keep in mind.

[fuzzix]

You may have completed the material but that doesn't mean you can stick 'MIT degree!!' on your Curriculum Vitae.
I'm reading Laboratory in Software Engineering myself, but only because it's interesting - it will probably prove of little benefit in the marketplace.
Still, an excellent initiative - while other universities are milking every cent they can MIT are actually promoting an interest in learning and sharing of information. Excellent stuff.

improvements based on community response

[stonebeat.org]

success depends on the emergence of online communities to support individual courses.
However I also think the success depends on improvement to the courses based on the community response.
Isn't this the philosophy all open-source, open-standard etc are based on?

Computer Science vs. Software Engineering

[Dareth]

I have a degree in Computer Science. I got lots of theory, and what I believed to be a fairly descent education. However, after reading thru the course material for this "Introductory Level" material, I quickly realized that I didn't get quite the education that I had expected. Software design is a single senior level class for CS. Lots of "waterfalls and whirlpools", but little practical knowledge. Yes, theory is great... but I much enjoyed reading thru this material. Just to remind myself that I must never stop learning.

Re:This idea is genius.

[jfw25]

The basic facts taught in an MIT class are generally the same basic facts taught in any reasonably competant university; perhaps you'll get more stuff crammed in you per unit time because they assume the students are sharper than average, perhaps you'll get slightly fresher basic facts when (for example) you take an algorithms course from Ron Rivest, but on balance the material you'll find in the course notes is the same. The real reason people want to go to MIT is what you do in between classes, and the stuff which isn't in the course notes. You study with some of the brightest students on the planet, you do grunt labwork for some of the most cutting-edge researchers on the planet, and the idle musings (when a lecture runs a bit short) of someone like Rivest are priceless.

Go ahead and learn all you can from all the courses MIT puts on the web, please! Don't worry about MIT; the more knowledge they put out, the more valuable they'll become. (Now if only they had the notes for the Systems Engineering subject, what was its number.....)

MIT '82 (8 and 6-3)

Re:So why ever go to university?

[drudd]

why ever go to MIT

Because it's difficult to get into, and the classes are hard (expensive just goes along with that).

When you get a degree from MIT you're getting two things, 1) MIT's brand name recognition, 2) proof that you can work your ass off for a number of years, and stick things out no matter how tough they get.

The name will get you in the door, the work ethic will hopefully get you the job.

Doug

Re:Knowledge is power.

[Minna Kirai]

You CANNOT get credit for coursework via this method.

Duh, he's talking about trends in the near-future. The fact that MIT doesn't currently give credit for non-paying online students is irrelevant.

Someday, the marketplace will drive colleges to split up their student-based revenue into two parellel streams: testing and tutoring.

A person will be able to independently decide whether he wants MIT to educate him about a subject, to certify that he's been educated on it, or both. For quality schools, that certification will often be much more elaborate than a single test event.

To some extent, a student can already choose to get only the tutoring portion and not the testing. This is called "auditing a class". But today, a person who's already so expert in a subject that she can safely skip each lecture and still pass the final has no way to avoid paying for those lecture sessions.

Re:Good Project

[HeyLaughingBoy]

From what I remember, you can learn everything you would *want* to know about a course just by reading a book

Only for the mind-numbingly boring classes. I'm not arguing with you: I realize that many of these exist. But there are courses taught by excellent professors that you need to be present to get most of, because the instructor brings his experience to bear on the class. It's one thing to read about noise and bandwidth issues in communications wiring in a book; it adds a considerable depth when the professor tells you why he used fiberoptic cables in his space shuttle project.