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“For maintaining Standards without our Consent…”

Finally, a clear statement from the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. Heady stuff.

*****************************

UD thanks Daniel.

Margaret Soltan, June 20, 2012 11:59AM
Posted in: democracy

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3 Responses to ““For maintaining Standards without our Consent…””

  1. JND Says:

    Pretty funny!

  2. Polish Peter Says:

    It’s great satire, but the underlying issues are far from funny. The Stanford/Harvard/MIT entry into online courses has trustees, presidents, and provosts at peer institutions scrambling to get on board, and I’m afraid a lot muddled thinking is happening. A new terminology is being propagated, including “flipping the classroom” (the idea that lectures can be taken online and the classroom reserved for discussion). The biggest problem is that they can’t figure out whether the online instruction is for internal or external consumption. We’re talking about schools at which direct personal access to outstanding faculty has been their biggest selling point. The way I’m reading the UVA situation is that the alpha trustees and technology cheerleaders decreed that this is the way of the future and the president wasn’t getting on board the train fast enough. Mind the gap!

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Polish Peter: Absolutely. MOOCs are very much in flux and have nothing to do with the crappy cynical online course offerings that universities merely looking to save money are adopting. I can see why universities are watching MOOCs at Stanford, etc., with interest, but UVA shows how you can panic and fall into a trap by assuming MOOCs are more than they are.

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