MIT is exploring ways to make money off online learning. But the institute says it has no plans to raise cash by sticking its pioneering MIT OpenCourseWare project behind a paywall, a possibility raised in a news report today.
“That’s news to me,” Stephen E. Carson, external-relations director for MIT OpenCourseWare, said when Wired Campus called him up to learn about the supposed paywall. He added, “The content that’s available on MIT OpenCourseWare will continue to be free and available as it always has been.”
Charging for access to basic content would be a radical shift for MIT OpenCourseWare, which has attracted millions of users to free academic materials like lecture notes, syllabi, and videos.
But some less radical possibilities have been discussed, Mr. Carson says. These include the idea of layering premium services on top of the free content, such as opportunities for user feedback and grading.
So could we see MIT undertake a serious push into for-credit distance learning?
The answer is unclear.
Back when the institute planned its OpenCourseWare project, a committee concluded that “a revenue-generating distance-education model was not viable for MIT.”
But as MIT grapples with dwindling resources, generating revenue from distance education is clearly an idea under consideration by university officials. In December, a panel suggested the following possibilities in a major report:
- Creating an “extension studies” program for continuing education using a combination of on-campus courses, distance learning, and an enhanced OpenCourseWare Web site. Estimated revenue potential: $10-million.
- Creating select master’s-degree programs that would be taken primarily via online education. Estimated revenue potential: $30-million.
- Offering some undergraduate subjects for credit via e-learning. Estimated revenue potential: $60-million.
5 Responses to MIT Looks to Make Money Online, but Not With an OpenCourseWare Paywall
paievoli - September 16, 2010 at 7:06 am
They need to focus on alternative revenue streams. Been trying to show academia this for 5 years. Courseware will be free soon. There are numerous alternative streams surrounding the courseware. They may just get it yet.
jaynicks - September 16, 2010 at 9:09 am
Having advocated distance learning (and its predecessor, CAI) for some time now I felt it was time to take a course to see how it went.The introductory course in a social science that I took was mostly definitions. The text was fine. The mentoring was non-existent in spite of the fact that the course author was assigned. The assessments were shoddy to the point of risibility, e.g. Characteristic x is always, most of the time, Y. T/FI kid you not, actually one of the questions.* Others were nearly as bad: not a few were unanswerable with rigor by someone with an adequate education in English.The technology used was quite current, or would have been were it were 1985. No audio, no video, no chat, no voice or audio consultation, no imagery even, just text screens for assessments and the minimal guidance. 1985, yawn.Nothing wrong with the course as a means for learning basic definitions. Reading the text and paper based assessments would have done the same job. Qua distance learning, nothing that could not be fixed with an ombudsman program, except the cost. Nearly $2,000 for three credit hours on 1985 tech with effectively no human involvement is ludicrous. I estimate server costs to have been $12 and whatever the mentor was paid was far too much.Can MIT do introductory courses effectively on-line? After looking at the Lewin lectures, absolutely! He is as good as Francis W. Sears, whom I had. Based on Lewin’s open-courseware any university serious about distance learning could do Physics Intro.Could my university? Judging solely from the course I took, no. I know there are also superior efforts here, I hope the one I took was an extreme exception, but there are organizational structure indications it may not be.What would it take to change the ‘no’ to a ‘yes’? 1. An ombudsman program with teeth to ameliorate mentor and assessment abuses, drop the price by at least 60%. Any university that is early into the pasture could perform a service and likely make a lot of money.2. One might want to think slightly out of the dodecahedron and consider TAs or selected upper class students for on-line mentors. Outcomes might markedly improve compared to a ‘mentor’ that clearly does not give a damn.3. Reward outstanding efforts by allowing AP testing at any time in the undergrad experience. I hear some already do this.Thanks for your consideration.* Full disclosure, I lost a point as there is an extreme exception to X even though the text says X is almost always Y. I am still laughing even as I pity people taking it for real credit.Real full disclosure: I am not currently working in, and have no ties, financial or otherwise, to distance learning efforts other than enthusiasm and some knowledge. I’d like to change that but mature people are not considered for IT oriented positions.
auseem - September 16, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Fascinating development — maybe good one, given the criticism of this journal article (http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/NeverMindtheEdupunksorTheGreat/209326), that ‘open courseware’ doesn’t have much value because no degree is offered.
bradleyhockey - September 21, 2010 at 9:30 am
Any program produced by MIT will be greatly appreciated by those who understand the value of the MIT education. Ted.com has capitalized on the MIT for years raking in a fortune its about time MIT realizes its own capital.
arrive2__net - October 30, 2010 at 12:49 am
It is an interesting development that an institution with the prestige of MIT considers elearning, motivated by revenue enhancement. It is revealing to see how the elearning opportunities rate against one another, and the total scale of estimated revenue across these three programs, $100 million, is significant.
Bernard Schuster
Arrive2.net