A good back and forth series of pieces on Inside HigherEd. It starts with a simple rhetorical question by blogger "Dean Dad"
http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-problem-are-asu-and-edx-solving.html > According to Carl Straumsheim’s piece > <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/22/arizona-state-edx-team-offer-freshman-year-online-through-moocs>in > IHE, a student who enrolls in one (or more) from a specific set of MOOCs > offered through edX will have the option of paying a $45 fee for identity > verification, followed by a $200 per credit fee to Arizona State, to have > the MOOC performance translated into academic credit by and for ASU. > > Or, that same student could take an actual course, online or onsite, > from a community college. It would cost less, and would have an actual > instructor provide actual guidance and feedback throughout the course. > The credits would transfer anywhere, not just to ASU. A commenter on a previous piece on IHE guesses what I think is the correct answer to Dean Dad's question (emphasis below mine): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/23/arizona-state-edx-team-offer-freshman-year-online-through-moocs#comment-1983036162 > How will a college know? Will colleges who won't accept credit from > alternative credit providers accept credit from ASU after they've > *laundered* it -- especially if it's indistinguishable what version of > ASU (on-site, online, MOOC) issued it? John Warner puts it all together nicely: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/problem-asu-solving-0 > In a world of scarcity, the institution with the most will get to survive. > ASU is no longer (and has not been for quite some time) part of a > cooperative system. ASU denies this, at least publicly, Philip Regier, > undergraduate dean for educational initiatives, told *IHE*, The way we’re > thinking about it is we’re making the whole pie bigger. It’s not as though > the pie is a fixed size and we’re taking larger and larger slices out of > it.” > > But this is unlikely to be the case, and certainly won’t be the case if > their initiative is likely to succeed. The giveaway is in ASU’s intention > to not distinguish between face-to-face, traditional online, or MOOC > credits on their transcripts. This is a way to, in the words of a commenter > on the *IHE* report, “launder” > <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/22/arizona-state-edx-team-offer-freshman-year-online-through-moocs#comment-1983036162> > the MOOC credit, cleansing it with the ASU brand name. > > As Jonathan Rees argues > <http://moreorlessbunk.net/technology/big-fish-eat-little-fish/>, > “Arizona State is now the first predator university. They are willing to > re-define what education is so that they can get more students from > anywhere. If they don’t kill other universities by taking all their > students with a cheap freshmen year, they’ll just steal their fish food by > underselling 25% of the education that those schools provide and leaving > them a quarter malnourished. The result is that schools which stick to > reasonable standards with respect to the frequency and possibility of > teacher/student interaction now have to fear for their very existence.” > > While ASU claims that they are working to maintain some measure of > educational standards, for example, by making actual human beings (in the > form of course assistants working under the supervision of a “master > teacher) available to answer student questions. Freshman composition, with > its particular challenges of grading student writing will probably be “the > last to launch.” > > One of the costs of this aspect of the “New American University,” the > exploitation and casualization of labor are already in evidence with ASU’s > previous decision to assign five sections of first-year writing > <https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/asu-and-non-tenured-human-shields> > per instructor in their on-campus courses. When ASU does get around to > offering that first-year writing course, is there any doubt that the > student essays will be graded by an army of “assistants,” quite possibly > being paid by volume? > > The true cost, however, is in accepting this kind of redefinition of what > it means to pursue education, particularly in a student’s first year, which > we know has an outsized importance when it comes to students ultimately > succeeding. >
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