Online education can be good or cheap, but not both | Reihan Salam
▻http://blogs.reuters.com/reihan-salam/2013/07/26/online-education-can-be-good-or-cheap-but-not-both
Outsourcing this kind of teaching [basic introductory material] could in theory be an enormous boon to the bottom line of colleges and universities, as the most effective providers could spread their online courses across the country, sparing the need for large numbers of expensive faculty members. Indeed, Udacity’s entry-level courses were offered for $150 each, far less than the $620 San Jose State charges for traditional classroom-based courses.
The problem, however, is that between 56 percent and 76 percent of students who took the final exams ultimately failed them.
(...)
True MOOCs that make almost no use of faculty labor will be very cheap to deliver, but one can easily imagine that they will be plagued by an attrition rate at least as high as what we see in today’s for-profit colleges. Blended online courses that stream lectures while also making use of face-to-face teaching assistants might have a success rate closer to land grant public institutions, where interaction with senior faculty is limited but there is a human support system for students. It should go without saying that the latter are going to be much more expensive than the former.
me rappelle fortement
▻http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2000/04/NOBLE/13691