Digitizing the Education Revolution

Changes have occurred, will they fundamentally influence how we learn and apply emerging tech? Does MOOC need the university?  How people will invent and collaborate to produce new science and its application?  Work is underway.  Here an example.

OMSCS: The Revolution Will Be Digitized   By Zvi Galil
Communications of the ACM, August 2020, Vol. 63 No. 8, Pages 27-29  10.1145/3366191

The Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS), a degree program at the College of Computing (CoC), Georgia Institute of Technology, grew out of a conversation I had with Sebastian Thrun (co-founder of online learning platform Udacity) in September 2012. We set as our goal to expand access to quality learning opportunities by using massive open online course (MOOC) technology to mitigate obstructions of time, space, and financial ability. This called for a fundamental, revolutionary shift from the prevailing paradigm of higher education, in which a brand is bolstered by exclusion and high tuition fees.

As a preliminary step, I, as dean of CoC, convened a faculty working group, chaired by Kishore Ramachandran, from the School of Computer Science. Its members were notably concerned with maintaining the quality of CoC's academic content, the logistics, and the student and faculty experience—a focus on quality that would become a key principle of the program. The document the group created became the operational manual for putting the program into practice. The working group, in turn, engaged with the faculty through a series of deliberations and town hall meetings, and in spring 2013 the faculty voted to move forward. The program then earned the support of Georgia Tech's President and Provost, who advocated for it with the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. While the faculty debated and planned, Thrun and I sought funding to cover the costs of preparing, organizing, and introducing the first courses. In January 2013, AT&T provided a $2 million gift, and added $2 million more a year later. AT&T's generous support signaled to Georgia Tech the potential of the program, and enabled OMSCS to have positive net income from the start. When, in May 2013, the Board of Regents approved the degree, we began preparing the first courses, using Udacity's platform and their course design and production experience. Each of the initial five courses cost approximately $300,000 to develop. In January 2014, OMSCS was launched with 380 students. (much more at the link)  ... "

Critical View of Online Training

A critical view in a study of online training, aka MOOCs.  Massively Open Online Courses.   Not unexpected that those who use these methods do not get the same quality of education as individual,  face to face teaching.   Not unexpected to hear this.  But the economics involved?

Foundational Course for Statistical Thinking

My interaction with Columbia University led me to the following course.  This is meant as a preparatory foundation course for those taking graduate professional level Analytics classes. like the ones I will be teaching.  More information to follow.

Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics  .... 

Learn how statistics plays a central role in the data science approach.

This statistics and data analysis course will pave the statistical foundation for our discussion on data science.  You will learn how data scientists exercise statistical thinking in designing data collection, derive insights from visualizing data, obtain supporting evidence for data-based decisions and construct models for predicting future trends from data.

This is the first course in the three-part Data Science and Analytics XSeries.  ....   " 

Coursolve: A Marketplace for Digital Internships

Coursolve - The World’s Marketplace for Digital Internships

" ... Coursolve is an experiential learning platform that connects learners and organizations through digital internships. Organizations post projects, called "digital internships", and select learners to work with them to develop ideas and solutions. Learners, meanwhile, who are typically mid-career professionals, can put into practice the theories and skills they have from their academic learning or current jobs, and can build relationships for the long term with different project mentors and organizations.

Today, we have nearly 15,000 learners on our platform from over 100 countries, alongside over 150 organizations who have posted projects. We’re also working with educational institutions ranging from the University of Virginia to MIT. ... " 

Overview Presentation slides today.

More than just MOOCs

In the CACM:  A failure of Massive Open Online Education?  What's wrong?  The last letter is C, or Courses.  I agree that education is not just a pile of accessible courses.  

Three years ago, Moshe Vardi published an editorial in Communications expressing concerns about the pedagogical quality of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and including the sentiment, "If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear."9 His editorial was followed by studies highlighting various limitations of MOOCs (see Karsenti5 for a review).

We share the concerns about the quality of early primitive MOOCs, which have been hyped by many as a cure-all for education. At the same time, we feel much of the criticism of MOOCs stems from the fact that truly disruptive scalable educational resources have not yet been developed. For this reason, if we had a wand, we would not wish away MOOCs but rather transform them into a more effective educational product called a massive adaptive interactive text (MAIT) that can compete with a professor in a classroom. We further argue that computer science is a discipline in which this transition is about to happen.  .... " 

Cognitive Computing MOOC

Via Jim Spohrer.  Looks to cover considerable depth.

Learn about Cognitive Computing in your spare time

IBM MOOC titled "Cognitive Computing -- Question Answering Technologies behind IBM Watson" 

We have designed a massive open online course (MOOC) on the question answering technologies behind IBM’s original Watson Jeopardy!® system. This MOOC is taught directly by developers of the system and based on a Columbia University graduate course that Alfio Gliozzo taught for two years. It covers background concepts needed to understand IBM’s Watson Jeopardy!® system and cognitive technologies. Topics include: Deep QA Architecture, Semantic Integration and Machine Learning, NLP, Unstructured Information Management Architecture, Structured Knowledge in Watson, Domain Adaptation, and Distributional Semantics.   ... 

This MOOC is accessible from "Learn the Technology"in http://ibm.com/watsonacademy and a 1.5-minute course trailer at http://ibm.co/1yCV7QZ. 

Coursera Consumer Neuromarketing MOOC

By Copenhagen Business School and Neurons Inc.

An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing
This course will introduce you to the multidisciplinary field of consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing. It will go through to the basic concepts of the human brain, the elements of the consumer mind, how it is studied, and how its insights can be applied in commercial and societal understandings of consumer behaviour. ... " 

Watson Academy: Cognitive Computing

IBM MOOC:
 Cognitive Computing -- Question Answering Technologies behind IBM Watson

Trailer

" ... We have designed a massive open online course (MOOC) on the question answering technologies behind IBM’s original Watson Jeopardy!® system. This MOOC is taught directly by developers of the system and based on a Columbia University  graduate course that Alfio Gliozzo taught for two years. It covers background concepts needed to understand IBM’s Watson Jeopardy!® system and cognitive technologies. Topics include: Deep QA Architecture, Semantic Integration and Machine Learning, NLP, Unstructured Information Management Architecture, Structured Knowledge in Watson, Domain Adaptation, and Distributional Semantics. .... " 

Twenty hour course.  Taking a closer look.

MOOC Hype Fading?

In the Chronicle of Higher Education.   Too early to tell, I believe.   Perhaps regressing to its hype curve.   Like many advanced technology ideas, it may be best currently seen as augmenting traditional education.

Systematizing Training Tasks for Specific Goals

I just got a promotion from the Kahn Academy pointing to their new iPad App.  Now available for download.    Always thought it would be a good to systematize the kind of capabilities that Kahn has for topics like math.  For example, consider training as a set of short incremental tasks.  For a manager that wants to update their knowledge, say in business statistics to better understand Big Data, put together a series of these tasks, then prompt them on their tablet to complete sections daily. If useful, gamifying the process.  Here is what they write about the resources they have:

" ... Sharpen your skills: Over 150,000 interactive exercises with instant feedback and step-by-step hints for each question.

Flex your muscles: Get interactive math exercise recommendations tailored just for you.

Show your work: No need for paper or typing -- use our touch scratchpad to work through math problems! Once you have your answer, just write it with your fingertip and we’ll recognize it!

Track back: Your activity auto-magically syncs between your iPad and khanacademy.org, so your progress and recommendations are always up-to-date, anytime, anywhere.    ... "

Mining Massive Databases

 Vincent Granville started the discussion "Mining Massive Datasets - Coursera Course (Stanford)" in the group Analytics Courses on AnalyticBridge.     Now looking at the scale of databases more closely.

MOOCs and Hype

In Knowledge@Wharton: " ... Today, though the hype has died down, the world’s largest provider of MOOCs – Coursera – keeps on innovating and developing its online platform to serve millions of learners. Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, whom Knowledge@Wharton interviewed in November 2012, returned to campus recently to speak about her progress since launching her company 2.5 years ago, and she gives her predictions for what the MOOC landscape will look like in the future. In her interview, Koller also provides an update on how Coursera is staying afloat even though the vast majority of students don’t pay a penny for their education. ... " 

Google on MOOC Research

Overview report on a recent Google sponsored conference in China on improving MOOC, with an aim to innovation.   Particularly interesting, mention of measurement of hybrid learning models.   Also the inclusion of better social and gamification models as part of MOOC.

Evaluating MOOC in Coursera

One of the founding partners of the MOOC giant Coursera is the University of Pennsylvania.  The Most recent alumni magazine has an article on the evaluation of the MOOC experience  that contains useful in depth experiences and statistics.

" ... When Penn leapt into online education through a partnership with Coursera two years ago, the abrupt rise of “massively open online courses” was fueling rampant speculation about how they might transform the higher-education marketplace ... . Two million students later—that’s how many had registered for Penn’s Coursera offerings through this spring—emerging evidence has tempered expectations and begun to provide a more nuanced perspective. Appropriately enough, given the University’s large footprint in the MOOC realm, some of the most illuminating research has come out of Penn. ... " 

MOOCs and MBA Programs

In Knowledge@Wharton, Interview and video:

" ... In a new research paper, Christian Terwiesch, professor of operations and information management at Wharton, and Karl Ulrich, vice dean of innovation at the school, examine the impact that massive open online courses (MOOCs) will have on business schools and MBA programs. In their study — titled, “Will Video Kill the Classroom Star? The Threat and Opportunity of MOOCs for Full-time MBA Programs” — they identify three possible scenarios that business schools face not just as a result of MOOCs, but also because of the technology embedded in them. In an intereview with Knowledge@Wharton, Terwiesch and Ulrich discuss their findings. ... " 

MOOCs and Traditional Business Education

In Knowledge@Wharton:  Talk and transcript.   Interesting points are made.  Changes are occurring, but the speed and extent are still debatable.  Certainly the breadth of influence is far greater than the traditional business school.  To what extent with the end users of the knowledge,  the hiring companies, accept the knowledge being transmitted?

" ... e question keeps educators up at night: Do free, massive open online courses cannibalize enrollment at traditional schools? The results are finally in, part of a new study co-authored by Wharton professor Ezekiel J. Emanuel. Rather than poaching traditional students, MOOCs reach new audiences that business schools, at least, want to target. ... " 

MOOCs not Meeting Expectations

In CACM:

" ... The rollout of MOOCs, or massive open online courses, three years ago by some of the leading universities in the United States triggered predictions that bricks-and-mortar campuses would soon be obsolete and that learning would be forever changed.

Well, maybe — but not any time soon, according to one of the first comprehensive studies of MOOCs from the perspective of institutions, just released by researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University. The study is based on 83 interviews with faculty members, administrators, researchers, and other actors in the MOOC space from 62 institutions, mostly in the United States. It includes 13 case studies to illustrate how MOOCs are successfully being used to address institutional goals.   ... " 

Better Data on Online Education

In GigaOM:  " .... Collecting student data digitally isn’t solely something for massive open online courses. Even university professors and their students can benefit from transforming the lecture experience into one designed to go anywhere and collect data all along the way. .... "  

Deeper Learning

In Innovation Excellence: On the topic of deeper learning. References a video and a MOOC course to launch soon.   worth a further look.  Not the same thing as the machine learning concept called deep learning.

Salman Kahn on Education

An interview in HBR with Salman Kahn, founder of the Kahn Academy.   Just have started to dive in.   " ... Salman Khan was working as a hedge fund analyst when he started using online tools to tutor his cousins in math. Nine years later, his nonprofit organization, Khan Academy, draws on the same approach to offer more than 5,000 free, web-based video lessons to millions of students across the globe, disrupting not only schools but also the education industry built around them. ... "