San Jose State University suspends Udacity online course trials

San Jose University suspends Udacity online course trials

San Jose State University's online education pilot held the promise of real course credit without the hassles of attending class in person. It hasn't worked that way in practice, however, and both SJSU as well as its partner Udacity have suspended their plans for fall courses. Quite simply, there have been too many flunkies so far -- while 83 percent of students completed their sessions this spring, no more than 44 percent of any given class earned a passing grade. SJSU and Udacity will use the break to learn what went wrong and retool the program, although it's not clear just when (or if) internet-based classes will resume. Online education is far from finished when similar for-credit trials have yet to begin; for now, though, SJSU students will have to drag themselves to the lecture hall.

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Source: LA Times

Udacity to announce partnership with San Jose State University, will trial for-credit online classes

Udacity to announce partnership with San Jose State University, will trial forcredit online classes

Working alongside college professors at San Jose State, online course start-up Udacity will launch a pilot program for remedial and college-level algebra. Importantly, these classes won't simply result in a nice certificate, but genuine college credit. Students will have to stump up $150 for each three-unit course, with the intake limited to 300; half will come from San Jose State, while the remaining places will be given to those attending nearby community colleges and high schools. The online course start-up, founded by former Stanford professor Sebastian Thurn, says that its own mentors will assist university staff in administering the course, which will include instructional video and web-based quizzes.

MIT and Harvard's similar EdX course saw promising results during its own pilot tests at San Jose. While 40 percent in the traditional class arrangement got a C grade or lower, only 9 percent using the blended online course picked up the same grades. California Governor Jerry Brown hopes that the courses might help reduce barriers to college education entry -- more than 50 percent of entrants are unable to meet the college's basic requirements in math and English.

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Via: The Verge

Source: New York Times