<story><title>MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U</title><url>https://news.mit.edu/2021/mit-harvard-transfer-edx-2u-0629</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>benrbray</author><text>I tried to use edX for the first time recently to take a &amp;quot;food science&amp;quot; course, but was disappointed to see that they&amp;#x27;ve resorted to the same dark patterns as Coursera and others, such as:&lt;p&gt;* Removing your access to course materials when the class is done, and disallowing access to past versions of the class.&lt;p&gt;* Pressuring you into joining as many courses as possible, due to fear of missing out.  When you visit the site, every course says &amp;quot;Course began ($TODAY-5)&amp;quot; to make you feel like &amp;quot;wow, I got here just in time!  I better sign up for everything!&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;* Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes.  I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I&amp;#x27;m listening while doing dishes etc.&lt;p&gt;* An unsettling UI that feels less like it&amp;#x27;s about presenting information in a compact and&amp;#x2F;or digestible way and more like it&amp;#x27;s tracking my every move and waiting for an opportunity to pounce.  Everything is a button or clickthrough menu that requires interaction.&lt;p&gt;Thankfully MIT OpenCourseWare still has plenty of lecture videos &amp;#x2F; course materials available.  But I&amp;#x27;m quite afraid for the future.</text></item><item><author>brutus1213</author><text>This seems like terrible news :( After the focus on monetization of platforms such as udemy and coursera, edx seemed to give me a sliver of hope that education will be open. Given the immense trust funds held by Harvard and MIT, I had hoped money would not be a factor and these institutions would be able to develop their platform in the open.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to add .. non-profit does not mean free to end users. There are many good non-profits and there are many terrible ones (highly paid execs, insane amount of money spent on marketing).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wodenokoto</author><text>&amp;gt; Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes. I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I&amp;#x27;m listening while doing dishes etc.&lt;p&gt;I disagree. If you’re doing dishes you are not taking a college level course. One of the best things about digital courses is that you don’t have to spend an hour zoning out to a professor talking and then spend a day doing exercises, but the two can be intertwined and knowledge can be cemented.&lt;p&gt;Of course it can be done terribly. But the best online courses I’ve taken have split things up into small chunks with relevant exercises.</text></comment>
<story><title>MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U</title><url>https://news.mit.edu/2021/mit-harvard-transfer-edx-2u-0629</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>benrbray</author><text>I tried to use edX for the first time recently to take a &amp;quot;food science&amp;quot; course, but was disappointed to see that they&amp;#x27;ve resorted to the same dark patterns as Coursera and others, such as:&lt;p&gt;* Removing your access to course materials when the class is done, and disallowing access to past versions of the class.&lt;p&gt;* Pressuring you into joining as many courses as possible, due to fear of missing out.  When you visit the site, every course says &amp;quot;Course began ($TODAY-5)&amp;quot; to make you feel like &amp;quot;wow, I got here just in time!  I better sign up for everything!&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;* Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes.  I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I&amp;#x27;m listening while doing dishes etc.&lt;p&gt;* An unsettling UI that feels less like it&amp;#x27;s about presenting information in a compact and&amp;#x2F;or digestible way and more like it&amp;#x27;s tracking my every move and waiting for an opportunity to pounce.  Everything is a button or clickthrough menu that requires interaction.&lt;p&gt;Thankfully MIT OpenCourseWare still has plenty of lecture videos &amp;#x2F; course materials available.  But I&amp;#x27;m quite afraid for the future.</text></item><item><author>brutus1213</author><text>This seems like terrible news :( After the focus on monetization of platforms such as udemy and coursera, edx seemed to give me a sliver of hope that education will be open. Given the immense trust funds held by Harvard and MIT, I had hoped money would not be a factor and these institutions would be able to develop their platform in the open.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to add .. non-profit does not mean free to end users. There are many good non-profits and there are many terrible ones (highly paid execs, insane amount of money spent on marketing).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ArtWomb</author><text>Not surprised a cooking class doesn&amp;#x27;t lend itself to an easy online port! But the lecture content from Harvard&amp;#x27;s Science and Cooking with El Bulli&amp;#x27;s Ferran Adria is still as you mention freely available online for all to enjoy. I recently had a free week pass to Masterclass. And though I found the content more entertaining than enlightening (How to be a Boss with Anna Wintour). There is something to be said about educational content that is given a Hollywood production budget. I think it was always inevitable institutes of higher education would seek auxiliary revenue streams from MOOCs. And an influx of capital could result in lecture videos that are Netflix quality, and that enjoy near 100% levels of retention ;)&lt;p&gt;Science and Cooking: A Dialogue | Lecture 1 (2010)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=d9av8-lhJS8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=d9av8-lhJS8&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>