Open: Comparing MIT and OLI open courses

Comparing MIT and OLI open courses


For those not interested in reading the specifics (likely everybody who reads this post) here is my short version of a comparison between the MIT and OLI courses.

1. In general the OLI courses pass the "SLAM" test better, meaning they would be easier to revise and repurpose.

2. In general the OLI courses seemed more like courses that I could "take" on my own and really get a lot from the course.

3. I really liked the quiz features on OLI and felt that they were very helpful for learning.

4. The breadth of courses offered by MIT is amazing.

In general, forced to choose between the two, I would rather take all OLI courses.


OLI course #1: Economics

—I could tell that there was some good things happening in this course; however, the layout was a little confusing. I went through three modules and it frequently referred to an experiment with X numbers of traders and I was not sure how that related to the course. I’m sure that there is a strong logic behind it, and perhaps I entered the course at the wrong place; however, trying to act as an interested but not totally committed user, I think I would back out of the course since the structure wasn’t making perfect sense to me. It also appeared from the course description that parts of the course were in fact closed.


OLI course #2: Causal Reasoning and Statistics



One thing that is cool about this course is that at the end of each module there is a quiz that one can take to check your understanding. Another interesting feature was that they invited you to offer contributions to the course by emailing them if you found an online causality example that could add to the course. There were cool simulations and then quizzes to see if you understood them (I got 100% on the one I took J). I thought that all quizzes were open, but the one at the end of the module said: Quiz > Causation: Preliminaries Quiz (Not available in Open and Free courses.) Some other quizzes were available. It wasn’t readily apparent to me why some were included and others were not. On one of the quizzes I took it gave you feedback to let you know whether your answer was wrong or right and why. Cool and helpful!



OLI Course #3: Logic and Proofs

Another good course. One thing I noticed this time when I took the quiz was that if you get the answer wrong it does not explain why you were right, it just says, “correct!” Some times I guessed correctly but would have appreciated a short explanation saying, this is why you are right.


In class today we talked about SLAM analysis, meaning that to tell how open a course is check the following measures are helpful.


* Self-sourced?
* Level of expertise?
* Access to editing tools
* Meaningfully editable?


With this in mind, on this course I noticed there was a video that one could watch; in addition, you could read a text that went along with the video. However, the video was in a format such that with my (decent) skills I could not edit as easily as I could an .mpg file. Similarly the quiz questions came up one at a time, and the process of copying and pasting them was much more laborious than it otherwise could have been.


OLI Course #4: Empirical Research Methods. I’m starting to feel like I have a feel for what an OLI course looks like. I appreciate the standardization and think that is helpful. I don’t think I have any new critiques to make of this course that are greatly different from my thoughts on courses #1-3.


OLI Course #5: Introduction to Statistics (Excel version).


This was another great course! It had more text (which I like) and in this course the quizzes gave you feedback whether you got an answer right or wrong (see course #3).


MIT Course #1: Chinese


Had lots of .pdf files, a “flashcube” (similar to electronic flashcards). In addition there were audio and video resources so that I could hear the Chinese tones. It seems like I could gain a lot from taking this course. As far as SLAM, it did seem that the .mp3 files could be easily repurposed and the text didn’t seem too bad either on the SLAM test, if one can manipulate .pdfs (which I cannot).


MIT Course #2: History of Philosophy This course was listed at the top of most-visited courses and it was a bit of a disappointment to me. It seemed to be full of .pdf lecture notes of the professor but I had a hard time following them (probably because I had not read the texts). It would be harder for me to use the materials from this course than one of the OLI courses for remixing. They had an “assignments” section which explained papers that a person is supposed to write, but no quizzes like OLI.



MIT Course #3: How to Develop "Breakthrough" Products and Services.

I found this course by navigating through the OCW site. There site is very well organized and the depth of content is amazing. I selected this site based by browsing through their courses specific looking at ones tagged as audio/video. I like how they have a variety of formats so that if my goal is to learn on the go, that is an option that is presented to me. Unfortunately with this course less than half of the lectures had video, and those that did used REAL media, which I don’t have. L



MIT Course #4: Comedy



I got to this course by browsing their new courses (thinking that the newer courses might have new approaches). I’ve been do a better job of creating humor so I was excited to check this course out. Sadly, I discovered that the syllabus said, “This class will not help you recognize, understand, or produce comedy more adeptly than you do now.” Oh well. I still perused the course. One of the things I don’t like about this (and other MIT courses) is that the readings are not available. The syllabus gives a list of dates and reading, but those readings aren’t easily accessible so I would have to go out and buy all the books if I really wanted to participate. A few of the readings were linked to Project Gutenberg sites, but some that I am pretty are in the public domain (e.g. Jane Austen) were still linked to Amazon to buy a copy. Furthermore there was this warning: “Note: All downloadable texts linked here are not the versions used in the course. Be aware that they may contain errors.” Kind of like the threatening notice David Wiley said they had in relation to the discussion board.


MIT Course #5: Economy and Business in Modern China and India

Same story as course #4. Texts all needed to be purchased separately and “lecture notes” were included for only one lecture. Looked like a fun course, but it was pretty sparse and there seemed to me almost no way that students could get value from this course (not to be overly critical) aside from benefiting from the organization of readings that the professor had put together.