>This caused several of their best professors to resign and leave Stanford.
Just to clarify, this was one professor, Sebastian Thrun. The Coursera professors still teach at Stanford. In fact, the Coursera effort has been to integrate on-campus and off-campus efforts from the beginning.
The off-campus students of the DB, ML, and AI classes were given access to interactive lectures, exercises, and exams which was revolutionary. For their part, the on-campus students were freed from the lecture problem all other college students face. When you attend most college lectures, you might as well be watching a video (to most professors chagrin).
Despite professors' pleading, in 2012 the best way to get lectures to students AND have an interactive experience is to separate the lectures out entirely and then simply have interactive "lab-ish" sessions when on-campus students are in class. This is what they did in the DB, ML, and AI classes, the Stanford students for their money enjoyed more intimate professor access, and these extra learning modules. On top of that, it must have been a big relief to be a part of a class run that way. At other schools, if a professor has videos from previous years or even slides posted online, many kids just don't go, there isn't much point.
>Your post suggests that the certificates indicated they were granted or approved or validated in some way by Stanford.
My point was that the relationship with the Stanford name was strained and it created legalistic issues. It seems like we're in agreement about that.
Just to clarify, this was one professor, Sebastian Thrun. The Coursera professors still teach at Stanford. In fact, the Coursera effort has been to integrate on-campus and off-campus efforts from the beginning.
The off-campus students of the DB, ML, and AI classes were given access to interactive lectures, exercises, and exams which was revolutionary. For their part, the on-campus students were freed from the lecture problem all other college students face. When you attend most college lectures, you might as well be watching a video (to most professors chagrin).
Despite professors' pleading, in 2012 the best way to get lectures to students AND have an interactive experience is to separate the lectures out entirely and then simply have interactive "lab-ish" sessions when on-campus students are in class. This is what they did in the DB, ML, and AI classes, the Stanford students for their money enjoyed more intimate professor access, and these extra learning modules. On top of that, it must have been a big relief to be a part of a class run that way. At other schools, if a professor has videos from previous years or even slides posted online, many kids just don't go, there isn't much point.
>Your post suggests that the certificates indicated they were granted or approved or validated in some way by Stanford.
My point was that the relationship with the Stanford name was strained and it created legalistic issues. It seems like we're in agreement about that.