I just remembered I forgot to describe the student motivation. It was very low. The students in the Udacity course were generally put on computers unsupervised and expected to work independently. The students often interpreted this setup as an open invitation to go to video game websites or watch fight videos on the newly unblocked youtube. When then confronted after sometime with their lack of progress, the students would use the excuse that the course work was too hard, not having tried it in the first place. Much of the staff seemed to be aware of the reality of the student excuses, but backed their excuses anyway.