dkennemo

Yes, that is exactly the idea. We know it is not perfect of course. We invite any input for suggested changes or additions. This project is not for our egos, but rather, to help an online community.

Think of it like a breakout session of an online class rather than an online class itself. Why is that useful, you may ask... Having a group and sense of connection helps keep people motivated.

The idea behind the name is that rather than just tutoring generally (which is provided by sites like wyzant), these tutors are specially selected for their competence with certain MOOCs - they've taken these courses before, typically as a student in a university. The "u" represents the learner - while MOOCs are a depersonalized learning medium, this service puts "u" back into it. We don't offer MOOCs, but a service used parallel to taking a MOOC to enhance the student's likelihood of success.

I don't imagine tutors are going to teach for free, but I do think the cost of education has generally spiraled out of control beyond what anyone could consider sustainable or reasonable.

In my dad's generation, you picked one profession, stuck with it for life, and had one or - if you were adventurous - two, employers. Retooling (and therefore continuing education) just wasn't required. You learned what you needed to learn in high school and perhaps college, and then you were done with that part of your life and moved on.

In this economy, people find themselves having a few different careers over their lifetime, and to facilitate that they need to revisit the academy a few times. But when you bundle together the cost of providing the education, the cost of supporting a large research organization (if at a research university) and the cost of a large physical plant, it gets super-expensive.

And then there are additional market frictions - I adore MIT as an institution, but even if qualified and admitted to their supply chain management program, there are a certain number of candidates who are going to say they can't afford the opportunity costs to NOT work for a year plus the out-of-pocket costs to attend. So, the benefit of such a candidate's intelligence and what they would contribute to the class, is lost in these frictions.

On the supply side, the high cost of resources dictates a high tuition price and an ever-present supply constraint: seats are limited. So, institutions limit the number of applicants who can get in and admissions committees do their best to select those from the applicant pool who will make THE most of the resources provided. But they're not perfect - they admit some people they wish they hadn't, and they reject others they live to regret not admitting. (Warren Buffett was famously rejected from Harvard - needless to say, the university now wishes they'd welcomed him with open arms...)

MOOCs remove this constraint - and scale infinitely - hence the cost can be very low indeed. But they remove the human component and no one knows yet whether LEARNING scales in this fashion.

uMOOC is trying to correct this flaw - to, quite literally, put the 'u' back in the MOOC.

So, HaoZeke, yes, money is made by tutors and the site, but it creates an environment where students who otherwise might get frustrated and quit, instead succeed and can move forward. That has to be worth something to society, no?

Hi Barry,

I'd like to get more detail on your view of how you think the signup process would work, optimally - we are all for making this as simple as possible for people.

Thanks! Dwayne

Harvard Extension's approach is, rather than have students jump through a lot of hoops to gain admission on the front end and hope that lightning strikes their application, let students prove they can do Harvard-level work through a number of so-called admissions courses (which double as courses in their degree program), and use THOSE as the basis for admission. It is a much better method than the very noisy GPA/GRE combo, in my opinion.

Although the courses I take have a distance ed option, I fly to campus every 4 - 6 weeks and spend a week in lecture in person - it is a better way to connect with my classmates and the professors than doing pure distance work. It's great to be around so many smart, hardworking people - when I started class there I was taken aback a little because I thought: "Where do these people come from, who are involved in a dozen projects at a time and seem to work 24 hours a day." And then it hit me: Oh WAIT - that's ME!

Most people either haven't heard of the Extension School and, if they have, have no idea it has been around for a century. Oxford University runs a similar concept - it is almost a bolt for bolt replica of the Extension School, but it's in England.

Hello, I'm Dwayne Kennemore, the other founder of uMOOC.

A group section would be terrific for another reason - in academic contexts, while students DO learn from their professors, they learn from ONE ANOTHER as much or more. There are a few reasons for this, but one of them is, I think, that they're more at ease with one another and don't have to worry about looking bad - this openness helps ideas flow more freely.

Group functionality would make that dynamic possible, further replicating the network that occurs in real life, in cyberspace.

You are already anticipating v2.0.

There is a startup called Springboard that is working on something like that, although I do not understand all the details. I agree - that is an awesome idea - the domain here is restricted to MOOCs because it's closed form and standardized, where tutors can be recruited for their expertise in a given course. An apprenticeship requires, I think, a much broader approach to what constitutes a "match" between both parties, and the interactions would need to be facilitated in a completely different way.