Udacity Update

[KayV]

A few months ago, I posted on another thread about my experience with trying to get Udacity’s Intro to Statistics class put on my ACE transcript. To make a long story short, ACE has now put the following disclaimer on all of its Udacity course descriptions:

“Credit is recommended for students who earn a Verified Certificate from Udacity for this class. This requires enrollment in the full course and completion of a verified final assessment. Completion of the free courseware alone is not sufficient to receive ACE credit recommendations.”

Udacity is transitioning to offering “verified certificates,” which cost $150 per month, per class. They still do not offer verified certificates for all of their ACE-approved classes, but I think they are developing verified versions of them. Udacity is also changing its website to place less emphasis on the free classes and more on the verified certificates. I can no longer find any mention of ACE approval on Udacity’s website, so clearly it’s not something they wish to promote.

When I first decided to take the Intro to Statistics class, my hope was that it would be a free alternative to ALEKS classes. ALEKS, however, clearly wins the stats prize; I cannot imagine why anyone would pay $150 for only two hours of credit.

However, I can see Udacity’s usefulness in two different areas. First, the free courseware might be useful to some, especially for test prep or learning code. Also, some of the verified certificates they offer in computer science count as upper-level credit, so $150/ month for 3 UL credits wouldn’t be fantastically expensive if you could knock out the class quickly. They even say that some of their classes are part of a Georgia Tech Master’s in CS program, but once again, the website has remarkably little to say on that subject.

Udacity’s customer service was rather lamentable, but I really appreciated ACE’s going the extra mile (and the weeks it took) for them to figure out exactly what was going on with Udacity. I also appreciate the disclaimer they now have posted about Udacity classes. If I had seen that before taking the class, I would have pursued other options.

[Saharapost]

Would it be fair to say that MOOCs are systematically straying from their original "mission"?

[rebel100]

Would it be fair to say that MOOCs are systematically straying from their original "mission"?

I don't know what you mean.

I think MOOC's are cool, but at the end of the day someone has to cover the cost. Every school, public, private, for or not for profit, they all need to operate in the black. Who can afford to go through the relatively costly accreditation process and still offer viable programming, for credit, for free? Even "successful" experiments like Saylor are underwritten by actual cash.

I believe udacity offers these "free" courses as a loss leader to get "students" in the door. If memory serves they then recommend you to schools like Strayer where you can then fork over ridiculous amounts of money for a school of questionable quality...but it still comes down to the $$$$$

[sanantone]

Which Udacity courses are UL? How come I can't find them on the ACE National Guide? Are they listed under a different name?

[Saharapost]

I don't know what you mean.

I think MOOC's are cool, but at the end of the day someone has to cover the cost. Every school, public, private, for or not for profit, they all need to operate in the black. Who can afford to go through the relatively costly accreditation process and still offer viable programming, for credit, for free? Even "successful" experiments like Saylor are underwritten by actual cash.

I believe udacity offers these "free" courses as a loss leader to get "students" in the door. If memory serves they then recommend you to schools like Strayer where you can then fork over ridiculous amounts of money for a school of questionable quality...but it still comes down to the $$$$$

I agree that it cost $$$$$$ for MOOCs providers to continue operating, however, if the purpose of introducing MOOC, is to increase access to higher education, I think charging $150 per course per month is too much considering that- the ACE "certified" course may not be accepted by all schools and that most of those taking MOOCs seem to come from developing nations where they tend to lack the funding to take traditional online courses. I think charging $150 per class per month for a 2 credit course may not represent the picture that most people have about MOOCs...

[KayV]

Well, that's odd. They are now on the list of "inactive" ACE providers. If you try to add one of their classes to your transcript, you can see the list of previous courses.

And in even stranger news, exactly four months after I finished the Intro to Stats class, a Udacity rep just contacted me to say that I must pass a proctored exit interview for the class, in which they will verify my identity, ask me questions about the course, and ask me questions about how I got my answers for the final exam. Oh, and this must be scheduled between now and April 18, after which they will not be able to provide exit interviews.

[KayV]

Just checked and Intro to Artificial Intelligence and Intro to Parallel Programming were the UL CS courses, although I think a couple of the others looked like UL credit from TESC when I did a PLA search. They had a total of seven courses for ACE credit, but now who knows?

[Photog]

Just checked and Intro to Artificial Intelligence and Intro to Parallel Programming were the UL CS courses, although I think a couple of the others looked like UL credit from TESC when I did a PLA search. They had a total of seven courses for ACE credit, but now who knows?

It appears that they are charging for the courses now. On the Ace website it says for Intro to Computer Science:

Credit is recommended for students who earn a Verified Certificate from Udacity for this class. This requires enrollment in the full course and completion of a verified final assessment. Completion of the free courseware alone is not sufficient to receive ACE credit recommendations.

The course is $150 per month and is worth 2 credits.

Full courses are here:
https://www.udacity.com/courses#!/All

I think only Intro to Comp Science is worth credit at ACE

[SweetSecret]

This sounds like a huge pain! Thank you for posting about all of this... I'll know to avoid the Udacity courses now for anything other than test preparation!