[AISWorld] Georgia Tech offers a $6, 600 Master's Degree in Computer Science

[Ilia Bider]

Leon,

What is the problem with this trend? I cannot see any, as long as 
educators are serious when designing and conducting on-line courses. 
Education is not disappearing :-) , it just takes different forms :-(.

--Ilia
On 2013-05-27 19:28, Kappelman, Leon wrote:
>
> *Dennis K. Berman 
> <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=213114599&authType=name&authToken=Xtq2&goback=%2Empd2_*1_*1_*1_*1_%2F20130524203941*5213114599*5the*56*5600*5master*5s*5degree&trk=mp-ph-pn>*
>
> *Business Editor of the Wall Street Journal*
>
> *The $6,600 Master's Degree*
>
> May 24, 2013
>
> There comes a time in every concept's life when the 
> thing...actually...happens.
>
> If you're reading this post, you probably already have some 
> familiarity with all the jostling going on in the education business. 
> You know, for instance, that a number of companies are experimenting 
> with MOOCs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course> 
> (Massive Open Online Courses), tablet-based learning 
> <http://mashable.com/2013/03/06/classroom-tablets/>, and all kinds of 
> in-school networking and Big Data analytics.
>
> And then came last week's announcemen 
> <http://blog.udacity.com/2013/05/sebastian-thrun-announcing-online.html>t.
>
> Georgia Tech, one of the nation's best engineering schools, said it 
> would begin offering fully-accredited, real-world master's degrees in 
> computer science via the Internet. The cost: About $6,600. Or roughly 
> the cost of a few years of /interest/ that many graduate students pay 
> on a big loan to fund their education.
>
> Here is the key line from the *The Wall Street Journal 
> <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324031404578483670125295836.html>'*s 
> take on the program:
>
> The upfront costs to create the online lectures run between $200,000 
> and $300,000, but once those hard outlays have been made the cost per 
> each additional student is minimal, said Mr. Isbell. He estimated the 
> school would have to hire one full-time teacher for every 100 online 
> students as opposed to one full-time teacher for every 10 or 20 
> students who study on campus.
>
> The description made me recall my freshman political science class in 
> the mid-1990s, held in a dusty auditorium in West Philadelphia, a 
> bow-tied professor reading his erudite, but canned, lecture to a few 
> hundred freshmen.
>
> *Looking back on it now, this experience had far more in common with 
> the Middle Ages than the world of 2013.*What's the difference between 
> watching a lecture in an auditorium and watching HD-quality video in 
> one's living room or beach cabana?
>
> From there it's not that hard to question the cost of a standard 
> master's degree, which all-in can cost $50,000 to $60,000 per year. 
> Even if the experience is not the same, the /value for money/ from the 
> $6,600 degree appears at first blush, superior.
>
> For people in business, there's plenty to take away here. It's easy to 
> use the old trope - disruption - but put that aside for a moment.
>
> The thought exercise I've been going through is this: What's the 
> proverbial *$6,600 Master's Degree* in your industry? And what would 
> happen to your industry if it happened *now* rather than in the murky 
> future? It's a fun and sometimes harrowing game to play.
>
> Let's try:
>
> *For doctors, it's nearly-thinking systems that can diagnose, 
> prescribe, and treat most common illnesses, absent human intervention.*
>
> *For journalists like me, it's already arrived. It's called the free 
> Internet.*
>
> *For taxi drivers, it's driverless cars.*
>
> *For hotels, it's Airbnb. <http://www.airbnb.com>*
>
> If you haven't devised the answer for what it is you do, you have 
> three choices: Prepare for it, build it, or ignore it. What's your path?
>
> Best wishes,
> Leon Kappelman
>
> *"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are 
> prepared to choose wisely.  The real safeguard of democracy, 
> therefore, is education. 
> <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.html>" -- 
> Franklin D. Roosevelt 
> <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.html>*
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Leon A. Kappelman, Ph.D.
>   Professor of Information Systems
>   Director Emeritus, Information Systems Research Center
>   Fellow, Texas Center for Digital Knowledge
>     College of Business, University of North Texas
>     Voice: 940-565-4698   Email: kapp at unt.edu <mailto:kapp at unt.edu>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>
>
>
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-- 
===============================================
Dr. Ilia Bider
Process- och systemutvecklingskonsult at ibissoft.se
Lektor & Forskare at DSV.su.se
ilia at ibissoft.se        +46 (0)8 164998
Design science in action ... http://slidesha.re/Uq3RTC

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