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Tell HN: Adopt a Course from OpenCourseWare
7 points by flipp on Feb 21, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments
We at Udemy are huge fans of OpenCourseWare. Personally, I learned how to code from MIT's Intro to Computer Science and now I get paid to do it. The content is seriously invaluable.

There is a problem however. When working through these courses, you have virtually no support available to you. We want to change that.

Starting today, we are accepting applications for people from the HN community to “adopt a course” from OpenCourseWare on Udemy. This basically means that you as an instructor will define a schedule for people working through the content, lead discussion and answer questions posted on the discussion board. And if you want to do more, such as leading live discussion, creating supplemental content, or giving tests, we encourage it. The goal is to develop a nice community around the courses, so that students can help each other.

If you want to adopt a course post below or email me (email in profile) with what course you’d like to adopt and a sentence or two on why you’re qualified.

Sample courses: http://www.udemy.com/cs-107-programming-paradigms/

http://www.udemy.com/introduction-to-robotics/

http://www.udemy.com/mit-6046j-18410j-introduction-to-algorithms-sma-5503/

Full list: http://www.udemy.com/courses/Academics.html




Are you affiliated in any way with OCW?


No, we just want to make online education better, and part of that is better support for OCW than Youtube comments.


Not to be flip, but what do I get out of it? In my experience, something like this can easily consume 15-20 hours per week. The last time I did something like this I got tuition reimbursement for TAing. Helping other people learn is fun, but how many people have that type of spare time?

If you anticipate it taking less time, then what is the instructor providing? The time sink -- and the most valuable part for the students -- is answering questions about the course material / giving negative feedback on homework so students know when they are incorrect.

Please don't take this as an attack -- I think the recent movement to bring education to anyone who wants it is awesome. It's just that the missing bit is who instructs / grades / answers questions and how does that person get paid / some return besides good vibes.


The same thing you get out of answering questions on Quora and editing articles on Wikipedia. We're not expecting instructors to spend anywhere close to 15-20 hours per week, or even expecting them to grade homework.

Thanks for the question, we appreciate the feedback.


Hmm. Could you offer a more concrete description of what you're looking for along with time commitments?




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