Saturday, July 27, 2013

The MOOC That Roared

The MOOC That Roared
How Georgia Tech’s new, super-cheap online master’s degree could radically change American higher education.
Slate, July 23, 2013

Georgia Institute of Technology is about to take a step that could set off a broad disruption in higher education: It’s offering a new master’s degree in computer science, delivered through a series of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, for $6,600.

The school’s traditional on-campus computer science master’s degree costs about $45,000 in tuition alone for out-of-state students (the majority) and $21,000 for Georgia residents. But in a few years, Georgia Tech believes that thousands of students from all over the world will enroll in the new program.

The $6,600 master’s degree marks an attempt to realize the tantalizing promise of the MOOC movement: a great education, scaled up to the point where it can be delivered for a rock-bottom price. Until now, the nation’s top universities have adopted a polite but distant approach toward MOOCs. The likes of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford have put many of their classes online for anyone to take, and for free. But there is no degree to be had, even for those who ace the courses. Education writer and consultant Tony Bates recently noted that until top institutions begin putting a diploma behind their MOOCs, “we have to believe that they think that this is a second class form of education suitable only for the unwashed masses.”

While many universities now offer online degree programs (which don’t have the massive numbers of students as MOOCs), they are almost always priced at the level of their traditional on-campus programs. George Washington University’s online MBA Healthcare degree, for example, costs the same $1,485 per unit (52.5 units gets you to the finish line) as the standard program. The reasons for this are many, but perhaps the most important is that universities are terrified of debasing the value of their diplomas.

Drop the price of the online degree, the logic goes, and you could have a Napster-like moment sweeping college campuses. Revenues spiral down as degree programs are forced to compete on tuition. That’s a terrifying prospect for universities, which have depended on steadily rising tuition—growing at more than twice the rate of inflation—to cover costs.

Georgia Tech’s new program, though, throws a monkey wrench into the system by reordering the competitive landscape. U.S. News & World Report ranks the computer science department among the nation’s top 10. The new degree—which is a partnership with MOOC pioneer Udacity—is intended to carry the same weight and prestige as the one it awards students in its regular on-campus program.

John Backus, the chief executive of Atlantic Ventures, which invests in a number of higher-education companies, asks: “Why would you go to XYZ college, pay three to four times the amount, when you can get a master’s degree more cheaply and from a better school?”

Across town from Georgia Tech, Emory University, with a less prestigious computer science department, offers a master’s degree for around $40,000 in tuition. Plenty of other mid-tier schools also could find themselves struggling to justify their high sticker price. A year of tuition at Boston University’s graduate school costs in excess of $43,000; Washington University in St. Louis is $44,000. Living expenses and other fees can drive those figures up even more. At most programs, Georgia Tech’s included, a few master’s students get teaching or research fellowships, but financial aid opportunities are usually hard to come by. Many master’s students finance their tuition by taking on debt.

There are still a lot of questions about whether an online program with thousands of students can measure up to a campus-based program that enrolls about 130. Chip Paucek is the founder of 2U, a firm that provides online course platforms to universities, such as Georgetown University's Master of Nursing program. He insists that even with an online program, you can’t just add students without compromising quality. “Nearly 1,000 students receive live training each week in classes of 10–15 students,” he says, adding, “Could we reduce the cost of instruction by doubling or tripling the size of the live classes? Sure. But we are confident that doing so would undercut the learning experience.”

Even Zvi Galil, the head of Georgia Tech’s school of computing who is launching the new program, is wary. “This is uncharted territory,” he says. But, he warns, if Georgia Tech doesn’t do this someone else might come along and do it first—grabbing the notoriety, the students, and the revenue. “There is a revolution. I want to lead it, not follow it,” he says.

The idea for the program first came about last fall when Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun met up with Galil, and, with typical Silicon Valley swagger, proposed creating an online master’s program for $1,000.* The pair got to work on it. Both Thrun and Galil recite the well-worn MOOC talking points. “How can we reach people we can’t reach today?” asks Thrun. “Online is one way. Price is another.” They also say that offering a computer science degree on a massive scale can help alleviate the demand for talent in the job market.

Currently, Georgia Tech receives about 1,400 applications for its computer science master’s program and accepts less than 15 percent. Galil insists that more than half of the applicants, however, could actually handle the work. He says there is no reason why the online program, by its third year, shouldn’t be able to admit all the applicants who meet the minimum standards. Many applicants are from overseas. With the new MOOC-style program, hurdles such as obtaining student visas melt away.

As currently configured, MOOCs have plenty of failings. According to one recent study, the completion rate is generally under 10 percent. Cheating can be rampant. Neither of those would do for a program that costs money and delivers a prestigious degree. So Thrun and Galil began building what they call “MOOC 2.0.” That means baking in a lot of human oversight and interaction into the system. It includes student advising, some tutoring, and even the hectoring to turn in homework on time that happens in a traditional course.

However, another consequence of Georgia Tech’s exercise is to lift the kimono on the crude math that universities use to figure out what to charge. (The site Inside Higher Ed obtained documents that outline the cost breakdown and did an analysis.) A $2 million initial gift from AT&T—which plans to enroll some of its employees—helped defray the start-up costs. That means that even with the bargain-basement tuition, both Georgia Tech and Udacity expect to split a modest surplus of $240,000 from year one.

As the program scales up, the costs increase, but the anticipated revenues grow faster. By the third year enrollment is estimated to hit more than 2,000, more master’s students than the department has graduated in the past 20 years. That year, costs are projected to be $14.3 million, revenues $19.1 million.

Georgia Tech’s current on-campus program also brings in revenue that exceeds its costs, though the university says it is difficult to put a hard figure on how much. In recent years, universities across the county have rolled out new master’s programs—particularly in subjects that are required for state licenses, such as teaching or psychology. Often, these turn out to be cash cows because of the high tuition and low levels of university financial aid. But Georgia Tech’s MOOC master’s, with its ability to scale up dramatically, could potentially dwarf the returns the university has seen previously.

“It’s a complicated formula,” says Thrun. “The bulk of the costs are the face-time. The platform itself is the cheapest component.”

Some of those costs have big implications for the campus pecking order: The plan calls for hiring course assistants who aren’t drawn from the ranks of graduate students. Instead, they will be people with some expertise in the subject matter. Galil said that some could even be recent graduates of the online program; others might not have master’s degrees.

As Georgia Tech moves ahead, one of the first casualties may be the university’s own on-campus computer science master’s program. Charging an out-of-state student $45,000 to show up to class on time might be a tough sell when the same degree can be had for a fraction of the cost.

Galil guesses that some students might be willing to pay extra for the in-person contact or the chance to connect with corporate recruiters visiting campus. But he assumes that many others won’t. The on-campus program could shrink, he says, but adds, “So what?”

Monday, July 22, 2013

Microsoft Research Summit Impressions

This week I attended the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, an annual event held at MSR Redmond. The 2013 event gathered over 400 faculty from around the world. I was honored to receive an invitation, as these invitations are competitive: MSR researchers recommend faculty to invite, and a committee at MSR selects a subset who receive invitations.

Below are some of my impressions from the event. But, before I go on, I  first wanted to thank MSR researchers John Krumm, Ivan Tashev and Shamsi Iqbal for spending time with me at the summit.  Thanks also to MSR’s Tim Paek, who has played a key role in a number of our studies at UNH.

Bill Gates inspires
Bill Gates was the opening keynote speaker. He discussed his work with the Gates Foundation and answered audience questions. One of the interesting things from the Q&A session was Bill’s proposed analogy that MOOCs are similar to recorded music: in the past there was much more live music, while today we primarily listen to recorded music. In the future live lectures might also become much less common and we might instead primarily listen to recorded lectures by the best lecturers. While this might sound scary to faculty, Bill points out that lectures are just one part of a faculty member’s education-related efforts. Others include work in labs, study sessions, and discussions.

MSR is a uniquely open industry lab
While MSR is only about 1% of Microsoft, it spends as much on computing research as the NSF. And most importantly, as Peter Lee, Corporate VP MSR, pointed out, MSR researchers publish, and in general conduct their work in an open fashion. MSR also sets its own course independently, even of Microsoft proper.

Microsoft supports women in computing
The Faculty Summit featured a session on best practices in promoting computing disciplines to women. One suggestion that stuck with me is that organizations (e.g. academic departments) should track their efforts and outcomes. Once you start tracking, and is creating a paper trail, things will start to change.

Moore’s law is almost dead (and will be by 2025)
Doug Burger, Director of Client and Cloud Applications in Microsoft Research’s Extreme Computing Group, pointed out that we cannot keep increasing computational power by reducing transistor size, as our transistors are becoming atom-thin. There’s a need for new approaches. One possible direction is to customize hardware: e.g. if we only need 20 bits for a particular operation, why implement the logic with 32?

The Lab of Things is a great tool for ubicomp research
Are you planning a field experiment in which you expect to collect data from electronic devices in the home? Check out the Lab of Things (LoT), it’s really promising. It allows you to quickly deploy your system, monitor system activity from the cloud, and log data in the cloud. Here’s a video introducing the LoT:

Source: Andrew Kun, University of New Hampshire


Bill Gates @ Microsoft Research Faculty Summit

Bill Gates says that this is the “golden era” of learning, thanks to massive open online courses and easy access to information. The chairman of Microsoft gave the keynote address on Monday at Microsoft Research’s Faculty Summit, an annual event that brings together Microsoft researchers and academics from more than 200 institutions for a two-day conference in Redmond, Wash., on current issues facing computer science.

At the summit, Mr. Gates told the audience that he sees enormous potential for MOOCs but cautioned that online education still faces many challenges. He also talked briefly about online education during an question-and-answer session with the audience.

In the Q&A, Mr. Gates predicted that MOOCs would not be “place-based” classes but would be led by a small subset of instructors who taught to a broad audience. There’s a set of people, he said, who are really good at it and who have big budgets and great support.

Mr. Gates said online education is “certainly going to happen” but emphasized that there’s more to learning than simply lectures. He cautioned that it was important not to forget the value of in-class learning, especially in lab work and in collaborative study groups.

He added that the high dropout rate of students enrolled in MOOCs has yet to be dealt with. In some instances, he said, the for-profit sector of education is doing a better job of tackling the issue through its intense support of students. As an example, he cited how for-profit learning companies will contact students if they are not present for a class or Webcast. He called that kind of hand-holding a “best practice.”

Mr. Gates also addressed the current discussion over the value of a college degree, predicting a “decoupling” of the degree from knowledge acquisition. Traditionally, a college degree was a badge indicating skills in certain areas that could be translated to employment. Mr. Gates said that may no longer be the case, largely because of online education.

This will be “a global phenomenon,” he said. “We’re on the beginning of something very profound.”

Source: Ms. Grossman, Chronicle of Higher Education