Power of Internet - Free and Quality Education

These examples demonstrated real power of internet.. amazingly great classes and courses available from top schools and universities of world available for free.. If you only care about knowledge and don't care about piece of paper (degree) then you can literally do PhD.. You just need to have desire and passion and decent internet connection. off-course you need time as well (which is most common excuse for grown ups like  me ;-) )

UC Berkeley joining or I should say expanding the free courses available online. I think lot of courses from lot of great universities are already available online on different platforms and locations. I know MIT, Stanford and many other great schools have superb presence online. Now a days, with iTunesU kicking in more and more courses in its portfolio.. This is great for someone studying in remote engineering colleges in India where Professor and other resources availability could be challenge (that is the best decent political correct term I can think off). In-fact those type of kids can easily attend in group setting along with their Professor or lecturers.. This can simply revolutionize quality of education across the globe..

Good Job!!! Keep it up!!

UC BERKELEY

Courses by Cal going online

Some UC faculty are worried about diluting prestige

By Matt Krupnick

mkrupnick@bayareanewsgroup.com 

With some professors grumbling over the University of California’s expanding online presence, UC Berkeley is joining two of its top competitors to bring free college courses to the masses.

The university will offer two free online classes this fall as part of the edX collaboration, which also includes Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. UC Berkeley employees were told about the partnership Monday.

The edX venture is Berkeley’s latest foray into the MOOC, or massive open online course, arena. The school already offers classes with Coursera, another free program that also includes Stanford, Princeton and the University of Michigan. Together the two ventures have some 950,000 students.

Some educators have complained that free online classes could hurt UC Berkeley’s reputation. Participants are working hard to keep that from happening, said Armando Fox, a UC Berkeley computer science professor who has helped teach a Coursera class and will do the same with edX.

“We would not have agreed to do an online course if we did not think we could maintain that standard of quality,” he said. More than 100,000 students from around the world have enrolled in his Coursera classes, he said. 

The edX experiment comes as the 10-campus UC system works to expand its own online program. The university recently began offering a handful of credit classes online to UC students and will bring non-UC students into the mix this year at up to $2,100 a class. 

Faculty leaders have cautioned the university against moving too quickly with the online courses. The UC Academic Senate has said it worries about the quality and finances of the UC Online project. 

In contrast, some of those most concerned about UC’s plans say they support free projects like Coursera and edX. 

“I’m not at all opposed to the open-sourced courses,” said Wendy Brown, a UC Berkeley political-science professor who has criticized the university’s approach to online education. “The experiments need to happen to develop these technologies.” 

The different models — UC’s own versus edX and Coursera — provide disparate benefits to students. 

UC’s online program is meant to expand the reach of UC classes, and students gain college credits for completing the courses. The stakes, professors say, are higher when the UC brand on a class is so prominent. 

But Coursera and edX offer only certificates, so the risk to an individual school is not as high. The programs offer free education to people who might otherwise be shut out from elite universities, said John Wilton, a UC Berkeley vice chancellor who has helped develop the school’s online partnerships. 

“There’s a public-good component to this, which I think is very appealing to the universities involved,” Wilton said. Universities have an obligation to improve online education, he said. “It’s not like we cannot do this. We have to do this.” The free courses do have detractors, however. UC campuses should concentrate more on their own students, particularly in the midst of a budget crisis, before leaping into such partnerships, said Christopher Edley, the UC Berkeley law dean who has helped guide the university system’s online development. 

“I worry that jumping into what our private peer institutions are doing feels a little like me-tooism rather than a vision,” he said. “Our mission has to do more with figuring out how to serve the thousands of California students who won’t fit on a UC campus. 

“It risks being a distraction from the somewhat urgent need to figure this stuff out.” 

Contact Matt Krupnick at 510-208-6488. 

Can NYC be ever close to Second Silicon Valley?

Stanford announced yesterday that they are withdrawing bid to build second Campus in NYC. Looks like they were close to loose race by some other universities/consortiums.. Well.. Here goes, our beloved Mayor Michael Bloomberg's dream of creating second silicon valley in NYC.. 


First of all, they shouldn't even think about replicating second silicon valley.. Our Silicon Valley is unique and it simply can't be replicated anywhere in the world forget about NYC.. Also.. with this mentality of competition and bidding war.... you may end up creating some bidding street (aka wall street) not anything serene like Silicon Valley.. If Mr. Bllomberg was really serious about silicon valley dream.. he should have been behind Stanford to get them there and offered them all kind of incentives rather than asking Stanford to compete with others.. What a moronic act.. This clearly says what he says.. he doesn't mean it.. period..  


It is not the academics or prestige or research or money which made SIlicon Valley.. it was the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the young blood of students coming out of Stanford / Berkley which made it.. and culture can't be bought.. it can be only learned and adapted.. for that you need Gurudevs or Gurus.. You can't buy a true Guru.. you have to respect and invite Guru!!! At least in this case.. learn from Indian culture of respect and love to Guru..


Here is copy of Article from our San Jose Mercury News.. 
=================
NO SECOND CAMPUS IN BIG APPLE

Stanford won’t be a part of it— N.Y., N.Y.

By Lisa M. Krieger

lkrieger@mercurynews.com 

Stanford University’s ambitious bid to build a New York City campus came to a sudden stop Friday, when the university abruptly withdrew from the competition.

In a startling announcement, President John Hennessy said the university and the city “could not find a way to realize our mutual goals.”

The university was considered a front-runner for the graduate school in applied sciences and engineering, a plan conceived by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a way to bolster the region’s tech talent and catalyze a second Silicon Valley.
Stanford did not explain the impasse, announced on the day Cornell University celebrated a $350 million anonymous gift to support its New York City campus bid with the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.


Some insiders said Stanford was frustrated by the city’s attempts to negotiate new terms. Others said the city’s recent push for more money might have stretched Stanford beyond its comfort zone. Still others said Stanford may have dropped its bid because it believed that the other top competitor, the Cornell-Technion effort, “was a lock” and wanted to save face. 

Stanford’s proposal — more than 600 pages long and costing about $1 million — had been bolstered by a major publicity campaign using Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, among others, to tout the plan. 

Hennessy, a Long Island native, was a champion of the project from the beginning, calling it a “high-risk, highreward” venture that could be “transformative” for both Stanford and the city. 

As of Thursday, Stanford’s team was still negotiating with New York, according to spokeswoman Lisa Lapin. 

But by Friday university leaders and the Stanford Board of Trustees concluded, after several weeks of negotiations, “that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity.” 

“The university could not be certain that it could proceed in a way that ensured the success of the campus,” a university statement said. 

The city is offering a free long-term lease and up to $100 million in taxpayer funds to a university or a group of universities willing to build an engineering or tech campus within the five boroughs. 

Stanford’s proposal outlined a $2.5 billion campus, built on Roosevelt Island over three decades, that would link the school to a global center of finance, fashion, art and business. It would have housed more than 200 faculty members and 2,000 students. 

Only last week, Bloomberg boasted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that “Stanford is desperate to do it — I’m not exaggerating.” 

New York media bemoaned the loss. “Well, that’s a shame! … Apparently, they weren’t that desperate,” wrote Garth Johnston on the popular city website Gothamist. The Wall Street Journal’s blog called the news “a blow to the Bloomberg administration’s contest.” 

The city didn’t respond directly to the news. Julie Wood, city deputy press secretary, issued this statement: “This competition is about changing the future of the city’s economy, and we are thrilled that we have a number of proposals that we believe will do exactly that. We are in serious negotiations with several of the other applicants, each of whom has a game-changing project queued up.” 

Stanford’s exit boosts the chances for the Cornell-Technion plan. Three other universities are also still in the running: Columbia, Carnegie Mellon and New York University. 

In October, Hennessy had cautioned that unless Stanford could get guarantees that it could build what it needed to build, plans would be abandoned. There were also concerns that post-Bloomberg administrations might try to change the terms of the project. “If we can’t get the entitlement,” assuring free-and-clear permission to build, “we are not going to be trapped into doing something,” he said. 

Students and faculty members also had reservations. In a student poll by the Stanford Daily, 50 percent opposed and 39 percent favored the New York City entry. Faculty members were largely supportive, but worried that the effort could distract from the Palo Alto campus. Some warned that the politics of New York City land use plans and permits were far more daunting and unpredictable than those in Santa Clara County.

“Stanford put forward an ambitious and serious proposal and worked hard to see that vision fulfilled,” Hennessy said in a statement. 

“Great universities need to continue to take risks, to innovate and to explore new opportunities where we can make contributions to supporting economic growth and expanding knowledge. 

“Stanford will continue to follow this path.” 

Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 408-920-5565.