The Open Revolution

Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18open-t.html

The question raised most loudly, I think, is how educational institutions and the educational process should change in a world where educational materials are much much more freely available. Like everything else in the internet age, there are two fundamental things missing. The first of these is human contact. You know, the kind you get from actually sitting in the room with a group of fellow students working on the same thing. The second is a filter. How on earth do you find the good and reputable information in the vast sea of the internet. Who compiles a menu of course offerings that pull together the richest and most savory elements. After all, you could try reading wikipedia from a to z, but I don't know that would really be an education.

Finding a way to incorporate contact and filters into university education are challenges, but they are challenges that learners can solve independently. There's always meetup.com for finding a learning group, and online aggregate ratings can steer towards the good courses (if imperfectly). But there is one problem that fundamentally cannot be solved by a single person working to elevate their education on an individual level.

This problem is certification. Once you complete a course at a traditional university it gives you credit towards something called a degree. This degree is backed by the institution, and comes with a reputation that acts as a signal to people in the marketplace. As odd and unsavory as it may sound, the degree 'brands' you, and gives you the benefits (and sometimes detriments) that brand confers. There is nothing I can think of that allows an independent learner to acquire such a certifying brand. Institutions that acknowledge and certify learned skills are desperately needed if the open courseware revolution is going to take another leap forward.