University-Run Boot Camps Offer Students Marketable Skills — but Not Course Credit — from chronicle.com by Ellen Wexler
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Level, a venture that offers students courses in data analytics, has a motto of sorts. It’s written in large letters across the program’s website: “Real skills. Real experience. Two months.”
The motto sounds a lot like the boot-camp style of education offered by companies like General Assembly. But Level, a product of Northeastern University, is neither a private company nor a Silicon Valley startup. It is one of the first boot-camp programs created by a traditional university, and it exists alongside Northeastern’s master’s programs in subjects such as urban informatics and information design and visualization.
Also see:
How Nanodegrees Are Disrupting Higher Ed — from Campus Technology’s October 2015 edition
New “micro” online certification programs are changing the educational pathways to success in certain industries.
Addendum on 10/15/15:
- For 1st time, MIT’s free online classes can lead to degree — from monroenews.com
Excerpt:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered free online courses for the last four years with one major downside: They didn’t count toward a degree. That’s about to change. In a pilot project announced Wednesday, students will be able to take a semester of free online courses in one of MIT’s graduate programs and then, if they pay a “modest fee” of about $1,500 and pass an exam, they will earn a MicroMaster’s credential, the school said. The new credential represents half of the university’s one-year master’s degree program in supply chain management. As part of the pilot project, students who perform well in the online half can take an exam to apply for the second semester on campus. Those who get in would pay $33,000, about half the cost of the yearlong program.