Re: [DIYbio] Re: Online Course: Introduction to DNA Barcoding ---> Other DNA analysis MOOCs?

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Yea, I think that's closer to the "future".

MOOCs, like "Open Access Journals", are a transitional phase of
top-down academic organisation towards a more distributed, "P2P"*
arrangement.

So, I imagine the real situation to expect is a wider web of
shared/reviewed course modules that local teams teach and share. Local
lecturers running from expert, peer-reviewed slides and notes with
open-access, regularly updated textbooks.

Strange really, that academic research which contributes to the body
of knowledge is expected to be peer reviewed and verified or falsified
by ongoing work, but the other end of academia is generally "special
sauce" kept close by tutors and hidden from scrutiny. I've seen plenty
of course material that's beyond flawed, it's downright pseudoscience;
lecturer opinion or speculation taught as fact.

But the pure top-down MOOC model, like the Open University (which
preceded this "MOOC" hipster reinvention), does lack in the direct
experience. For some academic branches, this might be OK; where
knowledge alone is imparted rather than a mix of knowledge and skill,
but for biology I think it's poorly suited.

..but then, that's why we recommend biohackerspaces for n00bs, right?
Go do, then ask?
-Cathal

*Given that academia requires expertise, and relative expertise creates
gradients of peerage, perhaps Academic "P2P" stands for "Privilege to
Populat"? :)

On Wed, 4 Sep 2013 18:24:30 -0400
Dakota Hamill <dkotes@gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe teaching these courses locally is not such a bad idea...could
> charge 1/10th the tuition and still fund the experiments + pull a
> profit. Do you know how many other people were in your "class"?
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Simon Rose
> <excaliburorama@googlemail.com>wrote:
>
> > Hey everybody I've just taken the epigenetics course too, and now
> > I'm doing the virology course. I'm also waiting for the tissue
> > engineering course to start, if it ever does although I think it
> > might be difficult to follow without actual hands-on lab work.The
> > epigenetics course was mentioned in Nature recently as being an
> > exemplary MOOC so I'm really pleased I did it. Although there seems
> > to be much debate about the utility of MOOCs I think they might be
> > the wave of the future what with rising tuition fees and so forth.
> > I certainly learned a lot.
> >
> > On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 7:15:23 PM UTC+1, Jason Bobe wrote:
> >>
> >> University of Guelph is offering a new online course: Introduction
> >> to DNA Barcoding:
> >>
> >> http://dnabarcodingcourses.**com/course-description/#.html<http://dnabarcodingcourses.com/course-description/#.html>
> >>
> >> Tuition is ~$1000.
> >>
> >> Anyone know of any good DNA analysis MOOCs available out there?
> >>
> >> Jason Bobe
> >>
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