Editorial | We're open to open learning

How much does a Penn education cost? For enrolled students, it’s over $60,000 per year. But for other students, Penn courses don’t even cost a cent.

It’s the age of online learning, and Penn has opened its ivory gates to students from around the world. It started with Coursera, an online learning platform launched in 2012 in which Penn is a major investor. And now, it has continued with edX, one of the leading providers of massive online open courses, or MOOCs.

Over the summer, Penn announced its new partnership with edX, an online course provider which, unlike its biggest competitors Coursera and Udacity, is also a nonprofit. As of April 2015, edX had logged over 4 million users, proving its accessibility worldwide. Penn’s collaboration with edX is thus an important step forward in cementing the University’s position at the forefront of educational technology.

Adding Penn courses to the edX catalog will undoubtedly help to raise the school’s global profile, and it’s a decision we strongly support. With professors like Robert Ghrist and Ezekiel Emanuel teaching classes of hundreds of thousands of students, Penn’s name-brand recognition will only increase in value as the number of students enrolled in online courses grows. In the past, students’ experiences with Penn MOOCs have even inspired them to apply and eventually matriculate to Penn. One student who enjoyed professor Al Filreis’ online poetry course so much ultimately decided to come to Penn from his native Pakistan.

The ease with which edX can reach students from a variety of regional and economic backgrounds will also allow Penn to provide resources to people who may not otherwise be able to partake in higher education. With tuition costs rising and average student debt in the United States in excess of $35,000, edX might be a viable alternative to college for those who may not be able to foot the bill. Since edX is currently available to anyone with access to a computer and internet connection, it truly creates a space where knowledge is open to everyone.

The fact that peer institutions such as Harvard, Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have joined forces with edX attest to the merits of becoming involved with the company’s programming. Penn should definitely be a part of this growing community of universities with online outposts so that it can stay up-to-date with the evolution of this emerging educational medium.

But while we support Penn’s partnership with edX, we are more skeptical of its relationship with (and investment in) Coursera. Although Coursera provides courses online for free, as a for-profit company it has inherently different motives than edX. We raise our eyebrows to the fact that Penn, a nonprofit, is investing in a for-profit education company — a category of organizations that has largely been criticized for preying on students. That’s not to say that Penn should divest from Coursera — by all accounts, Coursera has done more good than harm. But Penn should be wary of what Coursera will do, as it might act with dual motives.

Though some may argue that developing online courses diverts University resources (namely professors’ time) from students who pay tuition, we feel the benefits largely outweigh the costs, at least for the moment. In developing the courses, Penn professors could develop new technologies and strategies that vastly improve on current in-class methods. In this constantly evolving digital age, the best way to improve teaching in the classroom may be to spend some time outside of it.

In the University’s mission statement, Penn describes itself as “proudly entrepreneurial, dynamically forging new connections and inspiring learning through problem-solving, discovery-oriented approaches.” Partnering with edX surely embodies that ideal.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.