No More Free Certificates at Udacity

[sanantone]

CalDog posted this on the other forum.

Beginning next month, the massive open online course provider Udacity will cut the first O from the acronym and only offer MOCs. Founder Sebastian Thrun, whose "pivot" last year shifted the company's focus to corporate training, in a blog post announced Udacity will stop issuing free course completion certificates on May 16. The course materials will still be available on the website for independent study, but in order to earn a certificate, students need to verify their identity. That track is currently available for about $150 a month.
"Discontinuing the 'free' certificates has been one of the most difficult decisions we've made," Thrun wrote. "We know that many of our hardworking students can’t afford to pay for classes. At the same time, we cannot hope that our certificates will ever carry great value, if we don’t make this change."


Read more: Udacity to Stop Issuing Free Certificates of Completion | Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed

Ugh. I never understood the point of MOOCs. I thought the training offered by MOOCs weren't meant to have any value beyond education for self-fulfillment and gaining skills. If they're going to charge $150 per month, they might as well offer REAL college credits. Udacity dropped the ball on the whole ACE thing. If I'm going to pay $150 a month, I might as well go to Straighterline where I can earn REAL college credits. If I want IT certifications, I'll go with ones that are already recognized by the industry.

[bluebooger]

coursera has a data science certificate through Johns Hopkins University

https://www.coursera.org/specialization/...istingPage

it consists of the following courses
The Data Scientist’s Toolbox
R Programming
Getting and Cleaning Data
Exploratory Data Analysis
Reproducible Research
Statistical Inference
Regression Models
Practical Machine Learning
Developing Data Products
Capstone Project

and even though its all non-credit and each course is $49 I don't see a problem paying for it (if I was younger and starting my career)
I think it would be a good thing to have on a resume
sure, its not an industry standard cert, but how many industry standard certs are there for data science other than an SAS cert

and for people not in the US, college credit for these courses is not important

I don't know how many people will pay for the udacity certs
I haven't looked at their offerings

but if they had a cert for java or C++ from a high ranked US college, I might do it even if it were non-credit (and I was just starting my career)

[sanantone]

Udacity doesn't offer courses from colleges like Coursera does. They build and teach their own courses. I would either take java courses for college credit from Javaonline.org or Straighterline and/or just get the Oracle certification. Udacity could have filled a niche if they seriously went after ACE or NCCRS approval.

[KayV]

They used to have ACE approval, but made it impossible to actually get because they didn't have any proctoring measures in place and thus would not put credits on ACE transcripts.

I got that email from Udacity too, and it said that the coursework would continue to be free, but they would no longer offer what they call "unverified" certificates. The free coursework could still be a good test prep resource, but I'm sad to see what could have been a great source of credit turn in to such an epic fail.

[cookderosa]

coursera has a data science certificate through Johns Hopkins University

https://www.coursera.org/specialization/...istingPage

it consists of the following courses
The Data Scientist’s Toolbox
R Programming
Getting and Cleaning Data
Exploratory Data Analysis
Reproducible Research
Statistical Inference
Regression Models
Practical Machine Learning
Developing Data Products
Capstone Project

and even though its all non-credit and each course is $49 I don't see a problem paying for it (if I was younger and starting my career)
I think it would be a good thing to have on a resume
sure, its not an industry standard cert, but how many industry standard certs are there for data science other than an SAS cert

and for people not in the US, college credit for these courses is not important

I don't know how many people will pay for the udacity certs
I haven't looked at their offerings

but if they had a cert for java or C++ from a high ranked US college, I might do it even if it were non-credit (and I was just starting my career)

If I were looking for a cert, I'd choose Coursera anyday- they are all linked to branded universities, and while it's not the same as taking a "for credit" course at the campus, they offer certs and CEUs and I wouldn't have any fears about using it on my resume in my "other ed" section. I never really did fall in love with Udacity, now that they're charging...ehhh....

[sanantone]

I actually liked Udacity more than Coursera since they're courses are self-paced and can be started anytime. Sometimes, you have to wait a year or more for a course to be offered by Coursera.