Online education alternatives overview

Princeton Windrows Technology Committee

Tech Committee

Bricolage Lab

Technology Committee Discussion Paper
May 20, 2024
John Sturges

Virtual and Recorded Education Alternatives

At the May 2, 2024 meeting of the Technology Committee, I agreed to look into such educational offerings as One Day University. This paper discusses some findings and alternatives. Depending upon budget and time, as well as preferences for delivery/access to residents, virtual and/or recorded education comes in many packages:

1. On-line courses delivered on demand by subscription to individuals (or assembled groups) on a per-course or per-lecture basis, though the internet
2. On-line courses delivered on a pre-scheduled basis by subscription to individuals (or assembled groups) on a per-course or per-lecture basis, though the internet
3. Courses delivered to individuals (or assembled groups) on a per-course or per-lecture basis, though Windrows’ internet facilities
4. Recorded (DVD) courses delivered to individuals (or assembled groups) on a per-course or per- lecture basis, though Windrows’ internet or Windrows’ physical library

Commercially these alternatives are available on an individual subscription basis through such services as Great Courses (1,000 courses), One-Day University/Curiosityu.com (400 courses), My eLearning World (800+ lectures), Business Insider (300 lectures), Coursera, etc. Monthly individual subscription costs are generally under $10/hour, and purchased DVD courses run $70-$595 (often on sale for $30-$70 at times during the year).

Although I’m still in discussions with many of these services, they are reluctant to consider group pricing (such as Windrows), as control over group participants is difficult to manage and it might result in facilitating intellectual property violations. Further what they perceive as a reasonable cost may be prohibitive to Windrows. An alternative is for Windrows to reimburse individual residents who purchase recorded lectures from one or more of the services, and then share them at seminars or donate them to the library for “book style” withdrawal; loading them on the Windrows internet would be a violation of intellectual property law.

I’ve not addressed the availability of on-line university sponsored courses (often for degree credit), which are pricey on a casual basis but a large variety are offered on an individual course or degree basis. An alternative is Coursera, which offers certificate and university level degree programs (non- accredited), as well as per course access at $400/year.

A Technology Committee service to residents would be the cataloging of available online and recorded courses, along with linking to source vendors.