Free Online Education Unwelcome In Minnesota 240
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
"[Minnesota's] Office of Higher Education has informed the popular provider of massive open online courses, or MOOC's, that Coursera is unwelcome in the state because it never got permission to operate there. It's unclear how the law could be enforced when the content is freely available on the Web, but Coursera updated its Terms of Service to include the following caution: 'Notice for Minnesota Users: Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.' Tricia Grimes, a policy analyst for the state's Office of Higher Education, said letters had been sent to all postsecondary institutions known to be offering courses in Minnesota."
MECC (Score:5, Funny)
Comic Book College of Knowledge (Score:3, Funny)
I could buy that - expect that the "Comic Book College of Knowledge", which is located in Minneapolis, has not recived a letter to shut down their .... errr ... text book store on 4 color sequential art
Re:State legislature, huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Someone should tell Dr. Dre, Doc and Dr. J that. Not to mention Dr. Claw, Dr. Evil, and Doctor Who. Hell I know plenty of people with PHD's in all sorts of silly things that put Doctor in front of their name, but I don't think that confused people into thinking they can prescribe meds and diagnose prostate cancer.
In all seriousness though I think they are taking this overboard. There is no service being offered here. It's really no different than making a programming tutorial site and calling it code university or . It's obvious that it's not a 'real' university but just a term to denote that you feel you are a good resource for education.
Their cause is a noble one and they are partnered with 33 real Universities that are fully accredited. I understand where they state is coming from, but it reeks of the same silly zero tolerance laws that expel kids from schools for having a bottle of ibuprofen.
Re:State legislature, huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they should ban Dr. Pepper too.
Re:Or (Score:3, Funny)
GeoIP location is absolute shit. I live in Riverside California, GeoIP says I'm in Nevada.
No, GeoIP location is perfectly accurate. If GeoIP says you are in Nevada, you obviously are in Nevada, and you only believe you were in Riverside California. Probably because someone wants you to believe it, for whatever evil plan, and they made the illusion almost perfect, but they forgot the GeoIP which is the only hint you have about your real loc... wait, why are there black heli&$%@
NO CARRIER