Minnesota Backs Down After Internet Rises Up: Now Encourages Residents To Use Online Learning
from the good-for-them dept
Last week, we were among those who reported on a ridiculous attempt by regulators in Minnesota to enforce a regulation aimed at stopping degree mills, by telling various legitimate online learning providers like Coursera that Minnesota residents couldn't take courses from without state approval. Thankfully, all of the attention has caused Minnesota officials to admit that this was silly and back down. According to Larry Pogemiller, director of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education:Obviously, our office encourages lifelong learning and wants Minnesotans to take advantage of educational materials available on the Internet, particularly if they’re free. No Minnesotan should hesitate to take advantage of free, online offerings from Coursera.He also said that the obsolete regulations should be updated:
When the legislature convenes in January, my intent is to work with the Governor and Legislature to appropriately update the statute to meet modern-day circumstances. Until that time, I see no reason for our office to require registration of free, not-for-credit offerings.The internet wins, again.
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Filed Under: minnesota, online learning, regulations
Companies: coursera
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Because demanding money from people doing things for free makes us look like money grubbing out of touch idiots.
We would have gotten away with it if not for that damned internet!
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Trying to hit a fast moving target
So what is this new law going to look like? Seems like it will be trying to hit a fast moving target and itself will be out of date quickly.
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um, that's super creepy.
It's kinda like saying, "my yellow phone in the corner over there wins again".
Please don't do that.
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Modern day?
So the plan is to meet and draft another proposal that will be woefully behind the times as quickly as the old one? The fact that they have to wait until January says it all - technology changes much faster than your legislation.
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Re: Modern day?
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The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
"For one day, Minnesota's Office of Higher Education felt the Internet's indignation as word spread that it was cracking down on free online college courses offered through Coursera and other websites. The bizarre bureaucratic decision was first reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education on Thursday morning, and it became Internet-wide news after my blog post about it Thursday evening went viral, thanks in part to the user-generated news board Reddit."
The Internet in fury a whole day! Note the Sallon source, his self-congratulation, and the tie to Reddit, all classic. It's red-meat for nerd rage with the key point that it's nothing very important. The author page says only that he's a staff writer for Slate. My bet is he's a pal of Mike's.
Intriuged, went to the supposedly original piece where it began to get vague:
"The state’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:"
"Unwelcome" and "unclear" how would be enforced is FAR from a ban.
And more importantly turned out OLD:
"Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, said she was surprised to receive the letter from Minnesota in July."
IN JULY! It's not clear what took so long nor how long ago it was resolved.
Here's the obvious sequence: a minor blogger from Salon ran across this old news, posted it on Reddit to gin up a bit of nerd rage, then Mike (somehow) ran the same piece; then both declare victory, pat themselves all over, not just on back, and fanboys are gaga at their "power". Teh Internets rulez!
In fact, this old story is a textbook case of Internet exaggeration of nearly nothing. Good start for the week here at Techdirt.
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Re: The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
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Re: Re: The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
So you won the coin flip and AJ is under the desk keeping you happy for the first hour of posting?
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Re: Re: Re: The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
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Re: The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
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Re: The "Internet wins" by EXAGGERATION.
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http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues/internet-and-technology
https://www.facebook.com/govgaryj ohnson
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Electric Sheeple Dreams
This was OBVIOUSLY Google's fault spreading misinformation and propaganda.
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Re: Electric Sheeple Dreams
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The internet did no such thing. People win, the internet just sits there being a passive conduit for information and entertainment.
The internet did nothing. People did something. I agree with the other AC, the way you say it sounds creepy.
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RE: just people
http://cleverbot.com/
this aint people folks..
most likely this is one (of many) steps to skynet
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Re: RE: just people
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp5ko61ttg1qlo1lto1_500.jpg
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Big Brother law
I'm more than a little disturbed that you still have to have permission to take a "for pay" course. That smells of protectionism for the brick and mortar degree mills.
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The law isn't out of date at all
The state has every right to set standards for courses that count as credit towards a degree -- but has no right whatsoever to dictate whether or not people or businesses can teach when the purpose is not to get a degree. Whether or not this is done on the internet is irrelevant.
It's the degree that is subject to regulation, not the teaching.
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You guys might want to look at this article
It specifically states that Minnesota wasn't at fault here.
""I don’t care what they do; we don’t regulate them," George Roedler, the manager of institutional registration and licensing at the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, told Ars on Thursday.
"I specifically said that [Coursera] didn’t have to put anything on their website. They could do what they wanted. They could ignore it. They chose this route and the reason I believe they did it was to try to protect the schools in their wake. So be it. That’s what they did.""
They didn't forced them to do anything, Coursera chose to do it themselves. I'm a little sad that so many people never knew the whole truth of this situation. And even though I love the internet and what it did with SOPA and similar legislation, this was a situation were the internet didn't need to "rise up", and I hope news sites look into thing a little more before reporting these things.
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