by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed
For students looking to learn skills and land jobs, might the good word of a highly regarded instructor count as much as the imprimatur of a highly regarded institution? The question arose in the fall, when a handful of professors at Stanford University decided to teach free courses online to tens of thousands of students who were not enrolled at the elite California university. The students would receive no Stanford credit; only a signed letter by the instructor, acting apart from the university. The pair of part-time Stanford instructors who co-taught the most successful of the open courses, on artificial intelligence, now intend to put the importance of the institutional brand to the test. They are co-founders of a company that will offer two similarly “open” courses beginning in February, this time independently of the Stanford name.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/24/stanford-open-course-instructors-spin-profit-company
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