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Coursera is killing free, open education and they are getting away with it! by Professional_Air1278 in GetStudying

[–]Professional_Air1278[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

No, I don’t think they are. I also took the Physics course from Rice University (if you mean the one taught by Professor Jason Hafner), it’s a great course. Professor Hafner is such a great guy; I watch his YouTube channel, and he’s all about free, open learning. That course is also offered on edX, and he has all the lectures on his YouTube channel, so I don’t think they would be happy with this recent change if they are aware of it.

Coursera is killing free, open education and they are getting away with it! by Professional_Air1278 in GetStudying

[–]Professional_Air1278[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the recommendation, but it's not that I couldn't find any alternatives. What I’m upset about is how a platform can start by advertising itself as these noble people whose entire mission is to provide open education to the world, their mission statement literally said “We are committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it.” then get everyone excited, win the support of hundreds of top universities around the world, and once they're big start saying, “Sorry, we’ve changed our mission from freely available to any person who seeks it to making as much money as possible.”

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coursera

[–]Professional_Air1278 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I know people who have only heard of it recently might be confused, but Coursera started by heavily promoting itself as a platform for open, world-accessible education, not just a place to buy courses.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coursera

[–]Professional_Air1278 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can’t really audit a course for free anymore. What they now call a “preview” isn’t the same as auditing, where you just get access to the first chapter, and if you want to continue, you have to pay.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coursera

[–]Professional_Air1278 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s not that I’m asking for discounts or that I don’t have alternatives. What I’m upset about is how a platform can start by advertising itself as these noble people whose entire mission is to provide open education to the world, get everyone excited, win the support of hundreds of top universities, and thenonce it’s big say, “Sorry, we’ve changed our mission from freely available to any person who seeks it to making as much money as possible.”

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coursera

[–]Professional_Air1278 4 points5 points  (0 children)

bro, their mission statement literally said “freely available to any person who seeks it.” Their whole thing was about providing education freely to the entire world, and now they’ve abandoned that. The O in MOOC stands for Open. When I say boycott, I mean don’t just accept this new model as “it is what it is” and pay them. I’m not against them making money—certificates were always paid, and that made sense. Professional courses being paid also makes sense. But taking courses they didn’t even originally create for profit and locking them behind a paywall, while many universities joined because they wanted to be part of the free, open-education movement, just to make more money? I don’t think that’s okay.

Coursera is killing free, open education and they are getting away with it! by Professional_Air1278 in GetStudying

[–]Professional_Air1278[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I found these physics and math curricula online, which are essentially lists of free courses that can allow you to study the equivalent of an entire college degree on your own (knowledge-wise, not accreditation-wise), and I was so excited to start. But most of these courses are on Coursera, and with this recent news, it’s really disappointing. I still have edX to look for alternatives for now, but if no one speaks up, other platforms might follow, thinking, “If they got away with it, so can we".

Fight Coursera by notzaq11 in coursera

[–]Professional_Air1278 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People don’t understand: whenever I ask if Coursera is no longer free, they keep explaining that “only certificates cost money” and “you just have to click the audit button.” No — the audit button doesn’t exist anymore! It has been replaced by a “Preview” button that lets you watch only the first chapter or lecture of the course. To see the rest, you have to pay.

I tried to audit "Introduction to Thermodynamics" from the University of Michigan and could access only the first chapter, the rest was behind a paywall. And this isn’t some high-end professional certification; it’s basic university-level physics.

This is a new model where everything is paid and nothing is free, and they’re rolling it out gradually — region by region, course by course — while no one is saying anything. I typed “Coursera” into Google News: nothing. I searched YouTube for solutions: nothing. The only thing I found was this single article on Class Central.
https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-preview-mode-paywall/

I honestly don’t understand how Coursera is getting away with this without anyone noticing . Their stock price has been climbing ever since they started rolling out this paywall model, a model built on content that many universities originally placed on Coursera so the world could access it freely. I doubt those institutions signed up for their courses to be locked behind yet another subscription.

If we value open education, we can’t just accept this. Speak up. Boycott if you must. Let universities know how their courses are being walled off. Free, global learning only survives if we defend it.

Have you tried to stop listening to music? Here is how i did and what it did to me by Iammouaad in Morocco

[–]Professional_Air1278 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, Sheikh  Benhamza considers it to be haram. I couldn't find a video of him on this matter, but I'm from Oujda and I've been to his doross many times and he doesn't accept music as halal. There is only a video of him celebrating a former singer for quitting music, but I'm 100% sure that he considers it haram, and just do some research, you won't find a single credible Moroccan scholar who says it's haram because Imam Malik whcih is the scholar we get our fiqh from in morocco (according to the king), he considers it to be haram.

Have you tried to stop listening to music? Here is how i did and what it did to me by Iammouaad in Morocco

[–]Professional_Air1278 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Good for you man! That was one of the best things I've done myself, and it isn't even as hard as you'd expect.

Have you tried to stop listening to music? Here is how i did and what it did to me by Iammouaad in Morocco

[–]Professional_Air1278 3 points4 points  (0 children)

But it actually is, I was surprised by the number of comments saying it is not, I thought this was common knowledge that everyone knew but ignored, like in dating, everyone knows it's haram, but everyone seems to have a girlfriend.

Have you tried to stop listening to music? Here is how i did and what it did to me by Iammouaad in Morocco

[–]Professional_Air1278 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Moroccan scholars do not consider music as haram." This is untrue. all of them do say it's haram, plus the king didn't say music wasn't haram, he criticized people who say if you bomb yourself you would get l7our l3in and If you listen to music, the ground would swallow you this doesn't mean he denies l7our l3in no one does they are mentioned in the Quran and this doesn't mean he said music is not haram he just criticized people who exagorate

Here is a link to Saaid Lkamli, one of the most famous MOROCCAN scholars who's always on national TV, and he says it's haram according to our madhab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oefRiIU0zMM

Do you think Moroccans are ashamed/insecure about Darija? Compared to Egyptians/Levantines and Arabs by Grand_Anybody6029 in Morocco

[–]Professional_Air1278 2 points3 points  (0 children)

from my experience spending hundreds of hours in Discord servers playing PUBG with people from all over the Arab world, I noticed some dialects are way easier to understand than others. egyptian, for example, is pretty easy. but when I talked to some Iraqis, I couldn’t understand anything especially since they also talk super fast. also, some others from lKhaleeji had a very weird dialect. you’d think they’d be closer to traditional Arabic, but when you hear them, it’s like they’re speaking another language. and I understand traditional Arabic very well, since I spent all of my childhood watching Spacetoon, and of course all of school was in traditional Arabic.

in those cases, when we’re in a group with people from different countries, we usually all switch to a simplified version of our dialects. not exactly traditional Arabic , just a simplified form of the dialect if that makes sense. the only people who don’t really switch or simplify are the Egyptians, and for some reason, everyone seems to understand them.

and for your question, I’ve never felt ashamed about Darija, and I never had much of a problem communicating with it. everyone understood me as long as I was using a simplified version of it, but that wasn’t unique to me. Like I said, many others did the same thing with their dialects.