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"for cooperating with the online learning provider Coursera. (...) We regard this cooperation of the Munich universities with Coursera as a marketing operation. The two universities can present themselves globally together with top international universities. Conversely, Coursera adorns itself with their names. It seems that data protection has not been given much thought. Likewise, we miss a critical discussion of who owns the content produced and who profits from it. By the way, taking Coursera courses is still voluntary for the students. This BigBrotherAward is meant as a warning to colleges and universities not to make participation in MOOCs offered by privacy-ignoring companies a mandatory way to earn study credits. Actually it's bad enough that education increasingly becomes a commodity as publicly financed institutions of higher education distribute their offerings via commercial providers. If an appropriate European MOOC platform does not exist, then it is the the universities' duty to create such a platform. By giving a BigBrotherAward to TUM and LMU Munich, we would like to remind both universities and all other education institutions that the long-term business model of such "education providers" hinges on contracts in which the students are not the customers of the MOOC provider, they are the product being sold."

"While about two thirds of respondents to a 2011 survey had not applied to any state, now about two thirds have applied to, at least, one state. * More institutions are deciding not to apply in some states. Those most cited: MN (22.4%), MA (19.5%), AR (18.0%), MD (14.6%), and AL (14.1%). This will have an impact on student choice. * Institutions are averaging about half of an FTE dedicated to authorization compliance. We believe that most did not have such staff in 2011."

"Dhawal Shah Oct 15, 2014 Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide to offer courses online for free. It was started by two Stanford professors in late 2011. In less than three years it has reached 10 million students around the world and raised $85 million in venture capital. Why have VCs invested so much money in the company? How does offering free online courses generate revenue? Many have asked, so we examined Coursera's different monetization models and offer estimates based on some known numbers. "