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"Georgia Tech's Tucker Balch, an associate professor at the School of Interactive Computing, released the following information based on the survey of students who took part in his recent Coursera class, "Computational Investing." Of the 2,535 students who completed the course (or 4.8 percent of those enrolled), 34 percent were from the United States and 27 percent came from non-OECD countries. The average age of participants was 35 (ranging from 17 to 74). Seventy percent were white. Ninety-two percent were male. And more than 50 percent of the students already had a master's degree or a PhD. Clearly, this is hardly the "typical" undergraduate population (although it's worth noting that "Computational Investing" isn't really a "typical" or introductory class). Nonetheless, these figures do raise questions about who exactly is being served by today's MOOCs: Is it "learners" from around the world? Or, for lack of a better word, is it "knowers" from the U.S.?"

"The New York Times, Slate and Al Jazeera have recently drawn attention to the adjunctification of the professoriate in the US. Only 24 per cent of the academic workforce are now tenured or tenure-track.  Much of the coverage has focused on the sub-poverty wages of adjunct faculty, their lack of job security and the growing legions of unemployed and under-employed PhDs. Elsewhere, the focus has been on web-based learning and the massive open online courses (MOOCs), with some commentators celebrating and others lamenting their arrival. "

" It's a #MOOP ormassive open online program, apparently looking to run on volunteer teacher power. Phu Vu, PhD candidate in CI at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

"pedagogy has become a much more complicated process that has evolved from an art that one can acquire by oneself to a subject requiring formal preparation. The need for such training is all the more urgent because of the conditions that many graduate students will encounter in their professional careers. Only one-quarter of the recent Ph.D.'s seeking academic careers are finding jobs in research universities. Most of the others obtain positions in institutions with students who tend to be less motivated and less prepared for college than the undergraduates their teachers knew, and teaching them successfully will be a greater challenge."

"Dealing with all the complaints takes time and, as a PhD student, I had my own research to do. Evaluations, ironically, were not really my concern. Student evaluations are not that important in economics (unless you aspire to teach at a liberal arts college), or not nearly as important as publishing papers in a top journal. And despite pleas from the thwarted Goldman candidate, the future job prospects of students and the money they might some day donate to the university was furthest from my mind. I'd sooner worry about winning a research grant."

"Like any good TA, Ms. Watson's involvement was low-key but helpful. "She was the person -well, the teaching assistant- who would remind us of due dates and post questions in the middle of the week to spark conversations," student Jennifer Gavin told the Journal. Some students envisioned their TA as a young PhD hopeful. Few, if any, realized Ms. Watson was actually a computer."

"If you are thinking of getting out, my advice to you, for what it's worth, is: get out. Even if you get that tenure track job, it's not the thing you thought it was going to be. When you are getting paid this little, you might be able to wiggle the freedom to walk away"