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IN LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR, discussion of the role of online learning in higher education has undergone a qualitative shift. With the launch of for-profit educational start-ups such as Coursera, Udacity, and the MIT and Harvard-founded nonprofit platform edX, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have moved from obscure experiment to major initiative. MOOCs are online classes, generally composed of short lectures, that allow for open, often free enrollments (thousands can easily enroll in a single course), assessing students through periodic quizzes and discussion forums.

Imagine how transformative it would be if we could combine self-paced, self-directed postsecondary learning (which has been around in one form or another for millennia) with online delivery of content that has embedded in it both the sophisticated assessment of learning and the ability to diagnose learning problems, sometimes even before the learner is aware of them, and provide just-in-time interventions that keep the learner on track. Add to that the opportunity for the learner to connect to and participate in groups of other learners, and, to link directly to the faculty member and receive individualized attention and mentoring. What you would have is the 21st-century version of do-it-yourself college, grounded in but well beyond the experienced reality of the thousands of previous DIYers such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Thomas Edison.

"I would endorse a profoundly different attitude to academic writing, one that recognises its role in the development of responsible academic individuals and communities. I would like academic writing to become more integrated, not outsourced to market forces or bolted on as a response to last-minute deadlines."

"The echo chamber doesn't need any bad connectivity to function. Limbaugh's followers have full access to outside sources of information. According to Jamieson and Cappella's data, Limbaugh's followers regularly read - but do not accept - mainstream and liberal news sources. They are isolated, not by selective exposure, but by changes in who they accept as authorities, experts and trusted sources. They hear, but dismiss, outside voices. Their worldview can survive exposure to those outside voices because their belief system has prepared them for such intellectual onslaught."

"we cannot be dependent on Facebook's benevolence for protection in a world where so much of our daily activities are codified into data and collected by third parties. Indeed, we should be skeptical of Facebook's own efforts to use artificial intelligence to monitor user data for what it deems dangerous content. To continue down this path is to passively accept a surveillance society and sacrifice the liberty that enables a democracy to flourish."