Stanford profs from DB & Machine Learning class are founding a company Coursera

https://plus.google.com/b/107809899089663019971/107809899089663019971/posts/4VuN2RsRggB

by dhawalhs • 14 years ago

108 38 14 years ago

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droithomme• 14 years ago

Daphne Koller was not the DB professor, she was scheduled to teach a class starting this month, but has not taught any online classes yet. The DB teacher was Jennifer Widom, who is not part of the initiative described in the article.

dhawalhs• 14 years ago

Oops...my bad. Daphne Koller is the instructor for the upcoming Probabilistic Graphical Models class http://www.pgm-class.org/

nchuhoai3• 14 years ago

I don't get why they would cooperate with the dude from the ML class

nphrk• 14 years ago

You have some complaints about the ML class?

ojbyrne• 14 years ago

I found the course way too easy. This announcement makes me think they're going to get around this - not being part of Stanford means they don't have to worry about cannibalizing paying students. Maybe.

w1kke• 14 years ago

Imho ML class was the best of the three. I am more interested in the application side of CS and Andrew Ng really nailed that aspect in my opinion.

nchuhoai3• 14 years ago

Sorry I meant to say wouldn't. I'm sure they could together create a bigger impact then seperate

euccastro• 14 years ago

Andrew Ng is the dude of ML Class. Do you mean why wouldn't they collaborate with the dude(s) of AI Class?

kunj2aan• 14 years ago

It's surprising that they wouldn't collaborate with Sebastian Thrun (AI), who I think is also founding a company.

_delirium2• 14 years ago

In a previous HN thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3500301) some commenters suggest there's at least some minor bad blood between Coursera and Udacity as competing "Stanford profs turn online course into a startup" initiatives.

codeonfire3• 14 years ago

It's not surprising if you understand academic politics. If you go to many research presentations, you'll be amazed to see people openly deriding the presenter's work to their face. Collaboration is something valued by people who greatly depend on others. So it's normal for most people to think that collaboration is something that is desirable, and it is for the average person. If you are trying to be the world's leading expert in something that no one else understands, depending on others will be an avenue of attack for your detractors. It is far better for a very capable person to take on market forces rather than internal politics.

sanderjd3• 14 years ago

As a disclaimer: I don't claim to understand academic politics. Having said that, I think you need some sort of citation or at the very least a stronger argument to back up the statement that "collaboration is something valued by people who greatly depend on others". To a non-involved observer such as myself, what you're describing (in a positive tone?) just sounds petty and extremely unproductive for everyone involved, whether they're average or "very capable".

binarysolo• 14 years ago

Hearsay: there was some competing visions on how they wanted to scale online education in the School of Computer Science as well as the School of Engineering.

wyuenho• 14 years ago

All I want to know is, will Andrew Ng still teach the ML class on Stanford or only on Coursera now? I haven't taken his new ML class yet but a large part of why I want to sign up for that class in the Spring quarter is because of him.

denzil_correa2• 14 years ago

Delivering education is changing across the world. First, we hear about Sebastian Thrun. Now, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller!

denzil_correa2• 14 years ago

I don't see the funny side of downvoting comments here on HN. Pathetic!

fooyc• 14 years ago

This is awesome.

I guess this is why the 2012 ML class is delayed; I'm wondering if it will still happen :(

technotony• 14 years ago

Not just the ML course. I signed up for one on human computer interaction, high tech entrepreneurship and lean startup and they have all been delayed indefinitely. It's a pity as I did Sebastian Thun's AI course and it was great and I was looking forward to these others... so the consumer isn't always winning as these companies fight it out, I think they should just put the material out for free it would create many new startups!

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

Yeah, I'm starting to think none of them are going to happen now.

This article seems to hint that the Stanford administration isn't all that gung ho about the whole thing. http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/01/23/145645...

frrp• 14 years ago

Competition is always good for the customers, so I really like it. I also expect O'Reilly Media to push harder in this direction, it's only natural...

MaxGabriel• 14 years ago

Are these companies (Coursera here, Udacity for Thrun) going to be non-profits like Khan Academy?

_delirium2• 14 years ago

Udacity at least is a VC-backed, for-profit endeavor. They're listed in the portfolio of Charles River Ventures: http://www.crv.com/portfolio

unignorant2• 14 years ago

No, both are for-profit. This caused a bit of a stir among their fellow academics.

endtime3• 14 years ago

Seriously? At Stanford? Every professor other than Daphne (I believe) at the AI lab has worked for Google at some point and Stanford is the last place where CS profs look down upon starting companies.

johnwatson11218• 14 years ago

Just curious ... what would people be willing to pay for the courses? Especially if it meant some kind of official recognition or certificate.

benblodgett• 14 years ago

This is an interesting space, mit has their mitx program set to launch this spring as well.

http://mitx.mit.edu

Stanford profs from DB & Machine Learning class are founding a company Coursera

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