In grade school, I remember learning the following: a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square. This logic lesson learned in elementary school can be applied to today’s debates about online education and MOOCs (massive open online courses). While MOOCs are online courses they are not what most universities consider online education. Unfortunately, most of the press these days about MOOCs, unfairly villianizes online education. Take for example the recent NPR Marketplace segment on Duke University’s announced decision to decline the invitation to offer online classes through the company 2U. What bothers me about the piece is not that Duke has decided to think about what the 2U partnership would mean to them, but rather the tying of this decision to Amherst’s decision not to team up with Harvard and MIT to offer free MOOCs.

This is where the square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square analogy comes into play. Continue reading →