Traditional American universities are suddenly running scared of the Internet, and for good reason. They successfully weathered the rise of online, open-enrollment degree programs like the University of Phoenix, but now they’re confronting a much more terrifying enemy: YouTube. But when it comes to Web traffic and the volume of courseware available, Khan Academy has a huge lead over all of the other new open online projects. And since none of the online courseware projects are offering actual degrees yet, this is a space where having a premium brand name like Harvard, MIT, or Stanford isn’t such a big advantage. Just to keep things competitive, Khan launched an iPad app this spring offering access to all 3,200 videos. It’s currently ranked 12th in the free-education-apps category of the iTunes App Store. (Apple’s own iTunes U is ranked 3rd.) Stanford president John Hennessy was right to tell New Yorker writer Ken Auletta earlier this year that “there’s a tsunami coming” in online education. Universities will probably find a way to survive—as they’ve been doing for a thousand years—but they’re going to have to swim for it.
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2012/07/20/can-anyone-catch-khan-academy-the-fate-of-the-u-in-the-youtube-era/?single_page=true
