MOOC Professors Claim No Responsibility for How Online Learning Courses Are Used - Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

“I have long ago dealt with the issue of: What if something I create is put to bad use?” the mathematician says. “And I have found that, throughout history, the benefit of building good things outweighed the hazards,” he says, citing lasers and the Internet as net-positive inventions despite ample opportunity for abuse. “That’s true in my research; it’s also true in my teaching.” That ethical dilemma became relevant to Mr. Ghrist’s teaching only recently, when he began teaching a massive open online course on single-variable calculus through Coursera, the Silicon Valley-based MOOC company. A group of philosophy professors at San Jose State University last month slammed Michael Sandel, a government professor at Harvard, for offering a MOOC through another provider, the nonprofit edX. The administration at San Jose State is encouraging its faculty members to use edX courses in their own teaching. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/mooc-professors-claim-no-responsibility-for-how-courses-are-used/43881