Free online Computer Science courses from Stanford University

[The Fifth Horseman]

Something I stumbled on a few days ago. Right now there are three courses you can sign up for:
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (https://www.ai-class.com/)
Introduction to Databases (http://www.db-class.com/)
Machine Learning (http://www.ml-class.com/)
The courses will start on October 10th and end on December 18th. They're free and open to anyone interested.
Personally I've signed up because they coincide with subjects that are going to be part of my actual Computer Science studies over next two semesters. Having some advance knowledge never hurts. :-)

[KrazeeXXL]

cool, thx for sharing.

[Japo]

When I read the thread title I didn't suppose they were full-blown courses, thanks a lot.

[Lulu_Jane]

I signed up for the DB one :)

[Japo]

I intend to take advantage of this, though I'm being lazy lately, and I have to straighten the whole of my job improving and training... Right now I think I'll lie down and read a little. :P

Seriously, do you know the enrollment deadlines? I can only find it for the AI course (10/9 (https://www.ai-class.com/registration/)).

[Lulu_Jane]

I think they all start the beginning of October.

Also, I'll pass this on - It's great! http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

I'm currently watching my way through this (http://oyc.yale.edu/history/epidemics-in-western-society-since-1600/content/class-sessions) and it's great :)

[The Fifth Horseman]

All of them start at the same time.

[Japo]

I enrolled on the AI one and signed up for the DB one (enrollment isn't open yet). See you there.

[seconteen1001]

They look interesting but they might go a bit over my head for now. I'm also in school for PC Repair right now.

[The Fifth Horseman]

The Database and Machine Learning courses are now accepting registrations. Seems not everyone who signed up to be notified when that happens received the notice.

[Japo]

I haven't received any email, and the webpage hasn't changed. :( Maybe they'll sort it out in a day or two? What have you received?

[The Fifth Horseman]

I haven't received any notification, just went there to check if there's anything about why the registrations weren't open yet. Found the signup open:
http://www.db-class.org/course/auth/welcome
http://www.ml-class.org/course/auth/welcome
Click on "Enroll", enter your account details and you're set.

[Japo]

Hm thanks. It seems they chose to purchase both the .com and .org domains, and then they forgot to update one of them.

EDIT: It seems you can start watching lectures and completing assignments right away. :)

[The Fifth Horseman]

Ones related to the first week, at least. :)

[Japo]

I hadn't signed up for the ML course, but since the AI one hasn't shown any sign of life and doesn't have any material available yet (right?), I've just signed up. If later I find I don't have enough time I can switch to the basic path, but I hope I don't have to, and I'll try. I've completed the assignments for the first week of the DB course (this one has the lectures for the second week already available too, although not the exercises).

[Lulu_Jane]

Heh, I guess Skynet fell asleep or something :)

I got the first course stuff for DB today, I'm looking forward to it!

[Japo]

So... How are you doing? Lulu? Horseman did you enroll?

I enrolled in all three. Damn I was so ahead with the homework a couple of weeks ago, now I have less than 48 hours for the whole probability lessons and homework in the AI course.

But I'm doing well, and the courses are great.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Yeah, I did. Lagging behind in Machine Learning and Databases, though.

[Japo]

I was lulled by a false sense of comfort because the first lessons are basic with very light homework and I knew much of the stuff. And I was taking an active part in the Q&A forum specially of the DB course, but now I have my hands full. Now that I've submitted the latest AI homework only one day in time, I'll try to get my butt in gear and work more constantly. I can't leave all this for the weekends, even though I don't feel like doing it when I'm back from work...

[Lulu_Jane]

I'm desperately trying to find time to do it. I'm going to miss the first quizzes, but apparently can retake them at the end for 50% credit.


I have a feeling I'll be doing this again next year when it rolls around.

[Japo]

Stanford is offering more free courses for the Winter quarter:

Computer science
- Computer Science 101 (http://www.cs101-class.org/).
- Cryptography (http://www.crypto-class.org/).
- Game Theory (http://www.game-theory-class.org/).
- Human-Computer Interaction (http://www.hci-class.org/).
- Machine Learning (http://jan2012.ml-class.org/). This is the same as ml-class.org (http://www.ml-class.org/), offered again for Winter.
- Natural Language Processing (http://www.nlp-class.org/).
- Probabilistic Graphical Models (http://www.pgm-class.org/).
- Software as a Service (http://www.saas-class.org/).

Entrepreneurship
- Lean Launchpad (http://www.launchpad-class.org/).
- Technology Entrepreneurship (http://www.venture-class.org/).

[Japo]

Well so I did the three Fall courses. I plan to take two or three of the upcoming ones. Most of them would have been started, but all have been delayed.

http://www.coursera.org/

[Lulu_Jane]

I'm signed up for the technology entrepreneurship. Hopefully I'll actually do it this time.

[Japo]

There's somewhat of a schism:

Thrun's private initiative:
https://www.ai-class.com/
http://www.udacity.com/
http://www.knowlabs.com/

Stanford's reaction:
http://www.coursera.org/

And then there's the MIT's reaction:
http://mitx.mit.edu/ (just an announcement so far, has RSS)


Some background: the guy who started all this is Professor Thrun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun) (personal website (http://robots.stanford.edu/)). He also works at Google and he's the guy who won DARPA's Grand Challenge and programmed their famous self-driving car (http://www.google.es/search?q=google's+self-driving+car):

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Some other Stanford professors did think it was a terrific idea, but it wasn't until the conspirators had started the whole thing that Stanford's board got wise to it:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/01/23/145645472/stanford-takes-online-schooling-to-the-next-academic-level
Last year, Stanford University computer science professor Sebastian Thrun — also known as the fellow who helped build Google's self-driving car — got together with a small group of Stanford colleagues ...

"Within hours, we had 5,000 students signed up," Thrun says. "That was on a Saturday morning. On Sunday night, we had 10,000 students. And Monday morning, Stanford — who we didn't really inform — learned about this and we had a number of meetings."

You can only imagine what those meetings must have been like, with professors telling the school they wanted to teach free, graded online classes for which students could receive a certificate of completion. And, oh by the way, tens of thousands have already signed up to participate. ...

When I ask Ng (http://www.ml-class.org/) how Stanford's administration reacted to their proposition, he's silent for a second. "Oh boy," he says, "I think there was a strong sense that we were all suddenly in a brave new world."

Ng says there were long conversations about whether or not to give online students a certificate bearing the university's name. But Stanford balked and ultimately the school settled on giving students a letter of accomplishment from the professors that did not mention the university's name.
Emphasis added.

And hear this: Stanford has made Thrun renounce his tenure (a brave and admirable leap of faith in his vision) to continue with this. There have been many qualifications to this news, but that's the gist of it.