More on the MOOC Problem

Again I have been reading the Discussions on the MOOC I have finished. The Peer Graded final was in my opinion a total disaster. There was, in my opinion, one arrogant student who decided not just to grade 4 exams but some 17 if memory serves me correctly. His grades were atrocious. He posted them all, I guess to boost his ego, which of course backfired.

Then another student, this one I would hire, looked at the students bios and did a calculation and found that more than a third had PhDs or MDs or both. Oops I guess I was found out. Then he checked their bios and publications and found that many had written extensively in the area. He then concluded that perhaps this one third might know something, something more than the other student who had given his rather arrogant grade. Then he took it one step further and calculated the probability that of the 17 or so grades given what number were true experts, even better that the teacher in Australia! Brilliant. Then he concluded that the arrogant guy most likely made a blunder.

Then what happened. The foolish  student, in my opinion, went and regraded all 17 or so! Upwards of course without any basis. So what were the first grades and even more so what good were the second! So Coursera had, in my opinion, this moronic way to get peer grades with a system which is fatally flawed. Namely cultural troglodytes who push their egos but with a modicum of intellect. I could have told them that. In running my companies across some 20 plus countries my greatest concern was cultural mollification, keeping everyone happy while minding local cultural norms. Had I tried something like this, well you understand.

Whoever came up with this approach just missed the mark. It sets a bad taste in people mouths especially as to the integrity of the process. They just ought drop this approach and return to multiple choice questions. Otherwise you have the Facebook generation mindset that whatever I think is as good if not better than whatever you think because I thought it.

Fools all too often get in trouble whenever they try to use the thought process.