News from e-Learning companies
Coursera: Changes to the ToS for Minnesota students
There’s been a lot of news over the past few days regarding an addition we made to our Terms of Service (ToS) for Minnesota citizens in August. Last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the modification to our ToS. It was picked up by Slate, and from there it quickly went viral. Over the past few days, we’ve been working closely with the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, and have now removed the message from our ToS. In light of the recent events, we’d like to share some background and insight about what happened: In July, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education brought our attention to Minnesota Statutes 136A.61 to 136A.71, which state that a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. Some states, like Minnesota, have laws to regulate higher education dissemination, mainly in the interest of protecting their citizens from sub-par e…