Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science is a master of science degree offered by the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. The program is offered in partnership with Udacity and AT&T and delivered through the massive open online course format. The course has received attention for offering a full master's degree program for under $7,000 that gives students from all over the world the opportunity to enroll in a top 10-ranked computer science program. The program has been recognized by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association and Fast Company for excellence and innovation.
Video Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science
Background
The College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology launched its online Master of Science in Computer Science degree in January 2014. The program was conceived by John P. Imlay Jr., Dean of Computing Zvi Galil, and Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun. It was offered in partnership with Udacity and AT&T and delivered through the massive open online course format, and was designed to provide a low-cost, high-quality alternative to traditional master's degree programs by delivering instructional content and academic support via the massive open online course format.
As of fall 2017, the program has 5,866 enrolled students located in 109 countries. It admits all applicants deemed to possess a reasonable chance of success--almost two-thirds of applicants to date--which is significantly higher than the university's on-campus graduate admissions rate. From its creation in 2014 until the fall semsester of 2017, the program has graduated nearly 600 students and received more than 17,000 applications. The program has received significant media attention since its announcement in May 2013, including a front-page story in The New York Times and a segment on the PBS NewsHour series "Rethinking Education."
Maps Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science
Curriculum and culture
The online master's program currently offers 30 courses and four specializations--Computational Perception and Robotics, Computing Systems, Interactive Intelligence, and Machine Learning.
A study entitled "Can Online Delivery Increase Access to Education," by John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Associate Professor Joshua Goodman, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology Associate Professor Julia Melkers, and Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor Amanda Pallais, explored the structure and industry impact of the online master's program and concluded that it supplies the need of "a vast untapped market for highly affordable degrees from prestigious colleges."
Due to the online format of the program, social media has played a significant role in the development of robust student communities on social media, including a student-led community on Google+ with over 6,000 members. The program also utilizes an artificial intelligence teaching assistant called "Jill" Watson, built using IBM's Watson platform. Jill is able to answer questions posed in natural language and assists students enrolled in the program's Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence course, led by Professor Ashok Goel.
Recognition and impact
Former President Barack Obama publicly praised Georgia Tech's online master's program on two occasions, as providing a model to both address the STEM worker shortage and control the costs of higher education. The course was the recipient of University Professional and Continuing Education Association's Outstanding Program Award in the credit category. and was cited as the reason Georgia Tech was named to Fast Company's 2017 list of Most Innovative Companies in the World, third in the education sector.
Other universities have modeled similar programs after Georgia Tech's, including The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which launched its iMBA program, as well as an online MS in data science, in 2016. The success of the online model also led Georgia Tech to create a second program with this structure, the Online Master of Science in Analytics (OMS Analytics), which launched in 2017.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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