On: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, ...

[schrijver]

Do they license their course materials under an open source license? If so, other parties could easily redistribute the material.

If not, I guess we once again feel the pain of universities selling out their knowledge to commercial gatekeepers.

[ekianjo → schrijver]

Well most of their courses are free (as in free beer) while they have recently been expanding their "paying only" courses catalog.

[vdaniuk → ekianjo]

There are no "paying only" courses on Coursers.

[ekianjo → vdaniuk]

yes they do. recently started.

[repsilat → ekianjo]

Don't just disagree, provide information if you have it.

I think you were talking about Coursera's "specialisations," which are essentially a grouping of "signature track" courses with a project or exam at the end. All of the courses can be taken for free if you don't care about the special certificates, but the project is just for paying customers.

Udacity is running some "pay only" courses with Georgia Tech for its online masters program, too. Not sure about their other offerings, or about edX.

[ekianjo → repsilat]

Ok I am not 100 percent sure about that but it does seem that some courses in specializations are only available in this way.

EDIT: ok, so you were apparently right. The specialization courses stay free, but it's not so obvious when you are looking at them from the specialization page.

[vdaniuk → ekianjo]

No, there are not. Please provide link to courses that are accessible only with a fee.

[unreal37 → schrijver]

Coursera doesn't own it's courses - just the platform. They belong to the partner universities.

Guaranteed they're not "open" in any way.