HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are universities closing down open access to lectures and course notes?

24 points by hwers ↗ HN
7 years ago or so it seemed like you could find invaluable learning for free by just looking up free university lectures or course notes at any arbitrary school. Today when I try look it up they almost universally seem closed down behind password protection (as if coordinated by higher order). I haven't heard people talk about this, am I the only one noticing this pattern?

4 comments

[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 38.9 ms ] thread
rtutz
Depending on the country, this may well be related to the fact that professors sometimes have to expect copyright warnings if excerpts from other sources are used and republished in the teaching materials. Therefore, some things are only available to enrolled students.
enjoyyourlife
They are required to conform to accessibility requirements

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856

resoluteteeth
This makes no sense as an excuse. I 100% guarantee that people would be willing to subtitle the videos for them for free if they would make them publicly available.

I would gladly spend a couple hours subtitling a lecture video so that the whole world (including deaf people) could watch it.

It might benefit current deaf students enrolled there too.

It just seems incredibly petty to stop publishing the videos over something like that.

Do they really think it would be that hard to subtitle the videos? Or are they just morally opposed to being required to provide accessibility in general?