A statement on online course content and accessibility
Fyi ... a related (not duplicate) HN discussion from Feb 2015:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798In both this case about UC Berkeley and the lawsuit against Harvard & MIT, the legal attacks seem very wrong.What I see is:- Scenario A:  spend $X to release free courses that benefits most of humanity- Scenario B:  spend $X+$Y to release free courses that also benefits the disabled population(The $Y is extra costs to close-caption, transcribe to braille, etc.)That these lawsuits are obstinate in that you must spend that extra $Y to fulfill Scenario B or humanity can't have the knowledge at all is nonsensical to me.E.g. The school budget has finite money.  Let's say It can release 15 free courses by spending just $X but to avoid a lawsuits, it can only release 10 courses by spending $X+$Y ... or release none at all because it's not worth the legal minefield.  Why is the 2nd scenario more optimized for humanity?Sure, we should encourage the universal accessibility of the video courses but to formalize it into the nastiness of lawsuits?  It doesn't seem right.