No Cameras, Please

The Harvard Extension School has begun to advertise some of its courses by offering trailers free of charge to the general public on iTunes U, a service that allows colleges and universities to distribute educational content over the Internet. The Extension School, which is one of the three schools comprised by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), should be applauded for this innovative project, which will further the school’s mission to provide continuing education to the general public. But for courses offered in the other two schools of FAS—the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS)—publicly available course videos would not be helpful, and would probably even be detrimental. Course material in these schools should be made more publicly accessible, but when it comes to course videos, we support the existing practice of FAS to limit College and GSAS course video access to members of these communities.

The Extension School serves a critical purpose: It offers everybody the opportunity for advanced study at Harvard, regardless of prior Harvard affiliation. In this way, the school enables a broad swath of people who don’t fit into a “traditional” degree pattern—from those who want to finish their undergraduate degree later in life to those who simply want to take a course for fun—to fulfill their educational goals. Because the Extension School’s target audience includes the general public just as much as currently enrolled extension students, featuring videos of extension courses online is a sensible and creative way of inviting the public to study at the Extension School.

But it would be unwise to apply open access to all courses in FAS. In the past, we have supported the expansion of course video availability. There is an important difference, however, between making course videos available to course or community members and making them available to the general public. For example, students in some large courses, such as Moral Reasoning 22, “Justice,” already report some level of discomfort about the ubiquitous filming of the course’s lectures. To make videos publicly available would fundamentally shift the dynamic of these courses, turning students into characters in a performance (especially during interactive activities such as open question-and-answer sessions) instead of engaged learners.

This is not to say, of course, that all courses offered to GSAS and College students should be the exclusive province of these closed communities. The mission of the Extension School—to provide higher education to a broad swath of the general public—is urgent and worthy enough to be shared by the entire University, at least through avenues that would not detract from the learning of other Harvard students. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, offers unlimited access to syllabi, handouts, and other non-sensitive course documents on its Web site. FAS should do the same.

Expanding learning opportunity for all people is one of the most pressing challenges facing higher education today, and we strongly support Harvard’s efforts—and especially those of the Extension School—in this regard. This is one case, however, in which what is good for one school is far less desirable for another. College and GSAS courses should be more publicly accessible, but relaxing video access restrictions isn’t the way to do it.