RFC: Add the Option for Paid Courses for Learners who are interested.

[KeeganJustis]

Problem:

Not all OSSU classes have a certificate of completion, and certificates are useful when preparing for graduate school or showing to employers.

Duration:
This should most often be 1 month from the date of posting.

Background:
Many students are completing the OSSU computer science degree to prepare for a Master degree. Having accredited certifications on edx or Coursera give more credibility to students preparing for a masters program during the application process. Certain employers may prioritize applicants from non traditional CS backgrounds if they have a list of certifications on coursera and edx from computer science topics.

Proposal:
Add another column to each course with link to a paid version of each class. The free courses should still be the focus, but having a list of paid resources that give a certificate for graduate school could be included for students who want to showcase the coursework to their employers or graduate programs. The paid courses may not only be offered at certain times of year and could include multiple options with a star rating (5/5,4.5/5,2/5,etc) to help students choose the right course based on the calendar year.

Alternatives:
Only include courses that have a free and paid version. For example [Calculus 1A: Differentiation] is on Openlearning and MITX. Both links should be included.

[pulkitkrishna00]

Outside the scope of OSSU. We already add link to paid version of the courses with certificate as alternative link wherever possible. For other courses, people are welcome to join the discord server, and ask for advice there.

[waciumawanjohi]

This sounds like a non-trivial amount of work that's not aligned with our mission: Empowering learners to master college curricula through free resources.

[KeeganJustis]

I would be happy to make a PR for a list of paid courses for each section in the readme if required effort is the issue.

[pulkitkrishna00]

I don't think OSSU should make some recommendation without proper discussion. And having that discussion is a non-trivial amount of work that's not aligned with our mission.

If you want, you can make a separate curriculum with paid courses with certificates, and make a PR to add that curriculum to https://cs.ossu.dev/extras/other_curricula page. It can even be mentioned in the FAQ/a pinned message on discord.

[jmanhype]

I agree that adding paid course recommendations without thorough discussion would not be the best approach. The suggestion to create a separate curriculum focused on paid courses with certificates and submit it as a PR to the other curricula page is a constructive alternative. This would maintain the integrity of the main curriculum while still providing options for those interested in paid courses. I can help create this separate curriculum if there's interest, focusing on quality paid courses that offer certificates and complement the existing free curriculum. Sent via Lindy <https://lindy.ai>

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On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 8:03 AM ***@***.*** wrote: I don't think OSSU should make some recommendation without proper discussion. And having that discussion is a non-trivial amount of work that's not aligned with our mission. If you want, you can make a separate curriculum with paid courses with certificates, and make a PR to add that curriculum to https://cs.ossu.dev/extras/other_curricula page. It can even be mentioned in the FAQ/a pinned message on discord. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1303 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ANMI52FAWNU72CJZVIKR6QL2MOKTNAVCNFSM6AAAAABVS7J3NCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMMJTHE3TIMJVGE> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>