Professors at San Jose State Criticize Online Courses

San Jose State University has publicly committed to using online courses to bring in more students — and bring down costs — but its philosophy department is balking.

Faculty members issued a blistering statement about why they will not use materials from an online course called Justice, taught by Michael Sandel of Harvard, an academic superstar. Mohammad H. Qayoumi, the president of San Jose State, has pushed his university to experiment with new online technologies through pilot projects with both edX, the nonprofit Harvard-M.I.T. online collaboration that offers Dr. Sandel’s course, and Udacity, a company producing the massive open online courses, known as MOOCs. But this week, the philosophy department sent Dr. Sandel an open letter asserting that such courses, designed by elite universities and widely licensed by others, would compromise the quality of education, stifle diverse viewpoints and lead to the dismantling of public universities.

The letter echoed concerns of many university faculties across the nation as MOOCs have spread rapidly. It emphasized the importance of individual interaction with students, and the fear that the courses would widen the gap between the education that elite universities can offer, and what is available to students at most other institutions.