I don't see how you can make such a determination about a online information site (i.e. one that provides information but not accredited diplomas or degrees.) You can learn all day from Wikipedia, will they ban wikipedia next? This really looks like politicians overreaching on behalf of some frightened post-secondary institution.
From the article's page, commenter Greg Shenaut points out that further reading of MN law would render this political "threat" moot. His comment pasted below:
Bottom line, they should have considered Coursera, since it offers no degrees at all, under their “Private Career Schools” statute (Chapter 141) rather than under their “Private and Public Postsecondary Education Act (136A.61-71)”. The latter act is concerned with (1) degree granting institutions and (2) schools that call themselves universities or colleges as part of their name. Coursera grants no degrees and doesn't call itself anything except “Coursera” (or coursera.org), so it is really bizarre that they decided to regulate it under 136A.61-71.
If they had made the opposite determination, then, under 141.21(10) and 141.35(17), Coursera would probably have been exempted from any need for official approval: “[The Private Career Schools Act] shall not apply to... schools with no physical presence in Minnesota, as determined by the office, engaged exclusively in offering distance instruction that are located in and regulated by other states or jurisdictions”.
This would be far from the first time a bureaucratic functionary has sent a threatening letter to a company only because the functionary misunderstood the law. Given the update at Slate it would seem that the OHE now realizes that the communication was sent in error, and are in damage control mode.
EDIT: Hopefully the person who touched this off has been suitably chastened. Given that this is the civil service it's unlikely they'll be fired.
Reading the article informed me that they are banning Coursera because universities are conducting classes on the site. That's not the case for wikipedia.
Additionally, said universities are referring to themselves as their traditional name (e.g. "stanford university") and not "coursera."
I seem to have missed this detail. However, why is it a problem if Stanford contracts out to some third party to operate a particular course? I enrolled in a local college a few years ago and took courses online. Not one of those courses was located within the college's web site- they were all third parties. Why would I have the expectation that the college doesn't vouch for the validity of the course material?
EDIT after reading the update: I read this as back to square one. Stanford is offering courses via Coursera for free. But Stanford doesn't offer free degrees. Why is that a problem?
MN's opinion seems to be its citizens can't get a degree online from a school outside of MN unless that school is registered with OHE. However, the quoted law speaks to not having a physical presence.
From the article's page, commenter Greg Shenaut points out that further reading of MN law would render this political "threat" moot. His comment pasted below:
Bottom line, they should have considered Coursera, since it offers no degrees at all, under their “Private Career Schools” statute (Chapter 141) rather than under their “Private and Public Postsecondary Education Act (136A.61-71)”. The latter act is concerned with (1) degree granting institutions and (2) schools that call themselves universities or colleges as part of their name. Coursera grants no degrees and doesn't call itself anything except “Coursera” (or coursera.org), so it is really bizarre that they decided to regulate it under 136A.61-71.
If they had made the opposite determination, then, under 141.21(10) and 141.35(17), Coursera would probably have been exempted from any need for official approval: “[The Private Career Schools Act] shall not apply to... schools with no physical presence in Minnesota, as determined by the office, engaged exclusively in offering distance instruction that are located in and regulated by other states or jurisdictions”.