Replace Courses: Lagunita Platform is closing.

[MRensen]

I got a mail from Stanford. It's not just this course they're closing. it's the lagunita platform they're closing.

This is the mail I got:

Dear Stanford Online Course Participant,

Please disregard the previous email about the course Performance Assessment in the NGSS Classroom.

Our records indicate that you enrolled in a Stanford Online course that is hosted on the Lagunita online learning platform. Thank you for being a part of our community of online learners. Please read this important information about your course and the closure of your Lagunita account.

Lagunita Platform Closing
Stanford Online is retiring the Lagunita online learning platform. Don’t worry — we will continue to offer courses on other online learning platforms.

Your Course is Ending
Because we are retiring the Lagunita platform, the course you enrolled in is closing March 26, 2020.

Action You May Need to Take
If you wish to complete the course, you must do so by March 26, 2020.
If any course materials have been made available for download, you need to download these materials by March 26, 2020.
If the course offers the opportunity to earn a Statement of Accomplishment and you have earned one, congratulations! All Statements of Accomplishment must be downloaded before 12 p.m. Pacific Time, March 31, 2020.

Your Lagunita Account is Closing
Once the Lagunita platform is retired at 12 p.m. Pacific Time, March 31, 2020 your Lagunita account will be automatically closed. This closure is permanent. You will not be able to log back in to the course, access the course material, or retrieve any earned Statement of Accomplishment after this time. There is no additional action you need to take to close your account.

Future Course Availability
Stanford Online may offer a version of the course you enrolled in again in the future, on a different online learning platform. Information about available online courses including free content can be found at online.stanford.edu.

Answers to Your Questions

Answers to many frequently asked questions are available on our FAQ page.
You may also send questions via email to our support team at stanfordonline@stanford.edu.
Thank you for being a part of the Stanford Online learning community.

[pcolt]

Hello,
(this is my first e-mail contributing to the OSSU community)
I have received the same e-mail.
I did a quick research and I found a course with the same name "Introduction to Computer Networking" here at online.stanford.edu.
I did the same research for the course "Introduction to Databases - Self Paced Series" but I couldn't find anyone.
I hope this helps

[spamegg1]

I got the same emails from Stanford.

There are two more Lagunita courses further in the curriculum in Advanced CS: Compilers and Automata Theory, those will have to be replaced with alternatives too.

P.S. I just went to Lagunita and enrollment is already closed for those classes! We need alternatives ASAP.

Here is a possible alternative to Compilers:
https://www.udacity.com/course/compilers-theory-and-practice--ud168

Here are some lecture notes for Automata Theory:
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~goodrich/teach/cs162/notes/

Here are courses that cover some Automata Theory:
These two are a sequence of classes that cover a lot of other theory such as Turing machines, Undecidability etc.
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-045j-automata-computability-and-complexity-spring-2011/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-404j-theory-of-computation-fall-2006/

This one is similar, it has problem sets with solutions provided:
http://aduni.org/courses/theory/index.php?view=cw

[ChrisTsou]

I think this happens because stanford joined EDX, the courses will probably appear in edx at some point, Algorithms: design and analysis part 1 is available: https://www.edx.org/course/algorithms-design-and-analysis

[kishvanchee]

Is there a way to download all videos/assignments from the website? Some way to scrape it?

[scrblue]

Algorithm Design and Analysis I and II are on this platform but the four courses here are by the same instructor and cover the same content. You can audit each of the four on their respective pages instead of paying to do the specialization.

[spamegg1]

Found a possible replacement for the Compilers course. Same instructor (Alex Aiken) from Stanford. It has videos.
http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/CoursePage.php?course=Compilers

A 2018 iteration of the same course but no videos:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs143/index2018.html

This is from 2012:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs143/cs143.1128/

[waciumawanjohi]

For the time being, I've replaced Intro to Networking with a Youtube playlist of the course lectures. OSSU already recommends 4 programming assignments that address this course.

[waciumawanjohi]

@spamegg1 That looks like a good replacement for Compilers at the moment. Thanks for finding it.

Note: I suspect that further comparison of OSSU to our curricular guidelines will lead to compilers being moved to an electives section.

[waciumawanjohi]

@scrblue Those are actually the courses that were recommended before the Algorithms class was offered on Lagunita. Glad they are still available!

[waciumawanjohi]

There are still 2 courses that need to be replaced:
Databases
Automata Theory

[pachecohjr]

I've been following this thread for quite some time now. Very disappointing.

Thank you all for finding the replacements for these courses. Can someone tell me if the Compilers course on Lagunita Stanford is identical to the one @spamegg1 found, if the Stanford course allowed for both C++ or Java entries? This one online seems more inclined for Java users, which I'm not totally against.

I only had the opportunity to sign up for the archived Automata Theory class so I'm will be extracting all material from there shortly.

[TimKindervatter]

I recommend Shai Simonson's lectures on Theory of Computation as a replacement for the Automata Theory course. A youtube playlist of the lecture videos is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTke5lHMAdSNmi57H0DOTzClHPK6UwSTN

@spamegg1 already mentioned that this course's problem sets and solutions are available here:
http://aduni.org/courses/theory/index.php?view=cw

The content of the course seems to be comparable to the Lagunita Automata Theory course, maybe even more comprehensive.

Solely my opinion: the Lagunita Automata Theory course isn't that great, and the Theory of Computation course is superior anyway. I watched only the first week of the Automata Theory lectures and felt the material was poorly motivated and the presentation style was dull. In contrast, Dr. Simonson is a much more engaging lecturer and manages to provide good intuition for the material.

[vasilygrz]

I still have access to the Introduction to Databases course and I've spent two days downloading its content (@kishvanchee, I couldn't find a working scraper). As @ChrisTsou mentioned, Stanford University has become an institutional member of edX. Therefore, it's expected that "many courses that had been hosted on Stanford's Lagunita platform will be made available through edX", as they stated. But "many" doesn't mean "all".

The video lectures are available on YouTube but they're not sorted. However, a user created this playlist. Keep in mind that there's a numbering issue:

• Lecture 11, Transactions, is listed as 12;
• and lecture 12, Constraints and Triggers, is listed as 11.

Also, I've found the Readings section to be extremely helpful because it provides a reading list for each lecture based on four textbooks, which are:

1. A First Course in Database Systems (3rd Edition) / Database Systems: The Complete Book (2nd Edition) (they share the same material)
2. Database Management Systems (3rd Edition)
3. Fundamentals of Database Systems (6th Edition)
4. Database System Concepts (6th Edition)

[kishvanchee]

@vasilygrz I found a tool to download the course, but I think this downloads only the Videos. Not the assignments/reading page.

It would be helpful if you can record/download and share the readings/assignments. I feel this make up an important part of the course.

[vasilygrz]

@vasilygrz I found a tool to download the course, but I think this downloads only the Videos. Not the assignments/reading page.

It would be helpful if you can record/download and share the readings/assignments. I feel this make up an important part of the course.

I've downloaded everything I could, even the exercises. Now they're static pages, working only as a reference.

Update. I've read the Terms of Service for Stanford Online courses, particularly the License to use Site Materials section. Registered users may download the course material for their own personal use but they shouldn't distribute it online. Although the reading list can be explored by anyone (I provided the link in my previous comment), I've contacted Stanford Online to ask for a permission to share it and produce it.

[Saif-XI-Coderz]

@scrblue Those are actually the courses that were recommended before the Algorithms class was offered on Lagunita. Glad they are still available!

@waciumawanjohi
What do you think about showing the Algorithms specialization as individual courses with the pre-requisite of each being the previous course? This way the duration and effort of each courses can also be added individually.

[imbillow]

we need update the trello board?

[waciumawanjohi]

@TimKindervatter Your suggestion of Theory of Computation looks good. We may want to revisit it at a later time, but for now I've replaced the disappearing Automata Theory course with this one. Thanks!

[waciumawanjohi]

@Saif-XI-Coderz if you make a pull request with that change, I'll accept it!

[waciumawanjohi]

At the moment, there is one final course to replace: Databases. The Stanford databases course was a well loved offering, but now it seems that there is only the lectures available on Youtube. In searching for a replacement with some assessment, I've found this Coursera offering: Database Systems Specialization

The reviews do give me pause, and I'm certainly willing to revisit this choice at a later time. For the meantime, I'm swapping this in for databases. Anyone should feel free to open a new issue about identifying the most high quality databases course available. At that time it will be particularly valuable to judge courses against the CS2013 Information Management expectations.

[pachecohjr]

Has anyone noticed that StanfordOnline @ edX is offering the Compilers course? It states the class begins on March 16th.
https://www.edx.org/course/compilers

[dhajn]

@pachecohjr Just noticed your comment - I found it earlier today when looking for an alternative because the current link in the curriculum is not working anymore. I already created a PR to replace the link with this edX version.