Will and should on-line degrees become commonly accepted as official by employers and...

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Shriram Krishnamurthi

Why not? Both companies and universities accept credentials from all sorts of institutions, some of which are really quite weak. We often have only limited knowledge of how much of the work that obtained these credentials was legitimate (not plagiarized, etc.). As MOOCs put more effort into validating which humans they are dealing with (at some point their validation methods may well exceed what many universities currently do), why shouldn't they be recognized as another credentialing source?

Ah, but that's not really your question, is it? You want to know whether these credentials will yield the applicant's desired outcome! That is, not only will the credentials be accepted, but will their bearer be extended an offer. And that's a more complicated matter.

Assuming we can deal with the legitimacy matter (plagiarism detection, biometrics, etc.), here are some points I see.

1. First of all, keep in mind that some of these are old, old questions in new clothes. Some of these questions could also have been asked about Open Universities, and other long-distance education centers (e.g., FernUniversität Hagen: the very name means "distance university"). They have all been credentialing without trouble for ages. Of course, these places tend to be accredited. But so can be a MOOC.
2. A MOOC education is likely to be every bit as good as that from a large number of universities. For instance, when I see the quality of collegiate computer science education at many, many places (especially in the US and India, two places where I have many educational contacts), strictly from a content perspective I think students would be far better served by a MOOC.
3. For now, MOOCs tend to contain content from elite universities. They are not easy! It can sometimes be difficult for people to understand the degree of difficulty of work at top institutions. Because I participate in a lot of educational outreach, I see this difference all the time. So it's not a given that this material is picked up without massive support by student not accustomed to working at that level—massive support being, of course, the one thing that MOOCs can't give. (Yeah, I know, peer-review, etc. I don't believe it's at all the same as what you get on a well-staffed university campus.)
4. MOOCs seem to require students to be extremely motivated, and to have a social setting that enables them to engage in difficult study. Very few people actually enjoy this outside a traditional university environment. It is no surprise that most MOOC finishers are those who already have quite a bit of privilege—the MOOC fanatics like to trump the random student in Pakistan or Peru or wherever, but these exceptions almost define the rule. So sure, go ahead and make the certificates official, but don't expect it'll lead to a huge influx of new talent into the workforce or into graduate schools.
5. I'm curious to see how many kinds of content will translate well to MOOCs. Not just essays but group projects, sit-around-a-table-and-design activities, things requiring massive labs or other physical equipment (fine arts, natural sciences, engineering), etc. Right now MOOCs are picking off the "easy parts", like introductory programming in virtual environments.
6. Many people already have the freedom to take MOOC experience into account, unofficially: both universities and companies. For instance, if a PhD applicant claims to have taken a MOOC, I want to see their portfolio (usually of code). And this would play a role in my decisions. [In fact, I once recruited a student directly from a MOOC that I taught, and he's done great work at Brown.] I can, however, say that I see very little of this.
7. Good universities provide an ineffable experience that lets good students get better than anyone can imagine. The demand for that is likely to always remain.
8. This credentialing business is likely to be more of an issue for universities (which are much slower-moving entities) than companies, especially in sectors like the tech industry. Does a major tech company really care whether you have a degree? They care whether you have skills, both technical and personal. (Being a bit older can make a big difference to the latter, btw.) Beyond that, if there's a flood of good MOOC graduates, companies will vie with one another to accept them and not be left behind in the battle for talent.
9. "Harvard dropout" is not actually synonymous with "Harvard graduate". Good enough to get in only says that you made it past the random admissions processes that govern elite universities. Graduate means that you made it through the real academic gatekeepers. Of course, you could have coasted by. That's why your transcript says a great deal about you: what you know, what you were passionate about, how much you challenged yourself, how you rose to those challenges, etc. I know all this because I review hundreds of transcripts every year when looking at PhD applicants. A transcript from a US university (where you have a real choice of courses and tracks) tells a story about the applicant.

The NYT piece is good in parts, but in others is written in the overly-dramatic, overly-simplistic fashion sometimes needed to attract the eye of the op ed editor. I wouldn't take it too literally.

But if the bottom line is whether MOOCs should be given respect as credentialing bodies, I'd say, as they demonstrate real progress on validation issues, why not. It would be snobbish and unfair not to. We already recognize universities from all over world, why not those from cyberspace as well?

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