In the context of a MOOC, I’ve come across a sentence that said you could “audit” a course without payment for a limited period. Evidently, the intended meaning is “to try something out”. Is this common usage? I’ve only ever seen the verb “audit” in the sense of a thorough examination of something, but never to refer to a free trial period.
I heard of it in the context of college courses where a student took the course but it didn’t impact the GPA. The student might not even get a grade. I assumed it meant that the student thought the information might be good to know but it wasn’t part of the required degree program.
If an institution had a flat fee for tuition, I could see doing it. But if they charge per credit, you’d be paying.
Googling:
In the Canadian universities I’ve attended, “auditing” means that you can sit thorugh the entire course of lectures. You don’t do any course work, and you don’t get graded. Pure learning for personal interest.
I think there is a audit fee, but nothing like the tuition, and you’re not cut off part way through.
The first university I went to had a policy that senior citizens could audit one class a term for free. There was a really nice old gent who was doing that. He explained that he had entered the work force straight out of school, and always missed not getting to go to university, so that was what he was doing in his retirement.
“MOOC” ? what’s that?
Exactly the same in the U.K. and the U.S. Not so much “trying out”, but attending any or all lectures to listen (usually informal permission is required, it’s not good etiquette to just walk into a lecture at random) without officially being part of the class.
“MOOC” on the other hand… I too have no idea.
Google suggests “Massive Open Online Course,” an online course with a large (or unlimited) class size. But, I didn’t recognize the acronym, either.
I, too, am familiar with the idea of “auditing a class,” being attending a college class for no credit, but simply for the purpose of learning. When I was in college, 30+ years ago, there were older adults auditing a few of my classes.
Yep, that’s what it is. It’s a generic term for platforms like Coursera, edX or Udemy. They offer a variety of courses which essentially consist of a series of pre-recorded videos and guided step-by-step tutorials that you go through at your own pace. It’s “massive” in the sense that an unlimited number of people can take it, and “open” in the sense that you can start it at any time.
The sentence in which I ran across the verb “to audit” went on to say that if you complete the course within the free trial period but want a certificate (let’s not get into the debate of how much a certificate is worth that’s issued by a MOOC platform anyone can click through at any time), you need to pay a fee. So I suppose the meaning that we’ve discussed here (which I had previously been unaware of) fits quite well.
Profoundly common.
MOOC is common in the educational field.
Most colleges have options to audit a course, usually for senior citizens. Traditionally, you attend the course but are not graded on it and don’t get credit for it. The term has been around for decades.
This sounds like a variation – you can audit the course to see if you like it, and then pay at a certain point to get graded and credits. I can see an online school offering the option to get more people paying.
That explains the usage - when I dig up the remnants of my high school Latin, I remember that audire means “to hear” or “to listen”, so it’s probably related to the terminology of “hearing” a lecture. Makes sense.
Yeah, I audited at least one course when I was a grad student 30 years ago. I was interested in the subject but didn’t have the time to do all the course work. I think it was free since I was a registered student already, and I might have asked permission (it was a small graduate level course so the classroom was small enough that they couldn’t fit too many extra folks).
“Auditing” a college class, in the sense of being allowed to attend it without any obligation on your part to submit work or sit for exams, and no obligation on the instructor’s part to evaluate you, has been common parlance for many decades.
If it’s an “official” audit, it might appear on your transcript as a “no credit” course or something. If it’s an unofficial arrangement, say with the instructor, there might be no record of it whatsoever.
Some colleges might charge for such an arrangement, but, of course, if it’s an unofficial arrangement with the instructor, then, of course, there’s no fee.
I don’t think it’s always correct to say that you don’t do any coursework. At least at the University of Toronto 20 years ago, you had the option of doing the coursework in an audited course, and the instructor would grade it. But even if you did do all the assignments and sit all the exams, the final grade you got would not appear on your official transcript, and it wouldn’t could towards your overall grade average for the purposes of your degree.
You don’t even need Latin; it’s related to English words like “audio” and “audible.”
Officially, an auditor is supposed to formally register and pay a small fee. When I wanted to audit a course, I just spoke to the instructor and asked if he minded if I sat in. He didn’t and I stayed for both terms. This happened after I was a tenured professor, incidentally.
And “audition.”
Which actually does mean “to try out”; so I wonder if the sentence the OP originally asked about had that in mind.
The OED marks this meaning of the word as a U.S. usage. Its earliest citation is from 1933.
In the back of my mind, I kept thinking there was more to it. I found this:
Students may change registration in a course from credit to audit under the following conditions (this applies for all sessions/terms):
- deadline to drop without a grade of W is also the deadline to change from credit to audit, or vice versa, with only an instructor’s signature
- after the deadline to drop without a grade of W, a change from credit to audit will be permitted only if the student is doing passing work in that course and receives the approval of the course instructor
- after the deadline to drop with a grade of W, a change from credit to audit, or vice versa, will be permitted only if the student receives the approval of the course instructor AND the dean of the student’s college(link is external). By Policy, permission from the dean to make registration changes after the last day to drop with a grade of W requires an extraordinary reason.
In some schools it’s a way to prevent a class that you’re on the verge of failing from affecting your GPA by changing it from credit to not for credit. So if you’re overwhelmed by a class, rather than withdrawing, you may audit it. Sitting through the difficult class for the rest of the semester could help prepare you for a second try and it won’t bring down your GPA. I think in a lot of places it may show up on the transcript, however.