SJSU Plus Udacity Pilots: Lack of transparency in describing data

Alternate Headline: “Our Long National Nightmare is Over – SJSU and Udacity solve problem of college graduates being able to pass remedial math”

The more I read on SJSU’s announcement on the pilot program, the more troubled I am with the lack of clear description of student population change (I wrote briefly about the change in student populations yesterday). In a nutshell, the spring 2013 pilot was completely different in the major demographic variables than the summer 2013 pilot. That’s good, right, showing that SJSU and Udacity are learning their lessons? It would be good if SJSU clearly described the student differences and avoided any implications that the numbers could be compared. Further, it would be good to avoid misleading comparisons to face-to-face courses at SJSU.