The problem here is that Coursera is a for-profit company. If they were an educational non-profit, my guess is that they could find a way to somehow work with individual citizens of these countries. But the sanctions are in place to stop US companies from doing business with these countries, and it probably never occurred to anyone that a for-profit company, in the US, would want to educate people in Iran.
Thus, this seems less a case of the US trying to stop citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria from being educated, and more a case of the law not keeping up with the times.
It would be nice if the US Justice Department, or whoever is in charge of enforcing such sanctions, could give a clear waiver to education-related companies. I doubt that this will happen, though.
> If they were an educational non-profit, my guess is that they could find a way to somehow work with individual citizens of these countries.
Yeah, in academia we've generally been told (at more than one university) that educational contacts with individual students and researchers at universities in these countries are ok, barring a bunch of exceptions. Exceptions include: there must be no financial relationship (we can't hire someone in Syria, send them equipment, etc.), no relationship with business entities in those countries (no assistance to spinoff commercial research, etc.), the contacts can't involve certain "sensitive" subjects that are subject to technological export controls, and the contacts can't involve "specially designated nationals" who are specifically blacklisted. Oh and you should probably forget it if your lab has any DARPA contracts and/or any staff with security clearance. A bit of a minefield, but I know people who have worked with individual students and professors on research without complaint from the university legal department (or the U.S. government). One common angle recently is that individual Syrian students will try to find a non-Syrian academic collaborator to publish a paper with, in order to build a CV that can get them into a graduate program abroad (and thereby getting a visa to get out of Syria).
Don't just disagree, provide information if you have it.
I think you were talking about Coursera's "specialisations," which are essentially a grouping of "signature track" courses with a project or exam at the end. All of the courses can be taken for free if you don't care about the special certificates, but the project is just for paying customers.
Udacity is running some "pay only" courses with Georgia Tech for its online masters program, too. Not sure about their other offerings, or about edX.
Ok I am not 100 percent sure about that but it does seem that some courses in specializations are only available in this way.
EDIT: ok, so you were apparently right. The specialization courses stay free, but it's not so obvious when you are looking at them from the specialization page.
Thus, this seems less a case of the US trying to stop citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria from being educated, and more a case of the law not keeping up with the times.
It would be nice if the US Justice Department, or whoever is in charge of enforcing such sanctions, could give a clear waiver to education-related companies. I doubt that this will happen, though.