I do understand , or think I understand, that the closedness this creates is not of your doing, but is imposed on you by this program.

Is it possible that a virtue carried to extremes becomes a danger?

Is it possible that “opening” needs to be balanced by “closing,” by insuring that designs and structures are valued for the work they do?

“Opening” the doors of a building so that all may enter and enjoy the benefits of the work done inside is one thing: allowing visitors to redesign and rework the structure of the building may cause it to collapse.

I am referring, of course, to the invitation to students to redesign the syllabus. A good syllabus is often carefully structured to move students along a path, and those without a clear sense of where the path is designed to lead may turn the design into incoherence.

What happens to the ideas of structure, form, sequence, design if “openness” becomes total?

I’m wondering, though, about scalability. How many “unofficial” students were in your course the last time you taught it? How much did taking care of them add to your workload? How many more students could you handle before you said “uncle”? One possibility for scaling this model further would be to find additional faculty members at other institutions (perhaps those who have agreed to respect your grade and grant local credit) to partner with you to grade / mentor students from their institutions. Not sure exactly how the logistics of this would work, but scalability seems to be the next big iteration . . .