First Impressions of Coursera

I signed up for the Coursera course on cryptography earlier this summer. The course is from Stanford University and taught by computer science professor Dan Boneh. Between work and vacation, I’ve only just recently had the chance to test out the course. With Coursera in the news for adding 12 more universities to its stable, I thought I would share a few initial impressions here on the blog.

First, a bit about the components of the course. It’s a six week course aimed at advanced undergrads or grad students, so it moves pretty fast.

For each week, there are a set of video lectures, each featuring PowerPoint slides, Professor Boneh’s audio narration, and some “digital ink” annotations by Prof. Boneh. Most videos are between 12 and 25 minutes in length.
Each week also features a problem set consisting of a mix of multiple-choice and free-text questions. The questions are computer-graded, so the free-text questions have well-defined answers (like a particular number or a message that must be deciphered). Each problem set has a deadline, and if you turn in your problem set after its deadline, you only get half credit.
The course has active discussion boards, with sections for general discussion, discussion about the video lectures, and discussion about the problem sets. There’s also a board devoted to helping students set up study groups. More on that below.
There will be a final exam at the end of the course. I haven’t seen it yet, naturally, but I’m assuming it will be a longer version of the problem sets, that is, a lengthy quiz featuring the same kind of computer-graded questions.

A few things struck me as I tested out the course:

For this course, one can watch the video lectures without enrolling by clicking on “Preview” on the course home page. This could come in handy for me, since I’m teaching a first-year writing seminar on cryptography this fall. I can see asking my students to watch selected videos before particular class sessions. It looks like the “Preview” option isn’t available for all Coursera courses. I’m guessing it’s up to the instructor to allow previews. Although it’s pretty easy to enroll in a course in order to gain access to those video lectures, this small hurdle makes Coursera courses as less open than they could be.
Posts in the discussion boards can be voted up or down so that more popular / interesting / important posts bubble to the top. Also, posts by the course instructor are flagged, making it easy to find them. These are both helpful features that, at this point, should be standard in course management systems.
As for the study groups that appear to be forming, they come in three varieties. Some are language-based, so that students who speak a particular language other than English have a place to discuss the course. Others are medium-based, so that students who would prefer to collaborate using, say, Facebook or Skype can get together. And others are location-based, so that students in, say, London who want to meet at a pub each week to talk about the course can do so. I’ve heard of ad hoc, location-based, study groups associated with other massively open online courses (MOOCs), like this one in Mongolia that formed around a MITx course. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a need for online language-based groups and interests in online medium-based groups.

Have you participated in a MOOC from Coursera or another provider? What were your impressions?

Image: “Pipes,” Alex Luyckx, Flickr (CC)

4 Responses to "First Impressions of Coursera"

Cassandra Volpe Horii says:

July 19, 2012 at 6:04 am

Thanks for the observations, Derek! The emergence of location, language, and medium-based study groups is something to watch. I’m curious whether, at some point, the materials will be translated–and by whom. Also, will study group participation continue as strictly voluntary, or will MOOC faculty begin to integrate remote, live, student-run elements into the fabric of the courses. We’ll see!

I appreciate that you separated the description of the course from observations about the platform. The two can be difficult to disentangle. Within Coursera (and elsewhere), I think we are still waiting for the appearance of MOOCs that push the interactive pedagogy envelope as far as it might go, to the point that the various platforms appear to be gearing up to support. For example, Prof. Boneh choose to offer short video segments and digital ink; he could also have integrated conceptual questions allowing students to test-drive their understanding in real time. On the horizon are some fascinating approaches to crowdsourcing student peer feedback–crucially, with training on using criteria (rubrics) effectively before the real thing. I can’t wait to see how these approaches work when truly integrated into MOOCs!

Also emerging: more explicit articulation of the relationship between the online and on-campus MOOC experiences. For example, Prof. Antonio Rangel comments in his “Principles of Economics for Scientists” course description (https://www.coursera.org/course/econ1scientists) about what will be happening off-line, in the room with Caltech students. Essentially, Prof. Rangel is designing two overlapping but different learning experiences. Caltech has also been clear about the hope for participation in Coursera benefiting on-campus students as well as reaching beyond: http://features.caltech.edu/features/407. We’re talking about ‘flipping the classroom’ in a very different way now that the ‘classroom’ could be in person and/or online.

What an adventure!

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Derek Bruff says:

July 19, 2012 at 12:51 pm

Thanks for the comments, Cassandra. The crowdsourcing angle is a fascinating one for me. For instance, how can we structure MOOCs so that unusual, but interesting ideas and questions from students aren’t lost in the crowd, but instead float up to areas of greater attention? The study groups in Coursera are nicely decentralized, but how can we facilitate cross-pollination among study groups? What does something like “think pair share” look like… in an online environment… at scale?

The possible interplay between online and on-campus learning is also interesting. I haven’t seen much in the publicity surrounding Coursera-style MOOCs to indicate that the institutions involved have concrete plans for enhancing the learning experiences of on-campus students through MOOCs. I suspect that on-campus versions of MOOC courses will necessarily be “flipped,” and thus, as institutions move toward MOOCs, more instructors will be motivated to spend class time in more interactive ways. I’m curious to know if there are other ways that MOOCs might enhance the learning experience for on-campus students.

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#Change11 An update on posts related to MOOCs as at 3 August 12 | Learner Weblog says:

August 3, 2012 at 4:48 am

[…] https://derekbruff.org/?p=2249 […]

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Corbette Doyle says:

August 7, 2012 at 2:06 pm

I think the crowdsourcing approach may well be a critical component for online and hybrid classes, whether they feature MOOCs or not. Bottom line, few will get the full benefit of an online degree if they lose the opportunity to interact with–and learn from–their classmates. Some classes will lend themselves to group projects or problems, but not all will. Crowdsourcing as a method for peer learning offers an interesting opportunity using Skype or Google+ or …?

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