Coursera

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Coursera

logo
legal form Inc.
Seat Mountain View
management Jeff Maggioncalda
Number of employees 250+
Branch further education
Website www.coursera.org
Status: 2016

Coursera is a US company that specializes in the provision of online continuing education courses ( Massive Open Online Courses ).

Business model

Coursera does not create courses itself, but works together with universities. All content is created by the partner universities. Coursera manages and streams this content.

Participation in the courses is free of charge, but a fee is charged for official certificates with identity verification. The certificate must be purchased within 180 days from the date of payment.

history

Coursera was founded in April 2012 by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University . From 2014 to June 2017, Rick Levin, former President of Yale University , was Executive Director ( CEO ). He was replaced by Jeff Maggioncalda.

In February 2017, Coursera had over 24 million registered user accounts and offered more than 2000 courses. Many universities, especially in the USA, offer courses on Coursera. The first partner organizations were MIT and Stanford University . In Germany, the Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich are involved.

Courses

The courses usually consist of several hours of video lectures combined with performance reviews in various formats:

  • (unrated) quiz questions in the videos for self-assessment,
  • automatically corrected "quizzes" with multiple choice questions as well as input fields for numbers, formulas, terms and computer algorithms, with or without a time limit for processing,
  • more complex tasks assessed by fellow students (usually 3–5 each) ( "peer review" ),
  • in some courses a final exam, i. d. R. in the form of a "quiz" ,
  • in some courses participation in technical discussions in the online forums of the respective course.

In many courses it is possible to obtain a certificate of completion by achieving a minimum number of points in a combination of these performance assessments, either as a "Statement of Accomplishment" (without checking the identity of the student) or as an "ID-verified Certificate" for which (against Payment) an identity check by means of photo ID, webcam photo and personal typing sample (by repeatedly typing in a confirmation text that academic honesty was maintained in the processing of the tasks) is carried out. In some courses, an additional distinction ( with distinction ) can be obtained in addition to the final certificate by achieving a higher point threshold than for the standard certificate in the examinations and / or working on an additional project.

Since many courses are based on the level of conventional universities, successfully completed Coursera courses are recognized by some US companies as official further training measures.

criticism

  • The company receives money from participants on the one hand and sells their personal data to third parties on the other .
  • In December 2012, it became known that companies could receive information on high-performing graduates for a fee, provided that they agree to this.
  • There was theft of user data because it was not adequately protected.
  • The contracts with the universities are secret and may not be published.
  • The company influences teaching and its content. ( See also : Academic Freedom )
  • The junior professor of mathematics Paul-Olivier Dehaye has requested the release of his personal data under EU law since October 2014. But the company refuses to release the complete data sets. March 2015, Dehaye therefore sued the company in New York.
  • The Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich received the Big Brother Award 2017 in the “Education” category for “cooperation with the online course provider Coursera”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Coursera's partner institutions (English) accessed on May 29, 2015
  2. ↑ Coursera's terms of payment ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) accessed on Feb. 24, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / learner.coursera.help
  3. ^ Thomas L. Friedmann: Come the Revolution . In: New York Times. May 15, 2012. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
  4. ↑ Yale President becomes head of the Coursera platform
  5. ↑ https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/06/14/coursera-ceo-jeff-maggioncalda-financial-engines.html. Retrieved September 30, 2017 .
  6. ↑ http://www.cardrates.com/news/learn-finance-online-from-worlds-best-universities-with-coursera/ February 27, 2017, accessed May 6, 2017
  7. ↑ Coursera partner universities
  8. ↑ Coursera help: Assignments ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) accessed on May 29, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / learner.coursera.help
  9. ↑ Coursera Help: Certificates and Course Credit ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on May 29, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / learner.coursera.help
  10. ↑ "How MOOCs are flattening corporate training and education" (English) accessed on May 29, 2015
  11. ↑ According to experts, student data is not sufficiently protected , December 2, 2015, Spiegel Online
  12. ↑ Jeffrey R. Young: Providers of Free MOOC's Now Charge Employers for Access to Student Data . In: Chronicle of Higher Education. December 4, 2012. Retrieved December 6, 2012.
  13. ↑ a b The glass student . Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 2, 2015.
  14. ↑ The BigBrotherAward 2017 in the Education category goes to the Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, represented by Prof. Dr. Dr. hc mult. Wolfgang A. Herrmann and Prof. Dr. rer. pole. Bernd Huber for the cooperation with the online course provider Coursera. In: BigBrotherAwards.de. 2017, Retrieved May 6, 2017 .