I recently found out about coursera.org and operncourseware that offers courses from big name universities. I was wondering how are this courses generally accepted by the scientific community and if they are worth the time as many of them don't offer any certificate.
We can't forget that distance education don't refers only to MOOCs. I took several other courses online from different institutions, less "massive courses" and that even requires more from my time and effort than my Master (sorry Dr.Rafael, but is truth).
One took me 420 hours/class plus 3 meetings between 3 to 5 days each one.
Outside of Academic life many enterprises don't really care if your course was made online or in situ since you demonstrate you possess the skills.
I think those sites are giving the best oportunities for people who doesn't have the chance to study aboard or interchanges, and they're really doing their best to give a free education. With or without certificates if you finish those courses with a good qualification, even if the courses are not generally accepted by the scientific community, you still learn useful things, you still used your time to study and learn something you didn't know.
In my opinion, it would be really good if those courses are accepted, it would be very motivating to finish all those attractive courses on-line.
I think those courses are very much helpful for general learning if not for CV or skills improvement. Joining an online course on leadership and communication made me understood the importance of those two things and now i deliberately try to improve those skills.
I agree with Monir. Its depends on learner. One should use the things what he/she learned the things through any courses either of offline or online.
Well, yes, of course, it depends on the learner. And, in my opinion, anything you learn can be usefull some future day on your life but, my question was going more to the tipe that: are this courses see with good eyes by the scientific community? Do they have value per se? For example, if you had a lab team, and you where interviewing applicants, will you consider better applicants with presencial pay courses or with MOOC courses or the same?
Online course might provide good exposure and skill developing but certificates are usually not considered best for placements.
I agree with many of these comments - If you are unfamiliar with the material, or needing a refresher, these classes are not a bad place to start. Many of the academics teaching here have formidable reputations.
In my opinion there is a need to add parallel free text books - or even reading tied tightly to commercial texts. Also, more and easier to use blog/discussion tools would be very useful.
I agree with the free text books (or as offer in some of the courses, free acces for educational proposes. Discassion tools will be useful always that they are well tag and maybe non-course-specific
I agree with most of the comments. Still, I think the MOOCs still have to mature a lot in the pedagogical and methodological
We can't forget that distance education don't refers only to MOOCs. I took several other courses online from different institutions, less "massive courses" and that even requires more from my time and effort than my Master (sorry Dr.Rafael, but is truth).
One took me 420 hours/class plus 3 meetings between 3 to 5 days each one.
Outside of Academic life many enterprises don't really care if your course was made online or in situ since you demonstrate you possess the skills.
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