There are more than 2000 courses available on the Coursera as we speak, and that’s why we explored online learning trends and created this list of 10 most popular Coursera courses in 2016 to save you time and spare your nerves.
Are you familiar with the MOOC phenomenon? The way for Universities to put educational material out there with the Massive Open Online Course(s), where thousands can have access to it for free or an affordable price? Where real-time interaction between instructors and students is possible, even if they’re oceans apart? They were and still are a revolution in education, and we all welcome it. Feel free to check out these 10 Best Websites Like Coursera, Udacity and other MOOCs, because they are here to stay.
Do you want to stand out for that promotion you want so bad for a long time? Do you want to earn better grades this school year? Nevertheless, online courses are the right tool for the job, since you can easily manage your study time in a 24/7 world where balancing work and family is often mission impossible. Not to mention your free time and hobbies. Speak of the devil, wouldn’t it be great to turn your hobby into a career, and above all to do it without leaving home? You can definitely make it happen by taking the Coursera degree courses.
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When talking about the value of the Coursera Certificate that one gets after the course is done, the question arises – is it just a knowledge what one get, or the Certificate can be helpful in the pursuit of a degree and a better employment? In November 2012, the American Council on Education (ACE) started the evaluation of credit equivalency for online courses available on Coursera. Two months later, Signature Track was launched. This program personalized online learning on Coursera by linking real identity of a student with their coursework. In this way, for the fee between $30-$300 per course, the opportunity was given to everyone who’s interested in earning a Verified Certificate that is the formal recognition of hard work and course completion. In February 2013, ACE recommended college credit for five courses available on Coursera, with the tendency of recommending additional courses in the future.
This switch from free courses to the paid ones has been raising a lot of dust on forums for quite a while. Disappointment by the commercialization of the platform was apparent. Still, opinions were divided – some welcomed it, and some strongly criticized it. The latter were and still are by far the more numerous, which forced us to question whether it’s justified to put a price tag on the knowledge? But, put yourself in the instructor’s shoes for a second. You are using your resources and your teaching material while teaching courses that you designed. It’s fair to receive a reward for your effort, right? At bottom, we are certainly all familiar with the terms copyright and fair use. On the other hand, from its beginning, the basic idea of Coursera was free access to knowledge. However, everything is subject to change including this learning platform. The new course format was piloted last June, offering a few new courses available only for a certain amount of money. For those less fortunate who can’t afford the fee, Coursera is offering the financial aid. This includes a chance to gain knowledge, complete assignments and earn the Certificate.
So, to make it clear, Coursera still offers full courses that are free. However, the certificate is not included. But, you can pay for it at the end of the course. Needless to say, if you choose to. Also, there are courses that are completely free. Meaning, a certificate is not an offer, even if you are willing to pay for it. In the end, there are those paid ones. But, even they have a free version that includes Audit Only option where you don’t have access to assignments, tasks or Signature Track, but you get readings and video material at no charge. Furthermore, the latest updates from a few days ago introduced the 7-day free trials for most Specializations. With this trial, you can have full access to all graded assignments, videos, and forums within course selected. After 7 days, depending on your experience, you can cancel your subscription, or you can purchase a whole package for $49 per month. For easier access to learning material check out and download Coursera application for Android, iPhone, and iPad on the App Store or get it on the Google Play.
The courses on our list of most popular Coursera courses in 2016 are all parts of Coursera Specializations. This program is launched three years ago and implies multi-course series, where all those who are interested in the specific subject can broaden their knowledge by taking more than one course within specific Specialization. To measure their popularity, we have taken into consideration already existing lists of the most popular Coursera courses for the year 2016 and the year before. There were some overlaps, so we included the number of social media shares for each course on both lists as well as user rating obtained from Class Central. What we got is the following genuine Insider Monkey list.
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