Coursera vs. Microsoft Hands-on Labs

The Coursera platform can be a useful part of your overall learning content portfolio if utilized correctly. It's fantastic for asynchronous courses that don't necessarily need a dedicated faculty member (though I'd highly recommend at least having some discussion moderators/student workers) and for offering MOOCs. The ability for the learners to contribute translations really makes it ideal for the international learning community - I am always amazed to see a course we launched with 2-3 languages to quickly have 10-12 more added. This feature really helps expand the audience reach and Coursera has such a large following already that it can grow seemingly overnight.

Incentivized

The Microsoft Hands-on Labs were great for training when working alongside an instructor. They would show things on their screen, and I would work alongside with a real environment. Being able to actually use the environment and interact with it was more preferable than just a straight lecture. It allowed me hands-on practice.

Incentivized

• Interaction: the student learns by doing. For programming courses, this means programming!
• Assessments: the courses I'd taken ask students to grade each others work with a rubric. This is hugely effective and permits tests and quizzes to be other than multiple choice.
• Creativity and enthusiasm of the instructors. Some of the approaches demonstrated real out-of-the-box thinking by the instructors. For example, the Rice Python course was a self-contained website requiring no installation of IDE on one's computer, and the final project was a working version of Asteroids.
• Low cost of entry: most of the course I enrolled in were free, with an optional fee for certifications. This really gives people the freedom to explore learning. It's almost like a Public Library of Learning.
• Coursera forces a weekly discipline on the user with lectures and assignments and this really motivates one to put in the effort.

Incentivized

• The platform was simple
• It did what it needed to do

Incentivized

• Some of the courses (very few) have some old information (more than 2 years), and in some areas like technology the information has to be very new and updated.
• Some professors or people doing videos are not good in front of the camera, they should train their people a little bit more for those things.

Incentivized

• Copying and pasting can be clunky
• Sometimes the instructions are not accurate
• For some Microsoft tools, it requires you to create a temporary account, which takes some time and is time-consuming
• Have to remember to save or you will lose your environment
• May not be the most user-friendly to initially start

Incentivized

Constantly renewing already. One of my favourite MOOC platforms.

Incentivized

User-friendly and developer-friendly Web UI.

Incentivized

I’ve used it a couple of times and... that did great. They take their time, but in the end they solve your issues.

Incentivized

Coursera is familiar, intuitive, compatible and easy to use and implement.

Incentivized

I think Coursera has the best overall interface. I think you will find that different platforms go in different directions, and have different specialities. For the most part the differences are more in the types of courses they offer than one being particularly better than the other, so it comes down to content for me.

Incentivized

I think Udemy is really superior as a platform, people create super high quality courses that get employees up to speed in days. The platform has a web and mobile app and has taking notes functionality that can be exported

Incentivized

• The greatest benefit of Coursera is access to quality courses on various subjects that you can either browse or dive in deeply. Customizable, flexible and accessible.
• Helps our department to recommend trainees courses on this website and gain important knowledge. Also, the courses are provided by big-name universities which helps students in their careers
• Developing and exploring professional skills.

Incentivized

• I think it has a positive impact in having a platform to train employees
• I don't think the cost might be worth it given that the content is super dry

Incentivized