Coursera is a learning management platform from the company of the same name in Mountain View, California.
$49
per month
Schoox
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Schoox provides employee talent development, from new hire training to manager development programs, deliver the right content and courses to every employee in a social platform that keeps them engaged.
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.
We have special locations that work differently and I have recommended this to them. Even for locations set up differently, it still applies. Because everything can be personalized to fit the need of the user. These locations have become so adept at it that they have become admins themselves so they can implement their ideas immediately. I have yet to come across a scenario where this is not appropriate
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.
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.
User accounts: HotSchedules Train has each user in the system by first and last name which is a great tool but this becomes a problem when you have more than one person in your company with the same first and last name. Maybe they should identify by email instead of name so accounts of users with the same name do not merge together.
Copying Course or Test: Throughout the system you see the option to copy a course or a test but then the only place you can "paste" is within that same course or test. If I am creating two different courses or test that are similar it would be easy to use this function if it were designed a little better. Instead to "copy" a quiz you need to add all questions to a pool. In order to "copy" a course you would need to just create a new one from scratch.
The training necessary for the managers and trainers is minimal. The system is very intuitive and HotSchedules customer support is the best support team I have ever dealt with. They are quick to respond and keep you informed through the whole process. As for new hires, you just put them in front of a tablet or computer and they just go. Our trainees have better retention and they much prefer to go through the training on-line then having to read pages of documents.
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.
We did not use Wisetail, but we went through several weeks of training calls when we were deciding between that LMS and Schoox. We selected Schoox because of the integration with HotSchedules, something we already used, and the ongoing ease it would provide in shifting job codes and new roles within the organization
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
