Discussion MOOC Certificates & Credentials

Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
According to Wikipedia MOOC means massive open online course. . . . The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier.

Neither Edx nor Coursera is Open in the sense Dave Cormier meant it (open is "knowledge" constructed in open and free discussion between equal participants -see Habermas: Hershaftfreie Dialog - ), so when you want to get fussy about what Open really means, the correct answer is that neither Edx or Coursera did implement Cormiers idea of what a mOoc should be. Both got the concept completely wrong, they turned the concept on its head. Coursera and Edx are not implementing MOOCs, they are implementing anti-MOOCs (for more see my: what is an anti-MOOC)
Nice point :) But let's be real. Today business it's all about the money. So every MOOC platform needs money, they're selling knowledge. Open2Study is great by that mean, it's MOOC in real sense. They're providing you with free coursers (limited knowledge) but if you want to expand it you must consider their college program. As I said earlier, term MOOC is great, but everyone is depended on money.
 

wilko dijkhuis

Active Member
Qua technical PLATFORM Coursera and Edx are mostly equivalent (Edx is open in the sense that everybody may use the platform: Standford online and FUN actually use the Edx platform; the Coursera platform is proprietary) . The only real difference I'm aware of is that the Coursera discussion forum is more open than Edx's.

Qua FINANCING both are different, Coursera (like Udacity) is a venture capital financed technology start-up - typical silicon valley - . Edx is financed out of Harvards and MIT's legacy capital. Consequently Edx is qua CONTENT AND PRESENTATION solidly academic (boring?). Coursera is much more adventurous - sometimes really strange things happen, sometimes delightful new learning concepts are introduced -. The future of Edx is fairly predictable - mainly working within academia and within the OER tradition -. Coursera is a start-up searching for new educational "markets" that is prone to "pivot" (Udacity already did so) . My guess is Coursera will find its markets outside traditional academia. (For more see my: Conclusions after 3 years of MOOCing.)
 

Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
Oh granted: but Coursera is more locked, hence more anti-MOOC than EdX. :D
And also their totally static implementation of self-paced courses, which saves them money because they don't have to re-caption the videos, is not only anti-MOOC, it's anti-learning.

Everyon is doing the same, if now now, will do it in the future! Why, because it's saves money, and more important it attracts new customers to platform. You can get verified certificate on self- paced. Who wouldn't buy verified certificate.
 

Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
Oh granted: but Coursera is more locked, hence more anti-MOOC than EdX. :D
And also their totally static implementation of self-paced courses, which saves them money because they don't have to re-caption the videos, is not only anti-MOOC, it's anti-learning.

Everyon is doing the same, if now now, will do it in the future! Why, because it's saves money, and more important it attracts new customers to platform. You can get verified certificate on self- paced. Who wouldn't buy verified ce
Qua technical PLATFORM Coursera and Edx are mostly equivalent (Edx is open in the sense that everybody may use the platform: Standford online and FUN actually use the Edx platform; the Coursera platform is proprietary) . The only real difference I'm aware of is that the Coursera discussion forum is more open than Edx's.

Qua FINANCING both are different, Coursera (like Udacity) is a venture capital financed technology start-up - typical silicon valley - . Edx is financed out of Harvards and MIT's legacy capital. Consequently Edx is qua CONTENT AND PRESENTATION solidly academic (boring?). Coursera is much more adventurous - sometimes really strange things happen, sometimes delightful new learning concepts are introduced -. The future of Edx is fairly predictable - mainly working within academia and within the OER tradition -. Coursera is a start-up searching for new educational "markets" that is prone to "pivot" (Udacity already did so) . My guess is Coursera will find its markets outside traditional academia. (For more see my: Conclusions after 3 years of MOOCing.)
MOOC is a synonym from college program, distance learning. MOOC aren't here to replace University, they can't. They can provide additional knowledge to the students, and the open masses. For edX they can be promotional tool for MIT. As we agree Coursera and others are financial oriented they must develop to sustain their business model. For now I thing that they are going in wrong way, :)
 

wilko dijkhuis

Active Member
Nice point :) But let's be real. Today business it's all about the money. So every MOOC platform needs money, they're selling knowledge.

Edx get its money from the legacy capital of MIT and Harvard (i.e. is not really market driven - it is not all a capitalist conspiracy - ).

Open2Study is great by that mean said:
Open2Study does not provide complete Courses, what O2S gives you is an infomercial (they present a free introduction to their payed for courses in the most dumbed down version they think they can get away with - the UK OU did pioneer this type of courses ten years ago-.
 

Claude Almansi

Active Member
(...)
It [Alison]'s just waste of time :D

I disagree with you, now that I've signed up for an OpenLearn course on Alison. Which one did you try?

Well, I continue to dislike Alison's look and feel, probably due to the fact that it was designed in 2007 (five years before Coursera btw). There are accessibility issues for blind people. The slides should be downloadable as textual files - ODP, PPT, and/or PDF - instead of being only shown in a flash player. And they should soft-pedal a bit on the number and size of Google ads: as you only get revenue when someone clicks on a Google ad in a page, there is no point in peeving off users by multiplying them.

However, the content for that course is great, and there is a complete plain text transcript of all the slides for each module (unfortunately, difficult or perhaps impossible to activate via a screenreader). This transcript is a bit monolithic, but then, reformatting it by adding headers and other paragraphs is a good way of learning.

And I like their choice not to pander to the video for video's sake fashion, which so often creates problems on other platforms for people with slow connections. Finally, being Ireland-based, they don't have to worry about US trade sanctions.

So because of Alison's accessibility issues for blind people, UNESCO and the World Innovation Summit for Education were wrong to endorse it as it is (see Sean Coughlan's View to a skill: The next big education player?, BBC, Oct. 30, 2013). They should have requested that these issues be fixed. Otherwise, Alison is a very good initiative.
 

wilko dijkhuis

Active Member
. . . their totally static implementation of self-paced courses, . . ..

Can you give an example of this? (as far as I know we can do only a very few Coursera courses in a self paced way - e.g. you can watch the vids + do the computer corrected exercises, there is no peer assessment or discussion forum activity-)
 

Claude Almansi

Active Member
Can you give an example of this? (as far as I know we can do only a very few Coursera courses in a self paced way - e.g. you can watch the vids + do the computer corrected exercises, there is no peer assessment or discussion forum activity-)

Learning How to Learn has peer assessments and discussion forum activity. See https://www.coursera.org/learn/lear...e-essay-about-a-learning-challenge/assignment and the discussions under each video.

Presently there are 74 on demand / self-paced courses, all with discussion forums. Of these, the 44 with Verified Certificates have peer assessments. And these numbers will soon grow, as Coursera is putting pressure on instructors to move to the on demand / self-paced solution.
 

Carolyn

Founder at MoocLab
Staff member
Group Manager
EdX has partnered with Arizona State University to create the Global Freshman Academy, a first-of-its-kind online learning program that allows you to start your undergraduate education online.

The Global Freshman Academy will give learners anywhere in the world the opportunity to earn freshman-level university credit by completing online courses from ASU on edX.org. This new program is open to anyone and students only pay once they have passed a course.

Freshman year credit earned through the Global Freshman Academy is a fraction of the cost of traditional on campus freshman year courses, and has no barriers to entry, such as standardized tests and transcripts.

The general studies focus areas will include mathematical studies, humanities, arts and design, social-behavioral sciences and natural sciences. The first course, Introduction to Solar Systems Astronomy, is now open for enrollment, and starts in August 2015. Two additional courses will be offered starting fall 2015, with the remaining courses scheduled to be released within the next 24 months.

Read on for more information.
 

Susan

Active Member
Just read an article on MoocLab's Mooc Scoop: Free MOOCs? Forget about it.

It suggests that Coursera is slowly getting rid of free statements of accomplishment. Does anyone know anything more about this?
I think we should still have the option to gain a free document even if it isn't verified. Will they soon start charging to access the content, too?
It's very worrying :(
 

Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
Hi Susan.

There are still free statements of accomplishment on Coursera. But you're right, coursers that provide free statements are getting smaller and smaller in number. Coursera is based on profit model. So they're pushing paid statements, maybe it's decision with partnered universities also.
I think that they will not charge access to content, it would bounce back to them like a boomerang.
Try open2study :), they're providing with free certificates and you have about 50 courses online.
 
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Paul Morris

Active Member
Coursera continues to refine its self-paced courses ('on-demand' in their terminology) but my experience to date is that they are generally, at best, pared down versions of the original ('session-based') courses. Some courses are stripped back to just the video lectures and quizzes--the shortcomings are highlighted when the lectures refer to documents and exercises which are no longer available or exhort student to discuss matters on the forums (which in some cases are not offered--and in all cases are less coherent).

While admitting the limitations, it is understandable why Coursera (and other platforms) should take this route. It makes available already prepared material outside of the periods when instructors and teaching assistants are able to give direct support. This gives a wider catalogue for users at little cost to the platform operator or course providers. At it most basic it can be seen as a more packaged solution for archived courses and is surely preferable to the courses being entirely unavailable between presentations.

Some courses seem to live in a hybrid state, existing as on-demand between sessions then reverting to session-based courses around the presentation period. The Learning How to Learn course mentioned in an earlier post seems to be an example, listed among the on-demand courses but currently available only as a session-based (or synchronous) course starting shortly. The Week 1 materials remain available on preview but the balance of the course is locked until the session opens.

Making verified certificates available for self-paced courses, while denying any opportunity to earn a (free) Statement of Accomplishment, is another rather crude step towards Coursera's monetisation. What legitimate grounds can possibly be put forward for issuing a 'verified certificate' (at a cost of $35) for a course like Finance for Non-Financial Professionals which can be completed with little effort, and minimal assessment, in an afternoon?

From discussions with various course staff and observations of trends on the platform, it is clear that free certificates have a limited future on Coursera (some instructors have even been told--inaccurately--that free certificates may no longer be issued) and I suspect that targeting self-paced courses was seen as an easy option.

Going back, briefly, to the earlier discussions; Coursera is not a MOOC in the sense originally intended, but nor are other operators. Nevertheless, MOOC has now taken a different meaning and in that sense Coursera meets the definition as well as any. 'Open' is now used in the sense that the Open University in the UK has used since its foundation over 40 years ago: open to all without academic prerequisites.

Purists might choose to distinguish between cMOOCs and xMOOCs but for most users Coursera, edX et al define what a MOOC is. cMOOCs are, of course, based on the original connectivist models of cooperative learning (as represented by the ideas of Stephen Downes among others) while xMOOCs are those we now know (and love?) modelled on traditional teacher-lead university courses.
 
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Carolyn

Founder at MoocLab
Staff member
Group Manager
Given that MOOCs are often not recognised by employers as a true credential, do you have any tips on how to convince a potential employer of their value?
 

Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
You can talk about experience from MOOC, and on example show how your knowledge from MOOC helped you to solve some problem on job/life. Employers loves to hear examples from life, or work.

Say that you were in top 1% of course, if you have level of completion 95-100% you are!

From my experiences, employers were afraid of my knowledge, but that is only my experiences. I'm living in a f*** up country :)
 

Carolyn

Founder at MoocLab
Staff member
Group Manager
Verified Certificates will now be known as “Course Certificates” . Coursera believe this term is clearer to learners, and to everyone learners might want to share their Coursera certificates with, such as employers, colleagues, and friends. In addition, the MOOC platform has started to offer identity verification in many courses for free.

Things to know about the new "Course Certificates"
  • The design is exactly the same as the old Verified Certificates, except for the change in wording.
  • If you’ve already earned a Verified Certificate, it will not change. It will still be called a Verified Certificate. It will count toward Specialization progress, and remain shareable.
  • You’ll be able to share Course Certificates on LinkedIn, and continue sharing any previously earned Verified Certificates.
  • If your course start date was before August 3, 2015, you’ll earn a Verified Certificate. If your course begins after August 3, you’ll earn a Course Certificate. If you started a course on demand (i.e. no start or end date) and finish before August 3, you’ll earn a Verified Certificate; after August 3rd, you’ll earn a Course Certificate.
To find out more, visit Coursera's Blog Page

To find out more about MOOC Certificates, visit MoocLab's Certificates Resource Page

To read MoocLab's review and rating of Coursera, click here.
 
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Nedzad

Active Member
Study Buddy
Original link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tips-writing-cv-nedzad-neziri?trk=prof-post

Today is one year anniversary from my college graduation. Coincidence or not, but on this day I’ll share some tips how to write CV, and how to land job interviews.

Well, I’m living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Country that is on the last place in Europe by quality of life, and unemployment rate is huge 43,6%. I’m writing this because, no matter if you have brilliant CV, you’ll still struggle to get job. I’ll share some pro tips, and real life time tips about writing CV, but I can’t guarantee you a job.

When I graduated from college, I have focused lot attention on writing my CV, I even attended workshop for writing CV. After workshop, and after reading lots of articles from the internet, I have written my first CV. From this time perspective it was rubbish, because I figured out that you must really work on your CV and, you must create unique CV which will stand out of the mass. Tips that I’ve read on the internet couldn’t help me at all, because I’m living on Balkans, and corporate culture here is so low, (from 100 send application, only 30% will respond you back), so if you’re living in a similar countries brace yourself for CV tips.

General tips for writing CV
  1. Stand out of the mass
Company recruiters don’t have time to read every CV they receive. It’s impossible, so they’re mainly looking at the form of the CV.

So you can go with,

You can write your CV in European form using Europasshttps://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/hr/documents/curriculum-vitae .

Or,

If you want to stand out you should be more creative. Write your own form, but be careful, formatting your CV is important thing, don’t go full artistic on it.
  1. Form of your CV
You should write your basic contact information, and you should add yourLinkedIn profile. Picture is a must have today! You already have million pictures on your Facebook, Instagram (#selfie). So if you’re potential employer screens your name via Google, is there any picture that could compromise you?

So, on your CV please attach professional portrait photography.

  • Add Carrere objectives
It might seem redundant, but write this down. It shows that you have ambition, and you have a professional goal.

  • Add formal, informal education.
Formal education covers your professional education. Informal education covers your courses, certificates, informal way of learning.

  • Work experiences
Write every work experience that you think, would be relative to your potential job. Add your volunteer jobs, freelance jobs.

Don’t write too much, CV is only invitation to the job interview. You must stay a little bit mystique; you should impress them on the Interview. We will write about this in next article.

  • Personal skills
Here you should write about languages that you speak, computer skills, also driving licenses is important thing in my country. You can customize this, by your own intuition.

  • Personal characteristics
Write your characteristics; show that you are a team player, a quick learner, which can quick adapt to existing structure and etc.


  1. Tips from my experience
Your CV should look formatted, clear and unique so you need to follow some basic rules;

  • There is a general rule, that for every 10 year of your professional experience you should write one CV page. So if you are young professional or graduate you should keep your CV under 2 pages, 2 pages maximum.
  • You should customize your CV, you can send same version of CV for every job application, but better chances you have if you customize your CV in order with job application.
  • Stand out from the mass, I’m using QR code. It’s nice add-on, and QR coderepresents my personal website, or online portfolio.
  • Write your email and contact phone on every page of your CV in small print, again this should improve your chances to stand out.
  • Use metrics in your CV, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=metrics+in+CV .
End note,

Be mysterious; don’t write all in your CV, as I mentioned CV is only entree to the Interview, save something that could make you stand out.

My CV was praised by many professionals, so I’m writing these tips to help you land your dream job. Tips presented in this article are just one example of how you could arrange yours, it’s up to you! Let Google be your friend.

I’ll end this article with my motto,

“Continuously working on improving and enhancing our knowledge, because we worth as much as we invest in ourselves.”

Till the next time, may the force of knowledge be with you!
 
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