My Online Course Experience on edX

Recently I have enrolled an online training on EdX.com and completed all the lessons under “Understanding User Needs” course which is prepared by Michigan University. Earlier I have taken online courses from coursera, which is another popular platform which provides online courses from the world’s best universities. Now let me share my experience on edX shortly:

Online, access from where you are - It is online so you can access whenever and wherever you are. In the weekend, I took courses when I was in summer house where we do not have wi-fi but I can reach the course content by sharing internet of my mobile phone. The internet quota used is reasonable so it is really no problem. Apart from this, everyday I go to work by bus, and it takes my more than 2 hours in total. The bus has wi-fi and I can easily resume the lessons while traveling. It has mobile applications as well but I do prefer to attend trainings from my laptop which has bigger screen so I can concentrate on the videos and presentations better.

You Need to Document That You've

Done Your Homework

Back to Homeworks – After completing each lesson, you are given an assignment. In other words, in order to complete each lesson, you need to your homework. The homeworks in the training I completed can take up to 8 hours. You need to provide the homework in the format which is described and then you submit it. Do not think about not doing your homework or submitting unsatisfactory works because they are all assessed by your peers who are also resuming this course and low quality on these assignments will bring low notes and then you may not pass the course.
One of the assessments was about writing a report on the main take-aways of interviews. Here you can find my report: 
http://volkanyorulmaz.blogspot.com/2018/07/e-book-experience-for-google-play-books.html

Peer Reviews May Suck - For me, the biggest disadvantage of taking an online course from EdX is receiving really slow peer reviews to my assignments. An assignment is reviewed by two peers and then you receive your grade for your “homework”. In my case, within one week, I have only received 2 finalized peer reviews. What was more annoying was in one lesson, a peer evaluated my assignment in a subjective way and he/she graded many of my inputs as “poor” whereas the other peer graded as “very good”. I believe some users of EdX generally do this because I have seen similar comments in the discussion box. Related with this issue, I have sent a notification to EdX team about the user’s possible fake and subjective evaluations and grading but as of the date of this content, I could not receive a reply.

Good Content by Good Lecturer – I have not been to Michigan University before but of course I have heard about its reputation.  While attending the lessons, I clearly understand the quality of the content and its smooth presentation by the lecturer. The platform enables us to download materials as well which we can refer while preparing for the assessments or later on for any need of re-invent the concepts we have covered.

In conclusion, my advice for all potential edX learners or any other popular platform which provides online courses is that if it crosses your interest or mind that taking a course is worth doing, then go for it and enrol the course.  Don’t let your hesitations get in the way of bettering yourself because you deserve to grow both personally and professionally.

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