New courses added to Coursera (Humanities, Medicine, ...) | Hacker News Reader

New courses added to Coursera (Humanities, Medicine, ...)

coursera.org

125 pointsskb_31 comments

Is nice to see courses overlap, like 2 classes of Algorithms. It'll make better courses.

And I have to tell you, guys, how much a thrill I feel with these online courses. As a comp. eng. student in brazil, being able to watch classes from stanford and berkely, but not only this, being able to attend classes given by the guys who wrote the books I study with ( Sedgewick and Ullman, for example) makes me very excited and happy. I love living in the 2000!

I took Sedgewick's class in Princeton :) Fantastic class - one of my favorites.

I'm pretty happy with the Crypto class Coursera is running right now. The lectures are pretty info-dense and the homework promotes at least some thinking.

I think it's better than the AI class I did the first go around.

The best of these classes for me so far, though, is the MITx class on circuits and electronics. The professor is fantastic- great at explaining things and obviously having fun teaching the class. The homework is challenging, at least for me, and I feel like I'm learning a huge amount. Very very pleased with that one.

The crypto course is fantastic =)

My only complaint about MITx is that the audio is occasionally quite poor and not simply due to the compression. A microphone switch could go a long way for clearer voices (esp. helpful for the faster playback, but also for regular devices at regular speed).

Wow! This is great news. I have finished 2 Coursera courses already and currently enrolled in 2. These classes have been the best education I have received till date. I will vouch for them any day.

All courses on a single page: https://www.coursera.org/courses

I see some overlap among the Algorithms classes: Algorithms I,II from Princeton and Design and Analysis of Algorthms I(there will be II?) from Stanford. I don't think that's a good thing... what's the point?

Competition?

Variety and style are both benefits. Besides, we don't all learn the same way. Multiple teaching approaches to the same subject can increase the cohesiveness of learning.

No way! It's a fantastic thing! There is no one best way to teach any subject, and even if there were, who is to say that Coursera is well-positioned to decide what that best way is? Diversity in courses covering the same material in conjunction with good tools to aid in the decision-making process for the student will lead to the best outcomes. It's same reason we have so many different universities - it isn't just because of meatspace scaling limitations.

Cool! Didn't know this page existed. I maintain a similar list of courses over at Class Central - http://www.class-central.com . In addition to Coursera's courses the list also includes courses from Udacity and MITx for easy comparison.

Your page has been my main destination to see which classes are available. Thanks.

Variety of teaching style or approach to the problem (e.g. theory vs. practice) is a good reason for multiple courses in the same subject to be offered. Even if the approach is broadly the same, some students will just prefer one teacher.

What's the status of HCI class ? I was so much waiting for it, and now https://www.coursera.org/course/hci just gives 404

http://www.hci-class.org/ is still up but doesn't seem to have been updated in a while.

There was an email sent on Jan 29 announcing a delay, but I haven't seen anything else since then.

The anatomy class is also gone.

What the hell happened here? Just yesterday there were maybe ten courses, with ten waiting to start... now it's starting to read like a curriculum!

Exactly. There's a TON of courses, now! Impressive.

I've tried doing Algorithms I (Stanford) and I just couldn't keep up - I currently work around 9-11 hours a day programming and handling data (PhD-student) and in the night and on the weekends I just couldn't handle even more programming, which made me feel like quite the loser (the final exam was recently I think).

Anyone else already a drop-out? Feels bad, man.

I signed up for the Calculus one. Its an area which I learned by rote in secondary school, and found that when I came to use some of this stuff in college I was lacking. Hopefully when I am doing it because I want to I can further my knowledge in the area.

The statistics one also looks very good.

Factual error in the article

>The scientists, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, taught free Web-based courses through Stanford last year that reached more than 100,000 students.

ONLY Andrew Ng taught a free online Machine Learning course last year.

The new courses look great, but what's the point of offering even more courses when they can't even start the announced ones (i.e. Anatomy)?

It seems kind of like they bit off more than they could chew. Even the courses that are now running were delayed 2-3 months. But that's natural for any new venture. I think with more iterations, they'll get better at it.

My guess is that the biggest hurdle isn't the technical challenge but professor retention. I would imagine that some professors sign up but then a big grant or other obligation comes up and they just no longer have the time.

Does anyone know for sure?

Some of the announced course are due to start as late as February 2013. Since the academic calenders in most universities are prepared well in advance, they need to sign up the profs much before the actual course date. Announcing the courses early will help them gauge the level of interest. This will help in deciding which courses they can offer after these ones.

They depends a lot in the university and the teacher. The bigger part of the delays were caused because of these.

Does anyone know what TBA means?

https://www.coursera.org/courses

To be announced.

This is a good future resource: http://www.acronymfinder.com/

Anyone know why some of the courses offered by the likes of Standford that are available as open (free courses) on iTunesU and across the web aren't available on Coursera? One thing I dislike about the courses on iTunesU is the lack of being able to connect with others who are also studying along with you. There's no community per se

Because the Coursera courses are made to be online, not only classes that were put online.

The difference between Courser, Udacity and MITx, from iTunesU , earth academic and the others is that they prime for being a 'real' class. You have deadlines, exercises, projects and so on. And you can interact with your peers.

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