A course in mediocrity ... while I appreciate that the course is just an introductory course, there is a lot of material that is presented in a subjective imprecise manner with little or no references to Jeff Jonas' work in Big Data Analytics or the academic work that should be presented here as a stepping stone that leads up to the Big-Data Analytics that it should serve well. It appears that nobody has performed a technical editorial review of the transcripts for each video; there are far too many errors in the text and punctuation meaning that it actually does a poor or degrading service to students that do not speak English as their native language (they are seeing and learning errors that should be edited out). As for the Coursera methodology ... one should not expect much from this course ... . For example, multiple choice quiz/exam questions might be easy for lazy instructors and computer-bots to grade, but they are woefully inadequate to actually teach and confirm a student's aptitude and inherent understanding of any subject. While I will admit that the quiz questions are mostly simple or direct quotes from the material presented, it does little to confirm a student's in-depth knowledge or understanding. The concept of having assignments is fine but casting all care and assessment of a student's performance on these submissions to other students' peer reviews as the only means of grading and scoring student's work is a dereliction of duty and responsibility on the part of the instructors (who appear to be absent and uncaring). I equate taking this type of Coursera course to be like learning solely from the random members of the public ... one can only expect to achieve the level of proficiency that is already achieved by the members of the general public who are willing to take a course like this and that is fraught with all of their errors, opinions, and misunderstandings or limited abilities to understand the language or writing style of the student whose work they are reviewing. When encountering a mediocre reviewer that is full of the overly applied optimism and positivism, the reviewer becomes irrationally harsh in their review or irrationally generous ... the rubric from which they are supposed to be applying their peer review is far too random and far too unfair.
In academic studies, the neophyte deserves to be taught by the master. It is clear that this material has not been scrutinized, the Coursera methodology far too inadequate, and the material either not or poorly edited by a lay-person who is merely familiar with Data Analytics to the level of qualification of a novice. I am completely underwhelmed by this as an introductory course on Data Analytics. I'm very suspect and doubtful that this will suffice for training of members of my organization.
A word to the wise is sufficient; Coursera, you need to step up your game and teach to achieve academic standards that can achieve accreditation. Otherwise, back off and share good information in the concept of training; stop attempting to masquerade as education.
