1. Asking people to tweet what are basically endorsements of the course and its creators may do wonders for Randy et al.'s social capital, but it does nothing for the students unless they are their first tweets in life.
2. Slides with spelling and grammar errors should be unacceptable in an academic setting. They are, at least to me, but apparently not to Northwestern and its Ph.D. instructors.
3. I have submitted 3 peer reviews and was given electronic feedback that they were accepted. However, the website keeps insisting I have submitted none. Two attempts to resolve this question has resulted in crickets as a response. I have paid for this Coursera course, and I am now resenting having made this a paid course.
4. There is some mildly interesting content. Still, it is delivered with no passion in a way that breaks a ton of rules about communicating virtually - which is strange considering the topic.
5, I was delighted to be turned on by Randy to ClueTrain, but I think that Randy would do well to take a few of its lessons about the need for the authenticity of communication to heart.
6. You have students in discussion boards begging for peer feedback and getting none, and you have other students bargaining, "I will give you full grades if you give full marks back to me". I see no evidence that this is remotely problematic to the university's standards, as long as people declare they are doing their own work.
6. Randy is asking students to identify where the obsolete material that they have discovered is listed. I would have thought, Randy, that doing the work of knowing what you have said, where you have said it, and why would be your responsibility to track down and renovate rather than crowdsourcing that responsibility to your beginner level students. Hey, maybe that's just me,
7. Sorry to be so critical here. This is a course that is in serious need of refreshing, and if I were the academic authority of Northwestern, I would require a sea change of practice, content, and standards. Northwestern has a stellar reputation as a communications powerhouse. This course, in no way, reflects that reputation.
8. Having said that this reflects poorly on Northwestern leaves unsaid the other obvious part, this also reflects poorly on the reputation of Coursera for reviewing, assessing, and eventually deploying only exceptionally high-quality educational experiences. I realize MOOCs are an evolving medium, but we know enough to know that what would be bad practice in an in-class environment is likely to continue to be a bad practice in a virtual environment.