There were many things that could be done in a much better way:
- The quizzes contain way too less questions. There should be at least 15 to 20 of them to be done in the respect of proving someone's capabilities. These should be drawn by chance out of a much bigger pool - at least three times more than displayed in one quiz. After each trial should be a break of at least one hour to force the student to read and learn about the subject. Now it's enough to memorize the wrong answers and don't mark them again when doing the next trial one minute later. Its way too easy to get a good percentage even if you know pretty nothing.
- There are two or sometimes three modules in one week. This is too much. One module - one week. I think the courses should last at least six ( better 8) weeks to assure the topics covered were well understood.
- The videos are made in a bad quality - sometimes it sounds as they were recorded by an Edison's phonograph.
- The peer-to-peer assignments should need at least 5 reviews to get an average which is not influenced by a student who has no idea about the topics and is marking correct sentences as wrong ones.
- The 'pointage' in the reviews done by peers should offer a wider possibility of differenciation in rating.
- The performance of the orthography should be rated in every review. Nearly a third of the submissions I read were done in a grousy manner.
- The courses 2 and 3 shouldn't run the same course-weeks at the same time. Some students try to save some money and rush through both courses at the same time to get the certificate in less than four weeks. Doing this way, the efficiency decrases. As I already mentioned before, the amount is too much in one week in one course. Redoubling the workload will exacerbate the situation.
- The certificates should show the percentage the student earned. It is not very difficult to get a certificate in any of your courses no matter which subject and student's rare knowledge. I earned 100% and get the same certificate as another one who hardly passed. Even there is no credit related to any academical carreer, I'd prefer to impress somebody with a result of A++ written on the certificate.
Sincerely, Thomas Zimmermann