I audited this course for Professional Development from February 1st, 2019 through February 7th, 2019. For reference, I have a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Communication Studies where I completed some research (though unpublished) in virtual reality. Overall, this course took me about three hours per completion week outside of some of the larger readings which took longer. I completed all activities available via audit (even if I couldn't submit them) and read all readings except for a few journal articles that seemed to repeat themselves.

I'll complete a week by week breakdown and then provide my thoughts about the course overall.

For week one, I thought it was a nice introduction to various head-mounted displays on the consumer market. Additionally, there was a nice overview of the history of virtual reality which included some research devices I had not seen previously. Fun fact, this is the only week you will see Dr. Gillies in this course.

For week two, there is a breakdown of all the different ways virtual reality is helping in contemporary society today (from sports to science to medical improvements). The final reading in this week is a great piece by Mel Slater describing everything from the first two weeks and most content from the third week. While certainly not a ten minute read as described, I would recommend this week for this reading along.

For week three, it is easily the most material of the entire course. Mel Slater comes as a guest professor to describe presence, immersion, embodiment, place illusion, and plausibility illusion. Dr. Slater seemed like a great fit, and the only complaint about this week was the fact that readings were academic research papers that had seemingly already been described (such as the one from week two). Additionally, these readings were described as ten minute assignments which was not the case.

Lastly, for week four, there is a shift to the development side of virtual reality. There is a large focus on graphic development and issues one may face while programming for virtual reality today.

Looking over the course as a whole, here are the positives:

I found I had learned more than I knew coming into the course.

This course specifically can be completed by those interested in social science as well as those interested in development as there is a larger focus on Psychology and theories in the field of virtual reality.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from Dr. Slater and his thoughts on the psychology of virtual reality as well as the illusions he showed.

Dr. Sylvia Pan had good content and was involved in almost every video.

Here are the negatives:

There were times I could see a large emphasis on CAVEs over other types of virtual reality, though I believe this to be due to the creator's own expertise.

Marco Gillies seemed to be very little involved with this particular course.

There were some grammatical errors in questions provided during lecture videos, and the answers are not examined by instructors. It is an auto-generated response so that it feels as those you are not receiving actual feedback.

Questions during lecture videos often pop up immediately after that information is covered, leading to parroting the answer back when asked about it.

Readings are all described as ten minutes, but some take hours while others take three minutes or thirty seconds. It is very inconsistent.

It appears most individuals audit this course, so those who are paying fill the discussion forums begging those who pay to review their work for the certificate completion before being charged again.

Some videos focus on the specialization and do not describe the course as an individual unit making the content confusing.

Overall, I would recommend this course. For those brand new to the subject, be aware there is peer-reviewed academic reading for this course. For some people, that alone can be a turn-off. For those fine with that content, I would spend about an hour a day on the content and you could have it completed within a few weeks time.

I was interested on the topic VIRTUAL REALITY ,it's application and hardware ,the topics that I wanted to know about VR is briefly explain in this course and I also received the certificate in VR

Excelent content, there are so many interesting subjects about VR that I have not thought yet. Every lesson makes me fall even more in love to VR and its possibiilties to change our world for good.

This is best VR introduction course. I learned a lot of about VR apps, hardware, VR illusions and many more. Teachers are great in explanation of the content.

Being a non-techie, I find this course quite easy to understand. The required readings are academic papers and I took some time to understand them but it is good quality readings.

5 stars for a very thorough introductory course with great examples, references and visuals! Great, well-organized videos that break mid-video to ask you a question (helped me pay attention).

3 stars for the sometimes frustrating quizzes: some information tested is not needed as practical knowledge for working in the VR industry. Why do we need to memorize what year something was invented? Sometimes the answer would be 3 answers instead of 1, but the phrasing is unclear, so it was difficult to choose.

0 stars for the graded peer assignment. I worked hard on my assignment, but all 3 peers I graded gave one-word answers or no answers to their assignment. This is very discouraging. Coursera, please have a minimum word count for people to submit their assignments, and match the people who submitted thorough answers with others who submitted thorough answers!

Very good overview of theory of VR and a great start to deepen the knowledge. The course encourages you to seek out additional information and prompts you to think of applications of the technology.

This is surely a wonderful course. I had a great time learning from this course. This course gave me detailed information regarding VR and it was really interesting for a first timer like me.

The course is well structured, although a bit heavy on the video-side in my opinion. It covers a good range of the fundamentals so someone completely new to VR is probably going to benefit the most. As a "power user" myself, but not at all a developer, I also learned enough to consider it valuable.

One problem is that the instructors don't tell from when a particular piece of text was written, which is very important in a field like VR which is rapidly and constantly evolving. They provide a blog on medium to provide some of the content up to date.

Then there's the usual problems with MOOCs: not being able to get in contact with the instructors, having a lot and lot of the participating peers being ignorant and not taking it seriously at all. One sometimes wonder why they bother?

This introductory course on VR is awesome both for people without any previous knowledge of VR as well as for VR developers or content creators. The course introduces the very basics concepts of VR, ranging from its definition, going through its history, current VR hardware and software, the psychology behind VR and some of the challenges that the technology introduces. The lecturers Sylvia and Marco are great at teaching, making the lectures quite engaging and enjoyable overall. In addition, there are a few guests lecturers that makes the content to shine even more. That's the case of Anthony Steed, which gives a great thoroughly description of the history of VR from the analog era to the current status, and in particular, all the lectures on the psychology of VR taught by Mel Slater. Really interesting information there, including concepts and some mind-blowing researches that Mel has done. So regardless your actual experience with VR, there is something new to learn in this course for sure. Good luck!

I loved this course. I have a lot of background in film, VFX, game development and I still gained a massive amount from it. I am trying to further my ability from 360 Video and this has definitely been a step in the right direction.

The course brings aspects of VR that I had not initially considered from a development standpoint and a marketing standpoint. The psychology behind why certain choices are better than others, when it is better to use different technologies and even delving into the history of the technology and how it has grown into the beast it is today!

It is really a good basic knowledge of VR technology . Actually i am a research scholar who want to explore more about this VR technology . This course really helps me to find a good basic understanding of this technology . I want to learn more deep about this subject to insure my skills to next level .. so that i can utilize in my research.

The course is highly recommended by me. Learned so many things at once. All the lecturers are too good in illustrating a complex issues and now my basic ideas about virtual reality is clear and wider.

A very comprehensive introduction to the types of VR solutions.

The material provided is interesting and fundamental for VR. From presence to types of devices, it's a good base level. But if you've already developed for VR in some way you'll find yourself speeding through.

However the course is SEVERELY dated. Of course, this is inevitable by how fast VR moves, but it is a shame to see that little has been done to keep the course up to date. Even some of the supplimentary materials have been depreciated!

While it was a lot to digest, I found the information fascinating and relatively understandable. I am sure as I continue this specialization, I will better understand the details of the field. I am super excited about this journey!

Very good course, only it is outdated course, about 4 years old. The platform does not allow you to obtain the certificate until 3 or 4 people who take the course evaluate your submissions.

good introduction to VR in terms of theory, need update in terms of technical aspects (some device examples are now (2024) outdated.

Material is painfully outdated, has some good concepts but really needs an update, for instance they recommend mobile VR which is now officially dead as gear vr is discontinued. The course was somewhat short as well. The main women giving the lectures did so in a professional somewhat stoic manner but VR should be fun and enjoyable she was very serious and sterile and showed a lack of passion or excitement. Honestly the only lectures that were fun was when I guest lecturer showed some interesting visual and mental tricks. I really didn't invest to much in the reading as they are several years old and little out of date.

This course probably works better as a part of the whole program certificate which I haven't finished yet but as an independent course I think it was just ok.

I finished this course (all 4 weeks) in pretty much a single day, turned on 2x video playback and powered through it.

Probably OK as an introduction to VR for someone who has no knowledge of the subject at all. Otherwise the usefulness is greatly reduced. As this is part one of the specialization in is probably weighted correctly against the following courses (we shall see).