Coursera is phasing out free certificates • Hacker News Board

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#131

Post by webhat » Mon, Jun 01, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

randomnumber53 wrote: post #61

webhat wrote: post #43

“The Statements of Accomplishment (free) and Verified Certificates (signature track) will be provided to all those who achieve 50% or higher grade, and will be released within 1-2 weeks after the final submission deadline closes. Everyone will be notified by email when they are ready. You will be able to download the certificate from your course records after they are released.” 50% as a passing grade?

Usually the grading scale is the same as is used in the iteration of the college class that the MOOC is based off of.

You might be right, although a 50% grade to pass The Clinical Psychology of Children and Young People still seems a little on the low side to me.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#132

Post by bovermyer » Mon, Jun 01, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #96

andyidsinga wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good point. I've also lived in non-US countries and saw that. So question for you is - in your country is the need for the certificate increasing or decreasing?

Increasing, it doesn't make sense to decrease, given our society. As I said, without papers certifying the knowledge one has, the application will just be tossed into the garbage can. The only way to workaround that, like every southern country in Europe, is if you know someone that knows someone.... Also for any IT related job, applicants are expected to have at least a 3 year duration degree, with preference given…

I would love to see numbers on innovation, compensation, and quality of life of developers in the USA versus Europe. I have my suspicions on how it'd turn out, but a full exploration would be fascinating.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#133

Post by andyidsinga » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #132

pjmlp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing, it doesn't make sense to decrease, given our society. As I said, without papers certifying the knowledge one has, the application will just be tossed into the garbage can. The only way to workaround that, like every southern country in Europe, is if you know someone that knows someone.... Also for any IT related job, applicants are expected to have at least a 3 year duration degree, with preference given…

I would love to see numbers on innovation, compensation, and quality of life of developers in the USA versus Europe. I have my suspicions on how it'd turn out, but a full exploration would be fascinating.

howe do you think it would turn out?

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#134

Post by HannahCoursera » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

Thank you all for the discussion. I am on the support team at Coursera and wanted to share the official response we posted on the Coursera Junkie blog below.

+++

Hi Kathryn and readers,

My name is Hannah, and I’m on the support team here at Coursera. We’re glad that you raised this concern, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion around our policies.

We are fully committed to our mission of providing universal access to the world's best education. As such, we continue to offer free and open access to all courses. We also offer learners the option to earn Verified Certificates, which provide official recognition from Coursera and the partner institution offering the course and formally showcases their achievements. Our robust financial aid program offers full support to learners who can demonstrate that the registration fee for a Verified Certificate is beyond their financial means.

Coursera's free certificates, also called Statements of Accomplishment, were designed before we made Verified Certificates available. Over time, we noticed confusion regarding the relative significance of the free certificate and the Verified Certificate. The latter is an official document, while the former is an unofficial, unverified memento of the course. We chose to phase out Statements of Accomplishment in order to better distinguish the official status of the Verified Certificate.

Last November, we published a blog post (http://blog.coursera.org/post/102036391812/verified-certific...) explaining the value of Verified Certificates and describing how most courses would no longer provide Statements of Accomplishment. Still, some older courses continue to offer Statements of Accomplishment, including the Child Psychology course you’ve referenced above. Understandably, that inconsistency has proven somewhat confusing.

We do our best to communicate changes clearly and will strive to be more transparent in our communication around such changes moving forward. If you have any further questions about Coursera’s certificates, I encourage you to visit this page in our learner help center: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/201212139-Ce....

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#135

Post by bovermyer » Thu, Jun 04, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

andyidsinga wrote: post #133

bovermyer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see numbers on innovation, compensation, and quality of life of developers in the USA versus Europe. I have my suspicions on how it'd turn out, but a full exploration would be fascinating.

howe do you think it would turn out?

I suspect (based on nothing more concrete than heresay) that European developers have less stress, American developers make more money, European developers have better health care and fringe benefits, and American developers are more prone to trying something insane just to see if it works.