Coursera: Grow your career Ratings and Reviews

Convenient, Easy, and Educational

I completed a course on Coursera’s website on my ipad and found it difficult to start a second course on my phone due to screen formatting not being optimised for my device. When I found out they had an app, I decided to give it a try to see if it was any better. Now, I’ll never go back! The app makes learning much easier. The courses are laid out in a way which makes a lot of sense to me, and I love that it’s easy to work through each module hands-free (the next video autoplays once one ends) or jump back in when I’ve been away (the next thing to do is highlighted at the top of the page each time, but you’re also able to skip items and complete them in your own schedule). I wish there were more courses in my fields of interest, though this isn’t at Coursera’s fault and there are still a few for me to work through. I do, however, find the app is lacking a ‘wishlist’ function. It would be very helpful for me to be able to keep a list of courses I’m interested in within the app itself. Other than that, I have no complaints with this app so far!

No auto play makes app almost unusable

This app is in desperate need of a “hands free” mode of some sort. Lessons are cut up into tiny individual vids that can be as short as only 3 minutes, often with “assignment” or quiz pages in between, and as you go through a course you have to manually click through to the next thing again and again and again. It’s infuriating, especially when you have a bunch of short segments one after another, forcing you to click through every few minutes. One of the main reasons I use my phone instead of a computer to listen to lectures is so that I can move around doing other things. I like to listen to music or podcasts while doing chores, exercising, driving, things like that, and would love to be able to do the same with Coursera: just hit play and let knowledge stream into my ear. I can go back to see any visual components I might have missed or do assignments later; on my phone, I'm more likely to be on the go, and apps need to be able to reflect that. The way most courses are structured means you can’t just stick an hour lecture on and go jogging: no, you have to stop every few minutes to poke your phone for the next section.

To be clear, this is not a review of Coursera, which has worked hard to bring a bunch of great courses to the public. But I’ve been deeply frustrated with the app and can only pray it eventually gets a proper modern tune up.

Apple Store Subscription Not Being Acknowledged

Coursera is generally a great platform and app. I’ve used it on and off for a few years. They are getting two starts because of bad billing practices. Recently, as of May 2022, Coursera stopped recognizing my monthly subscription through the App Store and has stopped allowing me to make submissions on my course assignments and section tests. It’s stopped my ability to complete courses all together as a result. When I contacted Coursera, they said this is a software bug for ALL APPLE CUSTOMERS that their developers are trying to resolve. They then closed my help ticket and didn’t provide any resolution. I contacted them again two weeks later, and this time their customer service rep said to CANCEL MY APPLE SUBSCRIPTION, TO REQUEST A REFUND THROUGH APPLE, AND TO ENROLL THROUGH THEIR MONTHLY BILLING SYSTEM. Because I don’t want to lose my progress on this professional certification, I did exactly that. Cancelled my Apple subscription and enrolled in Coursera’s subscription. It makes me want to cancel my subscription with Coursera all together, though. This is highly suspect given the controversy of the Apple Stores 30% cut on all transactions processed through their store and developers pushing back on it. It comes off as Coursera intentionally breaking Apple users access to force their hand to enroll in Coursera’s billing system to recoup the 30% loss in revenue from the Apple store.

Developer Response ,

Hello! We sincerely apologize that you're experiencing difficulties using the app. We are are aware of this issue which is causing an extremely frustrating experience for learners like you. Although our interim solution is a bit complicated, rest assured we are actively working on resolving this issue. Thanks so much for your patience.
If there are additional details that you’d like us to share with our product teams, feel free to let us know at coursera-ios@coursera.org. We appreciate your loyalty as a Coursera learner.

Revolution Of Education

Courera is the first learning platform to give me a opportunities to better my life and learn through companies I genuinely want to work for I want to further develop and improve myself through this organization. My intellectual capacity will grow far higher than any 4 year degree or 50k program. Because grit and time patience and determination matter more than anything its doesn’t matter if your 50 or 15 years old you can be successful and get a certified professional job without the loans or stress don’t let this world defeat you. Practice labs and find different ways to get that experience. And prosper 999 type thing demons gatekeep god’s knowledge that he gave to us for free. I thank this platform from the bottom of my heart I paid 422 to get 1000 plus courses for a year I can carry with me till I’m in my grave.(small price to pay) I will use this to be what god wanted me to be great and caring. Every human inherently has the right to be whatever they want to be don’t let you anything stop you. God bless the human race I hope we can continue in unity and learn what peace is through knowledge not ignorance

Hooked on Coursera

I was feeling a bit stagnant and in a rut, so I took my first Coursera thinking maybe new ideas would help me jumpstart my brain after 3 months of quarantine-induced staying at home.I have worked from home for over 10 years now, and I am always learning new things on the job, but still, things just felt different. The first course I took was “Learning How to Learn.” It blew me away! Not only did I learn useful information, but it was incredibly enjoyable and I have been able to apply the information on the job. As soon as I finished it, I enrolled in a course on inquiry and research. One of the recommended readings, a book called “Curious” by Ian Leslie, was again enjoyable and applicable to many areas of life. I would not have come across this book had it not been for the course.I recently enrolled in “The Science of Well-Being.” Excellent. The Coursera platform is easy and convenient. I am very busy, and was able to listen to videos, read articles, etc., on my phone while I waited in line or took breaks.

Horrible Customer Service and Billing Service

We, as a corporate customer with around 40 seats have recently experienced horrible customer service. First of all, we did not receive renewal notice at all, then we were told corporate plan was shutting down and all users data would be gone. We tried to provide payment info, customer service said they have no control of billing, therefore she cannot initiate a payment for us. Why would a company hire ANYONE who refuses to take customer payment in this age?! Along with HR and Finance leaders at my side, we spent nine days tried to get this resolved. Customer service was responsive but not helpful at all. Whatever we asked, the answer was "unfortunately No." We just wanted to keep our plan and pay the bill!!! Nothing is beyond this simple request. We eventually ran out of time and terminated our plan. The experience was unbelievable- there is no way I could not believe this is a company that serves PEOPLE AND THEIR NEEDS. Sometimes it made us think that customer service could be a robot. Absolutely no phone number to call in the US. Very limited contact method doesn't provide a way to escalate our issue. Terrible services and lack of flexibility when it comes to payments and a proper notification of plan renewal. Not recommending to any corporate customers!!!

Learning anew at 54

This has been challenging and encouraging in my endeavor as a disabled man trying to gain new skills to get back into a workforce that can work remotely. Something i can still do and remain in a technical capacity and be able to make the money needed to enable me to continue in my disability to train for a career that will pay my way forward helps although i do feel some issues with having formal college. I still will continue learning and not give up. It’s so easy to give up today. It’s hard to discipline and settle the brain when so many things are going on around us and stay focused. This is also why i find working at my pace helps. I do plan on still getting a formal education. Since people still see me in a sales capacity and i want to switch to a technical capacity, i need to stack up my skills in the technical arena.

If this app wasn’t here, i would have never started using that muscle called the brain again. Coursera taught me that i am still valuable and can learn something new.

SharePlay⁉️🙏🏼🥺

So I really enjoy this app and the courses available on the site. It definitely does it’s best to make learning easier to facilitate in an online only environment. I appreciate the fact that there’s another app similar in availability like skillshare, or udemy, but I’ve not been able to take as many university offered online courses in any other platform other than Coursera. I’ve shared this site with friends and family and was hoping with the new iOS 15 release that there would be more major updates to the app to improve the whole learning experience, like support for SharePlay! I’d love to be able to FaceTime friends or family to take a course we both have mutual interest in taking, together.
It’s nice to get some aspect of a class room feel even if it’s still mostly virtual.
I recommend people take advantage of the courses available on the site and downloading the app.
Lets please see a SharePlay support update rolled out soon⁉️🥺🙏🏼😁😊
Thanks to the team of Coursera

1 month review

So the platform is incredibly unstable on mobile (highly recommend you do not sign up using your apple ID to avoid a headache). A lot of quizzes must be done on a desktop. The whole payment system is corrupt.

You want to sign up for a single course or multiple? Depending on the price, it may be better to sign up for coursera plus. However, they have sale periods with huge discounts. Why bother paying 1/3 more for the same class? There’s a bit of structure behind the lessons but a lot of providers are outdated and quite lame to be honest. I was going to sign up for the year of coursera plus but forgot to submit payment before the sale ended. That’ll be an extra $100 just because. I’ll pass for anything extra, finish my course, and never look back.

Currently in the process of getting the google IT certifications and the lessons are quite painful to get through with idiotic people giving lecture. I’ve found it significantly easier to just read the transcript, use google to find useful resources, and pray for this madness to end. Luckily I only signed up for a month.

Comprehension Questions?

Coursera courses follow a disturbing pattern that is not educationally sound. Watch a video. Watch another video. Watch another video. Watch another video. Quiz. Any teacher worth hiring can easily point out that this looks suspiciously like aiming a firehouse full of information at learners and expecting them to get “something” out of all those videos.

Best practice: give learners comprehension questions before each video. It doesn’t matter if completing them is required. Any learner who wants to maximize the benefit they get from the course will answer them thoughtfully and then check their answers after completing them. There’s no excuse for why Coursera doesn’t require this and learners are kidding themselves if they think writing notes and/or just watching is enough.

Also, don’t ask learners to watch a few videos and then ask a very detailed question from three videos ago. If you didn’t signify that it was important to me while watching the video, it isn’t reasonable that I will have paid enough attention to make a note of it in anticipation of a quiz question.

Overall, Coursera, like Duolingo, borders on edutainment. You feel good because you’re “doing something”, much like someone going to the gym to watch other people exercise while they sit on the equipment doing nothing. But let’s not kid ourselves: you’re not getting nearly as much as you should from these courses if Coursera can’t follow best practices.