MOOC
Amr Rajeh
Udemy, Exploring the platform
Following the rising competition in many fields of work and
the urgent need for more skilled persons to handle the work more efficiently,
there happened to appear the online platforms for education and learning to
satisfy eagerness of students and workers to reach a better level of experience
and more abilities to attain in their competition in the work field.
You don’t have to be of a certain age group,
you don’t need to travel anywhere, you just need a passion for learning and
commitment to your goals.
Introduction
Do you remember the time when
you first searched for some online courses to improve your skills? Or your
friend that advised you to enroll in some online courses? I can assure you that
the first or at least one of their recommendations was ‘Udemy’. So, what is
Udemy? What is so special about it? Is it a really good platform? What to avoid
and what to look for when you enter the platform? And so many questions we are
going to discuss in this article
What is Udemy?
brief company history
Udemy is one of the most
famous MOOC platforms on the internet. With about 155,000 online video courses
now, let us find out how this huge project started in the first place.
The project started in Turkey
in 2007, Eren Bali and Oktay Caglar both believed they can make a huge impact
on learning worldwide, they then moved to the USA where they started the
journey of publishing it and making it ready for both instructors and students
to find what they looking for.
Until April 2021, there are
more than 10 million students, 155,000 courses, and 70,000 instructors teaching
courses in over 65 languages.
A journey inside the platform
When you enter the platform,
you will first find the Top Categories of courses, and it covers a variety of
work fields like Web Development, Data Science, Marketing, and Design.
Signing up is very easy, and
it directs you to a question of deciding your goal, whether it be entering a
new field or advancing in a current one, and this will lead you to a further
question that sets the best recommendations for you, and of course, you can
skip it to the first page.
The beautiful thing about
Udemy is that you can do ‘shopping’ for courses. As an online market, you take
your cart and start purchasing the courses you desire, so let us look at the
pricing.
Pricing and packages
Udemy presents for you two plans depending on the
learning goals you need to achieve.
However, these plans are not available to all
students, but they are looking forward to reaching all students
Personal plan
If you want to improve your skills in multiple
fields that are not related to each other, then it is the perfect plan for you.
It allows
you to choose whatever courses you like from over 5,000 highly rated courses on
1,700 different topics.
Concerning
the fees, Udemy teams determine the cost according to your location, which is
somehow vague!. Subscribing to this plan will give you 7 days free trial before
charging you monthly.
Udemy Pro
This plan is
designed to help IT students to accomplish their certification. When you
subscribe to this plan you will have unlimited access to the content you
subscribed for. However, you should know that this access would end when you
stop paying for your monthly subscription!
Udemy Pro
will cost you a $19.99 per month subscription and you will have 7 days free
trial at the beginning of the subscription so as to decide whether you
continuing or leaving it.
This plan covers
a variety of topics, including:
· AWS Certified
Solutions Architect - Associate
· AWS Certified
Developer - Associate
· AWS Certified
Data Analytics - Specialty
· AZ-900:
Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
· AZ-203:
Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure
· CompTIA A+
(220-1001)
· CompTIA A+
(220-1002)
· CompTIA
Security+
· Certified
Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
·
Project Management Professional (PMP)
· Certified
Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
Unfortunately,
this plan too is not available to all students, as said in their answer to
FAQs, “Udemy Pro is an early release product”.
Now that we
had a look at the prices, let us find out how good their content is.
Content
Udemy
courses cover a variety of subjects, but the quality of the content on each
subject may differ from one to another, and this depends on the demand and the
availability of talented instructors and teachers.
Web
development, for example, contains a lot of material that is directed to all
levels of experience, including beginners and experts alike.
When you
enter a new course, you will find a description, the content lessons, what you
will learn from it, and the requirements needed to understand this course. When
you scroll down you will find reviews from students who previously took this
course, these reviews might help you decide to enroll in the course or leave
it.
A random
free course on Udemy consists of many sections featuring 2 or 3 lessons, each
with a video tutorial of the instructor and accompanied with resources used in
the tutorial. Reviews on each course will help you have an impression on the
video quality and the style of teaching in every course. So, make sure to read
reviews first.
I found it
easy to move from a lesson to another without any technical issues, you can
repeat and move to any lesson you previously passed.
When
compared with other platforms, like Coursera and Alison, Udemy lacks many
important features.
1-
Interactive Quizzes
In order to
achieve the best results from your students, you must keep their minds working
up along the course, this feature enables you to assess your understanding of
the subject material. Thus, it is a vital feature that must be present in all
courses no matter what their prices are!
On Udemy, many courses lacked this feature as a part of their curriculum, in
contrast with other platforms that makes it an integral part of any course’s
curriculum.
2-
Discussion
Another
important feature not just in online teaching but in classes too, discussing
topics creates a mind storming environment and motivates students to do more
research and be eager to find more information. Unfortunately, this feature
isn’t present on Udemy, but you can find in other platforms.
3- Coding
Exercises
I found this
specific feature on DataCamp while exploring their python related courses. It
is only important if you looking for programming courses, so you might want to
check for other specialized platforms like DataCamp for this feature.
However, if
you just looking for courses with just guiding explanations, then I don’t think
this features matters that much for you.
4-
Partnership with universities
This is a
vital point that is giving Coursera much more credit than Udemy, and it is a
reason why many people always have concerns about online learning.
This
partnership provides hundreds of online courses, which, by being provided from
universities themselves, makes the certificates more recognizable when added in
your resume, let aside the authenticity of the content itself!
Although,
the availability of talented and well experienced teachers might make it up for
you if you only looking for a good content and no need for a formal
certification
5-
Opening access for paid courses to people who can’t pay
Some
platforms give their students a chance to have access to paid courses for free,
only when they send a convincing letter to the customer service explaining
their financial status and what they looking for with these courses.
Certifications and money making opportunities
Although
Udemy is a leading platform in the MOOC field, their certifications are not the
best to count on regarding job opportunities. Owing to many factors:
1. Any
teacher, either skilled or not, can record some videos and upload them on Udemy
as a new course, of course, they don’t mind education, but employers tend to
ask for real certifications from accredited universities that mean their owners
passed the course with success and acknowledged every part of the course
materials.
2. Course
materials themselves might vary according to the quality of the course and the
instructor. This means you can pass a free or little paid course in a certain
subject without getting any real benefit!
3. As
said before, you don’t get tested regularly on Udemy, the employer would have
doubts about the experience you gained from this course.
However,
Udemy would be the best start for improving your skills. The real benefit of
Udemy is to improve an existing skill to a better level, or even learning new
ones relevant to your job that would help you work better, faster, and more
efficiently.
Coding, for example, is a rich category, if
you want to improve your Coding, you will find hundreds of courses teaching you
new things in any coding language you desire, with any level of experience.
Languages is another example, if you are a
translator and looking for improving the languages you are translating, Udemy
presents you with hundreds of language teachers to improve your level in any
language you need.
Writing, too, is a rich category in Udemy,
many courses to help you get better in writing fields, like academic and
literature writing.
Udemy can be
a sort of ‘useful entertainment’ for you, you may learn a new language, or even
improve an existing one!
Pros and Cons
Pros
-
Different plans to meet your learning goals
-
Deep discounts on courses, sometimes up to 90%!
-
Large amount of courses on different work fields
-
A chance for teachers to show off their talents
-
Friendly browsing experience
-
30-day money-back guarantee
-
Many talented teachers available
Cons
-
Subscriptions not available to all students
-
No regular testing and Quizzes
-
No partnership with universities
-
Certificates not always recognizable by employers
-
Negative reviews about their customer service
Conclusion
In
conclusion, Udemy is a good platform as a starting point in improving your
skills; you can count on them if you are looking for a specific skill to improve.
However, you will miss the feature of frequent testing and exercises n certain
subjects like Coding and Writing.
However, if
you are looking for something formal to be added to your resume and back you up
in interviews, then I have to warn you, Udemy certificates are not always
recognizable by employers.
Their
subscription plans are good but, unfortunately, not available for all students,
though they do some good discounts from one time to another.
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Posted Oct 31, 2023
Reviewing the platforms that lead the MOOC learning.
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