What better way is there to invest your free time than to expand your knowledge and learn new skills? Whether you’re looking for specific content or curious about different niches and topics, online learning platforms will come in handy.
The question is, which online platform should you invest your time and money in? In this article, we are going to do a full in depth Coursera review and see what the platform has to offer. We will investigate how the platform works, what kind of features it offers, as well as what pros and cons you should keep in mind before purchasing a Coursera course.
We’ll also touch up on the key factors that we used as criteria to review this platform. With that said, let’s jump right into it!
Table of Contents
What is Coursera?
Coursera is an online learning platform like many others out there. However, what makes it different is the credibility it gained over the years thanks to its certified courses and master’s degree programs.
Yep, Coursera is more than just an e-learning platform with social proof certificates. This online resource was founded in 2012 by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, two Stanford University computer science professors who saw the potential in e-learning.
Ever since then, the platform grew into one of the largest and most popular online learning hubs with thousands of courses available at different price points. Moreover, Coursera is partnered with over 200 universities and educational institutions located across 29 countries.
They also offer educational material and courses on dozens of different niches and hundreds of topics/sub-niches you can choose from. They even offer financial aid for their higher-level programs that cost several thousands of dollars – yes, you’ll find those on Coursera as well.
Coursera includes specializations that allow you to build skills in certain subjects and get accredited certificates or diplomas to prove your expertise. The platform makes higher education accessible at any location. As long as you have an internet connection, you’ll have an opportunity to learn new skills from certified tutors through this user-friendly e-learning platform.
With that said, it’s safe to say that the platform justifies its reputation as one of the most go-to choices for online learners. The question is – is it really as great as it looks? We’ll answer that and many other questions throughout this review. For now, let’s focus on what the platform is like and how it works. Then we’ll dive into specifics such as pricing and certifications.
How Does it Work?
The way Coursera works is simple and it’s quite similar to most other online learning platforms. You can create a free account on Coursera by registering on the site and entering your correct personal information. You can then choose to purchase a monthly subscription to access 90% of the platform’s content or you can continue without a subscription and pay for individual courses on the go.
Each course lasts between four to twelve weeks and contains video lectures along with quizzes and assignments. Naturally, courses will differ in content types, lengths, and structures, some may include weekly exercises and quiz assignments while others might require final exams or even honors assignments.
Either way, each course’s features are neatly presented in the course overview, so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting yourself into before making the purchase. Most courses on Coursera are on-demand courses, which means you can take them on your own time and however you see fit. You don’t have to follow a strict schedule or guidelines as to when you should complete each course module.
If you’re not up for a full course but you’d still like to put your student hat on, you can choose one of Coursera’s guided projects, which are usually two to three hours long and can be completed at any pace you set for yourself.
On the other hand, those who opt for a master’s degree with Coursera will have to invest a lot more time and effort into their learning activities. Overall, Coursera has plenty to offer whether you’re looking for some fun learning activities or a serious master’s program.
Coursera Features
Let’s take a look at some of Coursera’s most important features:
Platform Structure
It’s safe to say that Coursera has a very advanced learning platform that holds over 4 000 courses. The platform is structured simply – it allows you to access your most recently used content and explore different career learning paths.
Although there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with the platform that we could point out, we did notice that it looks less advanced than some other online platforms (think of SkillShare or Udemy). This could just be a matter of personal preference or general web design, but we had to point it out. It certainly does not affect the overall score the platform deserves (which is high).
Coursera Partnerships
What makes Coursera slightly better than its competitors is the fact that this platform is partnered up with a mix of universities, businesses, governments, and non-profit organizations focused on making an impact on education.
With that said, Coursera offers lots of high-quality and reputable courses thanks to these partnerships. You can obtain an entire master’s degree program online, which you can take from the comfort of your home? Crazy! But more on that in the Course Types section.
Course Types
Now that we’ve mentioned course types, we may as well explore this a bit deeper. The great thing about Coursera is that it offers multiple course types, from regular short courses called Guided Projects to individual projects, specializations, and master’s degree programs, which can cost thousands of dollars and last for several years.
The highest-level courses on the platform are degree programs accredited by different universities and the Master Track Certificate programs that count towards a university degree. This, again, ties into Coursera having multiple high-end partnerships that created a bond between online and traditional education.
Languages
If you’re looking for a multilingual course platform, congratulations, you’ve found it! Coursera offers course materials in a variety of languages, including English (obviously), German, Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, Russian, and Chinese (including traditional Chinese as well).
Whether one of these is your preferred language or you’re looking to use one of these languages more actively, Coursera offers a great opportunity to do just that by taking courses in different languages. The way this works is simple – most courses feature video lessons with an interactive transcript in the language of your choice. The script can be accessed via the mobile app as well as your desktop. How convenient, right?
Interactive Materials
Speaking of interactive transcripts, Coursera offers lots of interactive materials within its courses. These include tests and quizzes of different kinds, designed to take your learning experience to the next level. On top of auto-graded quizzes, you can also participate in peer-reviewed paper assignments, which allow you to interact with people who are taking the same course as you are.
Besides tests and assignments, many courses also have teaching assistants who interact with you for the duration of the course. All these features make learning on Coursera more enjoyable but also more effective.
Certifications
Probably the best thing about Coursera is that it offers accredited certificates from different universities. These certificates are recognized by employees, meaning they can contribute to your future career opportunities. Other e-learning platforms such as Udemy or SkillShare offer certificates of completion, which are not even close to Coursera certificates.
Why? Because they lack the accredited certification that Coursera courses provide, which makes this platform superb in this category. If you’re looking for official certificates and serious education that will leave a mark on your career, then Coursera courses are a great option to consider.
Filters and Reviews
Although Coursera is not the largest online learning platform out there, having access to over 4000 courses can make things a bit hectic if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Sure, if you know the exact title of a course or the name of the instructor you want to learn from, then finding things on online learning platforms is easy.
However, if you don’t know what exactly you need but you know which topic you’re interested in, it will be difficult to find the right courses without some help. That’s why Coursera offers a great filter feature that allows you to filter the search results based on different criteria, depending on your needs and preferences. There are also reviews available for each course to help you determine whether it is worth your time and money.
Coursera Pricing
You’re probably wondering what Coursera’s pricing looks like. In a nutshell, Coursera offers a wide variety of prices ranging from as little as $9.99 down to $50 000. Their courses and Guided Projects are very inexpensive and can be completed within a few hours/days. However, the platform’s master’s degree programs and certifications can cost up to several thousands of dollars.
The exact price will depend on the course you’re interested in so make sure to hop on Coursera.com to check it out. Keep in mind they also have a subscription plan called Coursera Plus that includes access to all the platform’s courses except degrees and MasterTrack certified courses. The subscription plan costs $399 per year or $59 per month, depending on which payment option you choose.
Payments and Refunds
Continuing the previously mentioned pricing topic, Coursera offers several payment options, including debit and credit cards, as well as PayPal. The supported cards include Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB, and American Express.
The platform also offers a 14-day refund policy, although access to a refund will depend on what kind of subscription/payment you chose. For instance, the monthly Coursera Plus subscription does not include a refund, which gives you a reason to opt for the yearly payment plan.
Support
Finally, Coursera offers great customer support via chat or email to help you solve any issue you come across. Head over to their Contact Us section to leave your questions and their support team will respond to your inquiry within a few minutes/hours (depending on what time of the day you leave the request).
What Type of Courses are Offered on Coursera?
When it comes to the types of content available on Coursera, courses differ in structure and topics. In most cases, the structure depends on the course level. Naturally, a Guided Project (as short courses are called on the platform) is going to feature a structure designed for a short yet value-packed course.
Other types of courses you’ll find on Coursera include specializations, professional certificate training, and even degree programs. Despite so many different course structures available, what makes Coursera’s offer so diverse is the wide range of topics and subtopics you can learn about or specialize in.
For instance, there are no main subject categories on this platform. Instead, you’ll find a bit of everything. This kind of diversity opened up the platform to millions of users. Naturally, you’re going to find a lot of diversity on a platform with nearly four thousand courses available.
However, if we had to derive a couple of umbrella categories, those would include business, computer science, data science, information technology, health, language learning, arts and humanities, math and logic, personal development, physical science and engineering, social sciences, and more (believe it or not).
It’s a good thing that the platform has a filter option that helps you sort through all these subjects and courses to find what you’re looking for. But, you know what they always say – quality wins over quantity, which raises the next question; are Coursera courses good quality? We’ll answer that and many other questions in the following segments of the review.
9 Key Decision-Making Factors
In this section, we are going to focus on the decision-making factors that played the role in shaping this coursera review. When it comes to ranking or comparing e-learning platforms, we always follow the same criteria that consist of the following 9 factors:
User-friendliness & learning interface – 3.5 / 5
Although we’ve put a lot of praise into Coursera so far, one thing we didn’t like that much is its interface which seems a bit too confusing at first. When you first land on the platform, it looks a lot more like a serious educational site rather than a simple and casual learning platform like SkillShare.
Things are a bit more serious looking on Coursera. Although it’s not too difficult to use or understand, the platform does not seem like the most user-friendly course platform out there. That’s why we ranked it a fair 3.5 out of 5.
Convenience 4.5 / 5
If we look past the confusing interface and lack of user-friendly design, the platform can certainly be called convenient for use. Why? Well, it allows for high-level education that can be obtained from the comfort of one’s home. If having access to master’s degree programs from anywhere in the world isn’t convenient, then we don’t know what is!
On a more serious note, Coursera truly offers convenient solutions for students looking to learn new skills to enrich their portfolio or people who want to take their careers to the next level by gaining new skills and knowledge.
Quality of content 5 / 5
Now, this is where Coursera shines. The quality of content on this platform is superb because most of its tutors/teachers are actual teachers at universities and well-known educational organizations. They have truly set the bar high when it comes to course content quality.
If you’re looking at the kind of results and outcomes that you can expect out of these courses, opportunities are truly endless. However, the actual outcome is going to depend on your level of involvement and effort put into a course. After all, the quality of content on its own cannot guarantee you results.
Available platforms 5 / 5
As you could’ve guessed, a high-end eLearning platform such as this one has a really good quality mobile app that allows you to follow course content on your phone. This feature certainly adds to the convenience of the platform which we mentioned above. Besides the browser experience, the platform offers a great mobile device experience with the possibility of following video lessons on the go.
To make things even better, you can even download course materials for offline use, meaning you won’t be dependent on internet access to follow your most important classes. Besides, this feature allows you to access course content whenever you need to kill some time, which is ideal if you have plans to travel soon.
Official certifications 5 / 5
This is another category where Coursera takes the win compared to other online learning platforms on the market. The platform offers several types of certifications available for every paid course. From plain online class certificates to master’s degrees, the platform has everything you need to formally take your skillset to the next level.
The more serious category of certificates at Coursera includes the professional certificate provided by schools and educational organizations and the MasterTrack certificate that’s included in Master’s degree programs. If you’re looking for an official certificate that you can earn from the comfort of your home, then Coursera is ideal for you.
Types of courses 5 / 5
We have already mentioned the course types on Coursera several ti1mes, but we have to emphasize that this criterium is possibly one of the most important factors you need to consider when choosing an online platform. With that said, Coursera offers several course types including regular courses, Guided Projects, Specializations, and Degree Programs.
You can use the platform to score a couple of course certifications or to aim higher and apply for a MasterTrack Certificate. Some courses on Coursera can be completed in as little as two hours whereas the more serious programs can last up to a couple of years.
Instructors 5 / 5
Unlike Udemy and similar platforms where anyone can become an instructor, Coursera has higher standards when it comes to picking its teachers. Courses on this platform are taught by top instructors from world-class Universities.
Isn’t that reason enough to trust that this platform has some of the best quality courses out there? Maybe. For all we know, you’ll come across top instructors and experts in different fields on Coursera, teaching various courses and topics up to the highest standards of quality.
Payment methods 5 / 5
We always look at available payment methods as an important factor when determining the quality and usability of an e-learning platform. In this case, Coursera passes the payment test with flying colors. The platform offers several different payment options, including credit and debit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB, American Express, as well as PayPal.
The platform also offers refunds, depending on the course or subscription you chose. The month-to-month subscription does not come with a refund, whereas one-time courses, specializations, and team offers do come with a 14-day refund window.
Customer support
Last but not least, we consider customer support to be an important factor when choosing whether or not an e-learning platform is worth the money. In this case, Coursera offers a great support service via chat or an email inquiry through their contact box.
On top of that, they have a well-put-together Help Center where you can find answers to your questions even before contacting support. Overall, if you get stuck or run into an issue that you don’t see a way around, Coursera’s support staff is likely going to tackle the problem and find a solution for you promptly.
Pros & Cons of Coursera
Pros:
- Partnered with many universities and educational organizations.
- Offers affordable yet good quality courses.
- Plenty of free courses available.
- Offline learning mode.
- Brief courses – easy to use.
- Interactive platform.
- Certificates available.
Cons:
- Some courses may require prior knowledge.
- Multiple pricing subscriptions may seem confusing.
- There is an application process for certain programs.
- Limited assessment opportunities
Who is Coursera For?
Coursera offers life-transforming learning experiences to anyone who’s looking for such a thing. Thus, the short answer to this question is that Coursera is made for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge and grow their skill set. However, if you’re looking for a more specific answer, Coursera may be a better fit for serious learners, rather than occasional ones.
What does that mean? It’s simple – Coursera is one of the most ‘serious’ e-learning platforms out there in the sense that it offers actual master’s degrees and specialized certifications that can last up to 2-4 years. Therefore, if you’re looking for more serious courses that will result in accredited certifications, Coursera is perfect for you.
How Much Does Coursera Cost?
When it comes to pricing, Coursera has a somewhat confusing price plan with multiple price ranges. For starters, it’s important to address that the platform offers more than 2000 free courses. As you could’ve guessed, the free courses don’t include a certificate. However, you can still access the same content and go through the learning experience without the final certification.
Now, let’s look at different price plans on Coursera. Their cheapest courses are called Guided Projects with prices starting at $9.99. These courses are quick and easy to follow with step-by-step video instructions.
If you’re looking for something more, you can check out Coursera specializations that allow you to master a specific skill at the price of $39 per month. It usually takes around 1 to 3 months to complete these courses.
Coursera also offers programs with professional certification starting at $39 per month. These courses take a bit longer to complete – usually between 1 to 6 months. Now, this is where their price points shift drastically.
The next category is the MasterTrack Certificates which start at a whopping price of $2 000. Completing these courses takes between 4 to 7 months and they result in a university-issued certificate.
You can also get a degree on Coursera with the price point starting at $9 000. It will take you between 2 to 4 years to finish a degree program, similar to the traditional educational settings.
It’s important to mention that Coursera also offers a subscription plan called Coursera Plus that gives you access to 90% of the platform’s content. The subscription plan costs $59 for monthly payments or $399 for a yearly payment.
Coursera also offers a special plan for teams and businesses starting at $399 per user and per year. That way, organizations can secure reliable education for their teams at an affordable price.
Finally, there’s a free trial that gives you 7 days to try out any Coursera plan/course and decide whether you want to invest money into it or not. They also offer financial aid or scholarships to help you finance courses you’re interested in.
Similar Platforms to Consider
Our earlier section on ‘who is Coursera for’ mentioned that the platform is the best fit for people who are looking for serious, accredited education. So, what if that’s not exactly what you’re looking for? What if you’re not looking for a year or two years long program? Perhaps you’re looking for more causal courses to pick up as a hobby?
In that case, there are plenty of other online learning platforms to consider. One of those is LinkedIn Learning, which is mostly oriented toward business skills and self-development. Those interested in advancing their career through various business/self-development courses will find LinkedIn Learning very useful, especially because the platform is highly valued in the business community.
If you’re in the mood for something even less formal, then check out Udemy or SkillShare, the two most popular learning platforms out there. Udemy offers over 183000 courses, which already makes it significantly different than Coursera features which have 4000 courses in total.
Udemy is the more relaxed, casual e-learning alternative that doesn’t offer accredited certificates but it offers plenty of useful content and valuable tutorials. After all, 44 million students have found Udemy to be a great e-learning resource, which makes it difficult to pass up. It is their diversity in courses and material topics that make them stand out in the market.
Lastly, make sure to check out SkillShare, especially if you’re looking for more creative courses that you won’t find on Coursera. SkillShare has over 41 000 courses and offers a very user-friendly interface that makes learning way more enjoyable.
Most importantly, they offer high-quality courses at extremely low costs — we’re talking about a yearly subscription of only $168, which is significantly lower than the costs of education on Coursera.
However, keep in mind that Coursera remains the number one choice based on the quality of courses and instructors. Whether you opt for this site or another depends on what you’re looking for in terms of course styles, structure, and length.
Is Coursera Worth It? Final Thoughts
All of this research leads us to one final question — is Coursera worth it? In our humble opinion, the answer is yes. If you think about it, Coursera is one of the few online learning platforms (if not the only one) that offers master’s degree programs and accredited education that can be accessed from anywhere.
It combines higher education with convenience and accessibility, which makes it one of the best e-learning platforms out there. However, whether Coursera is worth it for you specifically depends on what you’re looking to achieve with online course activities.
When it comes to technicalities such as the platform structure and its features, Coursera does pretty well at keeping up with competitors, although platforms such as Udemy and SkillShare may have a more convenient user-friendly interface.
Overall, we leave it up to you to decide whether or not investing in a Coursera program is worth it for you, we hope this coursera review has been helpful in making your mind up weather the platform is worth it