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Further to the College Tiers in Online Classes, here is a summary of the Online Courses travelled in 2013 when the year is still visible in the rear mirror:

• Software as a Service, BerkeleyX (www.edx.org), 6-week
  • What better to get first-hand experience of the Online Course Idea than taking a class, so this being the first one.  There is also intent to refresh knowledge in technology and more interestingly, discover what is taught in Computer Science Major between now and then (then is a 20+ years or so ago).  Most of the course material is the video-taping of the campus lectures.  It is enlightening to see how things become easier and more fun over time, in writing codes to achieve something.   The professors are passionate, engaging; material first class, and homework quite a challenge.   This requires time and effort on textbook and homework (coding and troubleshooting).  As everything else, we learn proportional to the effort, rated this as A.
• Advanced Software as a Service, BerkeleyX (www.edx.org), 6-week
  • The 2^nd semester of the above class.   I  particularly like the lecture of the last week where it covers career advice; a bit of the “from the class to life” perspective of Professional David Patterson.  Rated the same, with the teaching team A+.
• Introduction to Data Science, University of Washington (www.coursera.org), 12-week
  • Big Data Analytics is another growing buzz.  What better to go beyond day-to-day articles than taking a formal training and for free.  It is not an easy one, covering the data manipulation, analytics and presentation.   Some statistics can bring you to knees and needs a take-2 of the video viewing.  The homework is challenging and interesting (e.g. data mining of social media to see what States have happiest folks; or predicting the survivors of “Titanic”).  I learn a lot in this class.  Rated this as A, and the teaching team deserves A+ with their effort to connect willing students with industry projects.
• Inter Professional Healthcare Informatics, University of Minnesota (www.coursera.org), 10-week
  • Going from High Tech IT to Health Care related areas, I sign up a few health care related courses, this being one of the first, with an intriguing course title.   It covers good overview but not much depth; it also provides quite a number of references to where additional information can be found.   Rated this as B-.
• Take Your Medicine – the Impact of Drug Development, UTAustinX (www.edx.org), 8-week
  • Continue the path to take more healthcare related course.  This is one easy course, learn some good concepts, yet, not much of an impression.  Rated this as B.
• The Science of Safety in Healthcare, Johns Hopkins University (www.coursera.org), 5-week
  • Sign up to get a better understanding of patient safety.  Impressive teaching team, decent course material, homework was overdue by the time of my late enrollment.  If it is offered again, would consider a retake to complete the case study and participate in online discussion.  Rated this as B+.
• Fundamentals of Clinical Trials, HarvardX (www.edx.org), 12-week
  • Intend to further the understanding the drug development process in Health Care.  Just Harvard’s name creates sort of a higher expectation going into the class.  This is one serious class on the scientific, statistical, policy, and ethical aspects of clinical trials research.  It provides a comprehensive overview of the design and analysis of clinical trials, including first-in-human studies (dose-finding, safety, proof of concept, Phase 1), Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV studies.   For the case study, it is easy to see many students putting in a fair amount of effort in it.  This is a 12-week course, with some more weeks to go.  No rating for now.
• Think again, how to reason and argue, Duke University (www.coursera.org), 12-week
  • This is one of the few classes that I did not finish.  I sign-up not for myself, but more from a school-aged child.  The first couple of classes are basic introduction to valid argument, sound argument and deduction;  as it goes further, it goes deeper into reasoning and argument, and then it really gets the head spinning to figure out the validity and soundness of complex argument.  This is serious class, and helps one to develop a sound mind to assess the arguments of politicians, salesmen, and more.  Solid class material and pretty difficult quizzes.  This feels like a pretty good class for those interested in the field.

Posted in About Learning, Career Management, Dear Diary