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Please let me know if you have suggestions for the site, thanks.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
Much needed, thanks for making it.
henrik_w 14y ago
Is there a way to link to external reviews? I've reviewed both Introduction to Databases (http://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-on-line-learning-done-well/ http://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-...) and Design and Analysis of Algorithms Part I (http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms-course/ http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms-course...)
- jspaulding 14y ago
  That's a great question and the answer is not now. However it seems like there certainly should be. Maybe users could enter a URL for their review as a substitute for the review text. I will follow up with you if/when this is available.
  - henrik_w 14y ago
    OK. I've copied them in for now.
henrik_w 14y ago
It would also be good with a "Was this review helpful"-button a la Amazon, so the reviews can be ordered according to helpfulness.
- jspaulding 14y ago
  Agreed. Was thinking to take a few features from Amazon :)
- russelluresti 14y ago
  Agreed, this would be a nice feature to add.
carlsednaoui 14y ago
This is pretty cool, let me know if you want to partner up - I built http://coursebacon.com/ http://coursebacon.com/ as a side project and it seems that we're both trying to solve the same pain. Email is in my profile.
archgoon 14y ago
I would like to thank you for building this. With the large number of courses currently being offered, evaluation of the courses is valuable not just to prospective students, but for the course organizers and instructors themselves.
gwillen 14y ago
It's a rare "show HN" that shows me something I really needed, and which has clearly been done well. Kudos.
slykat 14y ago
This will probably be hard to do in the short term but if MOOCs take off it would be good to actually verify if the reviewer actually has taken the course. I think that's one key issue with Yelp - there is no verification of reviewers so there are a lot of spam issues : http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/obama-gets-a-lift-on-the-trail/ http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/obama-gets-a-l... Maybe you can talk to the Udacity/edX/Coursera guys to get some kind of API access? Regardless, this is awesome - I've taken two courses on Udacity, and love it so far. However, there has been an explosion of courses offered so it would be nice to have tools like this to help me filter.
- jspaulding 14y ago
  I agree that fake reviews could easily be a nasty issue on Yelp and other sites. In this case I'm not particularly worried about it.. but only time will tell. API access could be good for a variety of reasons though :)
tzs 14y ago
The big banner headline on the page just says reviews for Coursera, Udacity, and EdX. That might mislead people into thinking that is all that is there. Perhaps there should be something that that indicates that others are also included?
- jspaulding 14y ago
  Yes probably
Tooluka 14y ago
A suggestion for the future: Implement an optional filter for the ratings so that it will show with five stars the range from 4* to 5*. 4.0-4.2 - one star (1.0-4.0 is also one star) 4.2-4.4 - two stars ... 4.8-5.0 - five stars This is because most people can't comprehend how to rate generally good things but which are not perfect on the absolute scale. Relative scale is an even harder concept. This method won't help of course so in the future you'll need to distinguish so people as "experts" (this is a human task, it can't be awarded statistically - by a number of reviews or anything similar). After that implement separate rating for them. Even that won't fix biased reviews but will mitigate them considerably. The task of implementing good rankings is a very hard one.
- jspaulding 14y ago
  What if I were to just go ahead and list the rating as 4.2 or 4.8 and not show star symbols at all?

Much needed, thanks for making it.

Is there a way to link to external reviews? I've reviewed both Introduction to Databases (http://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-on-line-learning-done-well/ http://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-...) and Design and Analysis of Algorithms Part I (http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms-course/ http://henrikwarne.com/2012/05/08/coursera-algorithms-course...)

jspaulding 14y ago
That's a great question and the answer is not now. However it seems like there certainly should be. Maybe users could enter a URL for their review as a substitute for the review text. I will follow up with you if/when this is available.
- henrik_w 14y ago
  OK. I've copied them in for now.

henrik_w 14y ago

It would also be good with a "Was this review helpful"-button a la Amazon, so the reviews can be ordered according to helpfulness.

jspaulding 14y ago
Agreed. Was thinking to take a few features from Amazon :)
russelluresti 14y ago
Agreed, this would be a nice feature to add.

carlsednaoui 14y ago

This is pretty cool, let me know if you want to partner up - I built http://coursebacon.com/ http://coursebacon.com/ as a side project and it seems that we're both trying to solve the same pain. Email is in my profile.

archgoon 14y ago

I would like to thank you for building this. With the large number of courses currently being offered, evaluation of the courses is valuable not just to prospective students, but for the course organizers and instructors themselves.

gwillen 14y ago

It's a rare "show HN" that shows me something I really needed, and which has clearly been done well. Kudos.

slykat 14y ago

This will probably be hard to do in the short term but if MOOCs take off it would be good to actually verify if the reviewer actually has taken the course. I think that's one key issue with Yelp - there is no verification of reviewers so there are a lot of spam issues : http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/obama-gets-a-lift-on-the-trail/ http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/obama-gets-a-l... Maybe you can talk to the Udacity/edX/Coursera guys to get some kind of API access? Regardless, this is awesome - I've taken two courses on Udacity, and love it so far. However, there has been an explosion of courses offered so it would be nice to have tools like this to help me filter.

jspaulding 14y ago
I agree that fake reviews could easily be a nasty issue on Yelp and other sites. In this case I'm not particularly worried about it.. but only time will tell. API access could be good for a variety of reasons though :)

tzs 14y ago

The big banner headline on the page just says reviews for Coursera, Udacity, and EdX. That might mislead people into thinking that is all that is there. Perhaps there should be something that that indicates that others are also included?

jspaulding 14y ago
Yes probably

Tooluka 14y ago

A suggestion for the future: Implement an optional filter for the ratings so that it will show with five stars the range from 4* to 5*. 4.0-4.2 - one star (1.0-4.0 is also one star) 4.2-4.4 - two stars ... 4.8-5.0 - five stars This is because most people can't comprehend how to rate generally good things but which are not perfect on the absolute scale. Relative scale is an even harder concept. This method won't help of course so in the future you'll need to distinguish so people as "experts" (this is a human task, it can't be awarded statistically - by a number of reviews or anything similar). After that implement separate rating for them. Even that won't fix biased reviews but will mitigate them considerably. The task of implementing good rankings is a very hard one.

jspaulding 14y ago
What if I were to just go ahead and list the rating as 4.2 or 4.8 and not show star symbols at all?