Comentários e feedback de alunos de Osteoarchaeology: The Truth in Our Bones da instituição Universidade de Leiden

This is an awesome course but they have the cheesy "Peer-Reviewed" assignments. Even if you get 100% on the quizzes you still must do peer reviewed assignments. The course is basically impossible because the other "learners" are assholes who give you 3/5 and fail your ass.

This course is very interesting with well thought-out content that involves the student very actively from the first lesson. The assignments are challenging but also very exciting. I consider is a unique innovation in MOOC courses. The professor give excellent information interspersed with interesting case studies. Unfortunately, there was no interaction in my iteration of the course, or any apparent involvement whatsoever, from any TA's or mentors. All questions remained unanswered (except by other students), and frustrated calls for help and advice were ignored. The majority of the course's mark (60%) is determined by fellow students using a rubric which leaves little true 'wiggle room' between pass and fail marks. The mystery cases on which we worked during the course were never 'resolved' or explained in any way, which would have been nice after the effort that went into them. I would recommend the content of the course 'for fun' but if anyone is looking for an accurate assessment of material learned, try another course.

Positive: Very interesting and informative lectures and subject matter.

Negative: Fellow "students" who have no knowledge of the subject (other than what they themselves are learning) are required to submit case studies for "peer review" by other students who have no more knowledge of the subject than they do. These case studies are heavily weighted and if the person is reviewed negatively (for whatever reason), they must resubmit it never knowing why they were given low scores or what the correct answer should have been. No instructor assistance is given. Huge turn-off for me and many of my fellow students. I want to withdraw (drop) this class and take another with more clearly drawn parameters.

While the course is very interesting, I found the peer review process unsatisfying. I did not enjoy grading others without knowing if I was right. Grading a fellow student on their accuracy when I don't know if they are actually wrong is something I never want to do again. After completing the course, I had hoped to learn if any of my assignments were actually correct. I am disappointed in the outcome.

Love the content, tutorials etc. but the peer review way of marking is not fair.

I unfortunately withdrew because of this. I & others were never going to succeed. This is because peers who are also having problems, not sure of what they are doing are the ones marking the assessments.

Not giving refunds after the 2 week cut off is also unfair. This must be how you make your money for these free courses.

The peer-review rubrics need adjustments.. it's very hard to grade anyone this way. Especially when the answers are just wrong.

The staff/teachers/instructors CAN BE A LOT MORE INVOLVED ON THE FORUM!

Dejar la evaluación en manos de otros alumnos me parece vergonzoso, he tenido que repetir el curso tres ediciones hasta conseguir que alguien revisara mis trabajos. Como consecuencia, he recibido mi certificado más tarde y no he podido adjuntarlo a mi curriculum. Deberían cambiar esta metodología. Por otra parte, el precio me parece un poco excesivo para el contenido del curso. No lo recomendaría.

This course was amazing. The videos, the assignments, the extra- readings were very good. I also loved the lectures of Andrea Waters Rist. I enjoyed this course on the whole.

I like the course, things are quite clear and straightforward. I particularly like the fact that you need to do some work yourself, with the mysteries. You need to practice what you learned rather than just read a course. I am going to university as a mature student where I will study archaeology but eventually, I would like to work in osteology/osteoarchaeology. This is one of the reasons I did this course.

What I like less about it, is that peers have to review your work. Now, I have not had issues personally (I passed with 92.5%). But there is so much wriggle room with wrong/right answers and we are not trained in properly grading work.

The other thing I didn't really like is the fact that there is no help available. There is a forum, but there are no longer any volunteers who can help with questions and issues (course work-wise).

These last 2 things are the reason I have given it 4* instead of 5*.

The Good: the course is well-prepared while remaining agile. I enrolled for fun, to learn the basics of osteoarchaeology and, in that respect, it delivers what promised. I also like the format of the assignments 'reconstruct a mystery', where you are applying what learned to a real case. The course also contains some interviews with researchers, showing you typical research in the field. In that respect, the course would deserve 5 stars.

The Bad: The course is on autopilot, there is no TA or mentor intervention on the forum. None, really. You and fellow learners are on your own. Also, 40% of the grade comes from quizzes (relatively-too?-easy) and 60% from the 5 peer-reviewed assignments, which involve writing a report analysing some pictures and data on some bones. These are problematic in several respects. Being largely evaluated by people who are beginners is a gauge of 'randomness' in the evaluation. Also, several times you get a score unrelated to the comment (E.g. "Excellent work!" with average score...), so they are not constructive. Few people are involved, which means be ready to wait for weeks to get your evaluation. Most of these assignments rely on quantitative conclusions which could be assessed via a serious quiz, rather than left to random judgments. Third: there are no notes of the course or introductory textbook available. Some of the advanced references are behind paywall. This is a very, very bad point, especially for remote learning. Fourth and minor point: The course contains some extra material/discussion (like science and religion in week 1) which is frankly unrelated to the theme and unjustified. Overall, these aspects would suggest a one star score. Hence the three stars is an average...

That said, especially if you do not care about evaluations and the certificate and just take it for learning, I would recommend the course.

I enjoyed this course so much! I learned a lot and I will looking for more courses in the same field.

The lectures, extra videos, and the invited guests explaining a bit about their work were some of the best I've seen in a MOOC. Perhaps I missed my calling when I didn't study osteoarcheology.

This is an awesome course and I'd love to see a followup course.

Congratulations on a fantastic job, Dr. Andrea Waters-Rist and team!

Wonderfull course, one of the best on Coursera that I have seen. Assignments give students opportunity to try actual methods of osteoarchaeology themselves. Quality videos and interesting case studies.

Very accessiblein terms of difficulty, very interesting case studies and thorough explanations. This complemented the practical summer course I had done a few years ago.

I absolutely love this course (and I haven't even finished yet - almost done with the final module). The instructors are great and there videos are very informative. The optional videos are great ways to better visualize the lecture courses. I thoroughly enjoy the challenge and experience working of each module assignment that culminates into one overall project/case. The assignments are thought provoking, and it is interesting to see the different approaches and conclusions that other's reach upon reading their work for peer review.

The only reason I gave this course 4/5 stars is because, as someone who doesn't have a background in Anthropology or Archaeology, there were times when the technical content was hard for me to conceptualize. I wish that there were reading assignments that can be read in preparation for an upcoming video or module. I think that available reading assignments would have significantly improved my learning experience and understanding of the lesson material.

The course is very interesting and you can see this since the beginning presentation. The topic is very well chosen because 1) clearly delimited topic dimension : beginner but with real and consistent scientific support ; 2) different source fields which are perfectly integrated : integration is focused on what really you need to fully appreciate the lessons and learn the basic ; 3) each module is fully complete (beginner dimension but fully developed) and the argumentation is really well directed ; 4) the 5 topics cover very different aspects of the field and really maintain high the interest in learning more (different topics allow the learner to "feel" complete every step of teh course ; 5) very good the accessorial lessons \ videos which add a fresh interaction with different teaching \ elaborating persons (the two assistents are very good and they appear to be strongly motivated (this due probably to Dr. Waters !). I really appreciated the course and the teachers and I look forward for more courses in the futures.

This course was excellent. THe lessons were broken down into sections that made learning more effective and they followed a natural procession. The case studies were fabulous in that they allowed you to pull all of the information together week to week and draw in evidence from earlier lectures and mysteries!. The Professor was excellent and enjoyable to listen to and all of the assistants and guest lecturers had a wealth of information. Every once in a while there was a case study in the list to review from either the alternate subject or from a different section of the course (so a previous class submission of a week 4 case study on our week 2) but otherwise the whole process ran smoothly. Thank you for the course.

This is a wonderful course for someone who knew absolutely nothing about osteoarchaeology or that osteoarchaeology is even a field! The lectures were stimulating and full of information - so much was new to me that I listened to all of them twice. The general format was perfect - a very good combination of lectures, discussions (the teaching assistants' information videos were very helpful), interviews, quizzes and homework assignments. The homework assignments were particularly useful in in helping me to absorb all of the information presented in the lectures, forums, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this class. Thank you so much for creating it.

I really enjoyed taking this online course, I found all the content very informative and the case studies of different forms of osteoarchaeological research included made it very interesting. I particularly liked the weekly 'solve the mystery' assignments which provided an engaging platform for us to apply the knowledge we had learned and put it to the test. The peer review system is also a great feature as this allowed me to observe how my peers went about answering the same questions, sometimes in a different manner to how I had gone about things. I found this a very insightful exercise! Thank you for providing this fantastic course!

Amazing course... what set this apart from other online learning experiences is the highly informational and instructional video content. This course was developed thoughtfully, allowing for various learning styles to be successful. Students are able to enjoy the experience of learning, and method engagement required is both fascinating and educational. The lead instructors of this course are highly engaging and present material with perfect clarity and purpose. I highly recommend this course and will be looking for more from this university and the authors.

I am taking this course over even though I passed all the assignments because it's so fascinating! If you have any interest in archeology, you should take this course! I also appreciate the open-mindedness of the instructor and her teaching assistants. It's a rare thing in today's world to find teachers who openly encourage you to look at the world from a religious viewpoint (if you are so inclined), as well as a scientific one, and to acknowledge that these two ways of thinking are not mutually exclusive.

This course provided me with a good foundation for the osteology and palaeopathology courses I'm taking this year in grad school. I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Waters-Rist's teaching style and found the overall MOOC to be a nice mix of theoretical lectures and practical exercises. I would fully recommend this course to anyone hoping to pursue a career in bioarchaeology, but it is just as accessible to those who are simply curious about what skeletal remains can tell us about past populations.

This course was really informative and thorough. I enjoyed it immensely. Discussion prompts with my fellow classmates resulted in a truly interesting and interactive experience. The only potential con I could let people know about, is that there are quite a few quizzes and assignments. These are necessary given the volume of information provided, but it does make this course more of a commitment on top of a full-time job, and other life stuff. Cheers! :)

¡Uno de los mejores curso online que he realizado!

Este curso ha cumplido mis expectativas totalmente, me ha enseñado más de lo que yo esperaba y ha hecho que me guste el estudio de los huesos animándome a aprender mucho más sobre este tema.

One of the best online course I've done!

This course has fully met my expectations, has taught me more than I expected and has made me like the study of bones by encouraging me to learn much more about this subject.

A wonderful course. I came to this with no prior knowledge and thoroughly enjoyed it. Although it was not easy, it was certainly do-able and a nice stretch. It encourages thought and is really well put together.

One improvement though would be the programme running behind it - it kept thinking I had missed coursework (when I hadn't) and asking me to resent my deadlines. Just a glitch that needs sorting out!

That aside, highly recommended.

The course is magnificent for people in and outside of the osteoarchaeology field. For beginners, it is a good way to know what our profession does and the multiple branches and data it might reach. To students of archaeology or biological anthropology, it is a good way to re-study the bases and learn minor details very important to us that could help us specializing in one of the many fields we have.