Research Methodology - Coursera and University of London

When I decided that I was going to spend some time doing some studying around my own interests instead of taking an £8K MA I did the research into what would be covered under a Masters degree because I wanted to base my studies around the core of a typical masters. It became obvious that research skills and research proposals are important nowadays. Research Methodology is a relatively new field and I knew nothing about it, so I looked on-line to see if there were any courses that could give me a grounding.

I found a free four week course offered by Coursera. Not, obviously, the same as undertaking an MA, but a basic grounding that I felt I could add to with reading. This seemed a good bet, as the course material is provided by the University of London. You are encouraged to pay £39 for a certificate that shows that you have completed the course, and which they say helps to support provision of free courses, but I could see no reason for doing so, as I will never need to prove to someone that I had done the course.

You are expected to spend a couple of hours each week watching some videos, doing some reading and producing some material. The reading material is relevant and I found it worthwhile reading. I read further, researching terms, and looking up concepts. When given the choice of one article out of three I read all of them, and made notes and mind maps. You can get quite a lot out of the course in the four weeks.

I found it interesting working through the exercises and so from that point of view you could say that it is a good course. However, as students mark and comment on each others work that you could get away with very poor understanding of the subject, added to which it became obvious that  a large number of students are cheating - which frankly isn't difficult. I have to be honest that I was disappointed in this, that both Coursera and University of London are prepared to put their names to something that is effectively worthless. No employer or college who knew this would be prepared to accept this qualification as something meaningful, it devalues it for those who have worked, and even if the certificate were free I wouldn't even both printing it out.