Over the New Year’s Day holiday weekend, as 2024 began, I contemplated what I expect to be an Artificial Intelligence (AI) onslaught in the coming years, and what to do about it. Having worked roughly three decades in Information Technology, I didn’t want to find myself prematurely retired from the workforce when the opportunity exists to absorb and use AI to continue creating value for as long as possible. Curiously, I asked an AI source – Microsoft Copilot – where I could learn more about AI. The number one answer was the online training site, Coursera.
I signed up, and within a day, I’d completed three courses by Google: Introduction to Generative AI, Introduction to Large Language Models, and Introduction to Responsible AI. Together the three made up what was called at the time, ‘Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization.’ From Coursera’s Accomplishments page, I was able to easily add certificates for the three courses and the learning path specialization to my LinkedIn profile. And with that, I was sold. I subscribed to the Coursera Plus Monthly Subscription, currently priced at $52.11/month with tax in my locale.
A couple of quick actions followed. On the personal front, I started taking more courses via Coursera, choosing next: IBM’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. I vowed to get 52 training certificates this year, an average of one a week, on topics such as AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. Currently in week 13 as I post this, I’m still on track and ahead of schedule.
As the leader of an IT team, I very much want my team to come along for the ride on this AI adventure. In addition to my attempts at persuasion, I worked with our company to take the nominal financial burden out of the equation so that all could get started. Several have. So far, so good.
And then Coursera, despite their great library of training content, began deteriorating for me as a resource. It began with the Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization that I mentioned earlier. The certificate’s validation link stopped working. My best guess is that Google sunset this particular learning path and removed it from the system, breaking every prior student’s ability to validate their certificates. On February 20th, I opened a Coursera Support case #04498990, but it was never fixed. To this day, the learning path exists in my Coursera profile, but with empty parenthesis around what used to contain the vendor name, Google Cloud. When I click on View certificate, I get an error page that begins with, “What an interesting discovery! You’ve found a page that doesn’t exist!” OK, that’s annoying, but one broken certificate isn’t the end of the world.
On February 26th, I noticed that I could no longer view Coursera’s Accomplishments page at all. This is kind of a big deal because the Accomplishments page gives users the ability to add completed certificates to their LinkedIn profile in a single click. Even today, when I click on Accomplishments, I get an error screen saying, “Oops! Something went wrong,” and not much else.
So, I opened up a second support case #04508875. Coursera advised that I clear my browser cache and cookies, try an incognito tab, try a different browser, etc. None of which worked. Soon I was told that Coursera’s engineering team was aware of the issue and that they were working on a fix. My case was closed.
I realized that I could at least download completed certificates from Coursera still, which was something. Meanwhile, I tried a couple of courses on LinkedIn Learning instead.
But I wanted Coursera to work as intended. So, on March 17th, I opened up another support case, #04551122. Coursera’s most recent response on March 18th is, “I am glad to share that this issue has already been reported to our engineering team, who is currently working to find a fix.”
Very recently, I noticed that a learning path that I never earned has appeared on my Coursera profile: Generative AI for Product Managers Specilization [sic] (SkillUp EdTech). I guess if they’re going to take away credit for one learning path, giving me one that I hadn’t earned is fair? But it doesn’t say much for their data integrity. When I click on View certificate, I get, “What an interesting discovery! You’ve found a page that doesn’t exist!”
Now I’m starting to get frustrated. Coursera’s got a winning idea. They combine online training from as many companies and institutions as possible and make it available to a broad audience at a reasonable price. It could be said to democratize specialized training and make it accessible to most. But I can’t seem to get past the frequent and varied issues that I’m having. Certificates shouldn’t expire and be unverifiable less than two months after they’re earned, regardless of what Coursera’s content partners do. Other certificates shouldn’t appear on my profile out of nowhere. The Accomplishments page shouldn’t break for over a month and counting, with no resolution in sight.
So, while I very much advocate online training on AI and other topics, I can no longer recommend Coursera at this time. I hope that changes. I hope that they figure out their technology problems. I hope that I can once again recommend them in good conscience. If that happens, I’ll post an update in the same places that I post this.
I reached out to Coursera’s press e-mail address for comment several days prior to posting this but received no reply.
