Quiz Questions and Issues
I realize that many of you have questions about some of the quizzes, are uncertain why certain answers are correct, feel that there may be bugs, technical issues and so on. This note is about these issues and how we'll try to address them when warranted.
First of all, please understand that this online course is entirely new, and creating quizzes for it is as much art as science. Given the deliberately inclusive and interdisciplinary nature of the course, it's impossible to know in advance what people will find easy or hard, what concepts will create confusion, and so on. The current quizzes are far from perfect, and are the least tested aspect of the course; in contrast, the lectures are based on years of teaching the material offline at Penn. So far we have refrained from trying to answer every question in detail, mainly because we were unsure how big a job this would be. But for at least the major points of confusion, it seems more feasible now, on which more below.
All this being said, here are some things we'll be trying to do to help out:
* I have asked the TAs for the Penn version of this course to monitor the discussion forums on a regular basis and try to respond to those threads that seem to express legitimate sources of confusion or problems, and have the most posts. By "regular" I don't mean immediate response; think more like daily. The TAs are named Hoda Heidari and Sneha Jha. They are full-time Penn graduate students with their own full load of coursework and research, and are doing this voluntarily, so please treat them with respect and patience.
* If we find actual "bugs" in quizzes, or questions we think need replacing or rephrasing, we will go ahead and do so. This means it's possible people who take a quiz later will see a different and improved version than those who took it earlier. This will of course be taken into consideration when considering certification (which again I anticipate awarding to all those who demonstrated mastery of the basic course concepts, and will definitely be done "on the curve", since the curve is my best guide to the utility of the quizzes).
* Apparently there were actually some technical issues at Coursera itself in the last day or so which may have caused some of you to see inconsistent feedback and results on quizzes. Coursera staff are fixing this, and say they will inform affected students via email.
In summary, please keep doing your best and being patient. Your constructive feedback will help us improve the quizzes for future instances of the course, and hopefully we'll address any major issues promptly.
Best
Prof Kearns
Sun 16 Sep 2012 2:59:00 PM PDT