However helpful and interesting, there are many gaps here and there, but even more worrying is its structure, which in some point things seem to be all over the place, taking you from the obvious to rather complex things without any warning or even getting you off guard, specially if, like myself, you are totally new to many of the modern concepts of computing. The course should, on my humble opinion, keep this in mind, and try to take beginners "by the hand", at least for the most basic and important concepts, so that they get a strong basics foundation from where they can start building on and expand their new knowledge...

While I do like challenges and this course definitely presented one, I felt as though more detailed instructions and/or interactive labs instead of the usual quiz would help people gain a much better understanding. Supplemental readings on the various command lines in PowerShell and Linux can be overwhelming and I know many people struggled with the final tests. I am hopeful that the course administrators will someday utilize the virtual machines more so that you can effectively practice alongside what is being presented to you in the videos. Overall, I'm glad I was able to make it through with persistence!

Good course, very technical; almost a little too technical due to its overall lack of context. It was all quite interesting, but it was difficult finding the jumping off point at course two where the content picked up in course three...there seemed to be some kind of in-between course missing.

Also, the weekly qwiklabs would do better to build off each other while repeating more knowledge over again (i.e. week one = task A; week two = tasks A and B; week three = tasks A, B, and C, etc.) , than just jumping from topic to topic with a large wrap-up of everything at the end.

Best,

John Marshall

I experienced a bug in the Windows-VM-based labs, and no one I contacted in support was able to help me. I ended up accidentally figuring out a solution myself (I had to continuously press the ALT key in order to get my typed text to show up in PowerShell).

I guess that is on-brand for a tech support certification, but it is unsettling to me when I think of how I have already put $500+ into this certification and no one could help me ensure that I hadn't just thrown that money away. It makes me less likely to trust Coursera with a significant investment of funds in the future.

I really wish there were more practice problems using command lines and linux. I had a difficult time grasping those concepts by watching. For those instances I think doing would be more appropriate since in the work environment it'll all be hands on. I think there should be hands on assignments in every module so that when it's time to do the graded assessments the students have a better understanding. Concepts were fine, but having to go through notes and remember how to type out lines was frustrating and made the end of course assessments more difficult.

A pretty nice introductory course to the Linux OS, terminal and Windows PowerShell/other admin utilities!

Nothing is particularly difficult if you have been exposed to basic troubleshooting in either of these systems for some time.

Some of the labs are a little clunky and mostly just review what you just watched the instructor do, rather than explore deeper into the principles. That is to say, they don't really push the boundaries of your knowledge. They are still good learning exercises if you're not the type to usually "follow along" with learning videos.

I learned a lot in this course but it was very hard to see what the instructor was typing into the command line much of the time. Sometimes she read the command aloud and that helped a lot. Other times I had to pause, rewind, pause, and repeat several times to catch the command. This is especially true for Linux. I also found that most of the commands ended up being useless in regards to the tests and final. I ended up just googleling how to do what the tests asked me to do and then using those commands instead because the course ones didn't work.

The instructor was great, the material is important, interesting and good for a beginner. the labs are, well sometimes they absolutely don't work, sometimes they have misleading instructions, sometimes you just have to copy and paste things and don't learn anything because the previous videos never even mentioned the commands you have to use, and they don't explain it either in the lab. my favorite is the last lab, were you have to remember the command from the first course, because if you try what you've learned in this course, it won't work.

I enjoyed this course, an equal amount of time was spent on various topics, but a significant amount of practice will be required to master these skills. I am fortunate to have experience with system and user administration so it was a great refresher course. There were faults with the Qwiklabs exercises during week 3, that support was not able to resolve. Then in week 5 I was referred to week 3 to complete a task so the material was out of date and Coursera was not helpful, they quickly dismissed me to qwiklabs with no sympathy whatsoever.

As a first time to be introduced to Linux I feel that the course was not detailed enough. When I got to the final lab I struggled with the correct syntax and when I tried to revisit the courses what was needed was not clear. It seemed that the lab was asking me to do things that were failing, with the Windows one I was unable to update the software, and I tried many different ways. With the Linux lab I completed all of the 5 requirements and still was only able to get 80% and I am unsure why or what I was doing wrong.

The information in this course is very important. Coursera and Google need to work on the presentation and how Qwick labs are used in this course. Several of the direction items in Qwick labs are incorrect and confusing, and there are very few ways to get good information to complete the labs. Also, much of the presentation could be done in a much more activity-driven way rather than just reading what you are doing on the screen. In week 4, the quick labs have bad directions, and in week 6 have bad directions.

Far too much for a beginner to remember well enough to finish in under one hour. I can't help but wonder if this might be a 'bottleneck' where a lot of students get hopelessly stuck and lost and are forced to give up. I appreciate y'all's efforts, it's just that repetition is the mother of all learning, and these tasks were only touched upon. Even if the course has to be made longer, it's vital to guide beginners through a lot of repetition and practice before expecting them to do a lab such as this. Thank you

A decent intro course, but don't expect to have mastered anything when finished. The course doesn't offer enough challenges and opportunities to practice what it teaches. The week 6 lab was how all the labs should have been. It gives you an opportunity to apply the lessons being taught in an enviroment that doesn't completely spoon feed you everything and allows you to play and experiement. This course could be so much more, but unfortunately decides to appeal to everyone and keep it on easy mode.

5 stars for Cindy and the way she explains the information and 3 stars for the webpage, it is horrible. It would be better to have the video pop out of the page, and the coach logo (bottom right corner) is in the way of the transcript, you need to add a minimize button or hide option for that or keep it to the left with the module information if we need the coach, please redesign the page configuration so that video can be popped out of the webpage. thank you.

This course was particularly lacking in presentation. The slides used in videos were often on word on an otherwise blank white background and were sometimes even single punctuation marks, with no title or supporting text to explain the single word (or punctuation mark). There were several errors in the videos, glitchy labs with poor instruction (lab 6 especially) and at least one test that had contradictory instructions resulting in a wrong answer.

The course is an overview of Operating Systems and has good information. However, many of the labs were ill-constructed and difficult to understand and navigate. Further, some of the tasks in the labs were not covered in the course. I rated the labs and sent feedback on these areas. Prior to beginning one, I read many students' reviews and they had the same to say. I feel the labs need to be reviewed for accuracy of information and instruction.

It was OK. The Windows labs frankly made it a pretty miserable experience. From logging in frustrations to actual frustrations with the way the labs failed constantly. I realize that this is an entry level course but it seemed like most of the meat of the course was in the readings and not covered in the lectures. It really should be labelled Becoming a Basic Problem Solver not a power user. I enjoy these courses but this one, not so much.

Very disorganized structure of course presentation, too much useless information that has nothing to do with lesson/subject. Also, what kind of reputation coursera has when so called "instructor" said: "sorry i just lied to you few seconds ago"?, also there was some misleading instruction in videos, when I was trying to follow them.. it just DIDN'T WORK!!!!! I hope that you will improve explaining the materials better and efficiently.

Useful information that was taught fine, but the labs made the learning process seem frustrating. You'd learn a lot of useful information in the lectures, but when you reached the labs, it was normally something simple, like creating a folder or moving a file. It didn't help that the labs themselves were frustratingly broken at times. Starting a 60 minute lab and not being able to access it for ten minutes was very, very annoying.

Some of the labs were difficult to understand at first. Tried talking to my dad for clarification. Then I turned to the web and looking back at some of the labs to understand what to do. Still got lost and checked around again. Found what needed to be done. But in the end, got everything else done. Overall, I would say make the instructions in all the labs more clearer. Otherwise people will get lost and not know what to do next.

The instructions were good.; but I found something wrong with the labs. the Week 6 labs were glitched. I know the commands but somehow the labs said that the files in question were not present. I tried for 40 mins to change file permissions; but got the file directory not found. To terminate a process, had a hard time finding the pid, and when I did, pid was not found or didn't have permission for the termination.

The Qwiklabs!!! they can be the worst. So much wasted time to try and get those things to get scores correct. They give you an hour or more to do the lab but it takes like 30 mins to get the lab setup. You have to sit and wait for the VM to load all the content and sometimes they are missing content.

so if you start this course look at the forums before each lab and see what others are doing to get the passing scores

all the command line stuff was glossed over...which is fine, you can do the same stuff probably faster than typing with gui anyway. but really, a lot of the flags and commands werent even mentioned except cut and paste for the exercises. fair introduction but definitely wont stick. ill still have to look up commands if i want to use command line, which i dont. and a basic IT support person probably wont either.

This is a critical component but I found that the supporting lectures were not as organized or as evenly covered as expected. The courses should come with downloadable documentation to support self-study and practice. The Google presenters are very good but the problem-solving approaches are not covered enough in detail to practice or apply. This is the biggest gap in the course design and training so far.

Enjoying this course, but it is badly let down by the graded assignments. None of the Qwiklabs work very well at all. You can see from the forums that so many people have the same issues over and over again but nothing appears to be done about it. It tells you you've failed, even though you know you had 100% and if you close Coursera down and log back in, it's changed to a pass. It causes untold grief.