The original question asked mentioned the brand name of the apps. I have removed the names of those apps for two reasons: (1) not to invite any meaningless comments and meaningless criticism, and (2) not to give any inadvertent publicity to those companies.

Before you join any such courses, you must answer the following questions:

1. Is the course recognized by industry?
2. Is the course recognized by government?
3. Is an alternative to the course available which is from a university or govt recognised body?
4. Does the course increase your skills?
5. Does the course have enough exercises, projects and exams to test your understanding?
6. Is the course accepted in-lieu of traditional degrees?
7. How many people completing the course from a particular company have been employed or can be employed by the same company from which you want to do the course?
8. What is the qualification and experience of those who will teach the course? Do they have any commercially available or open-source product? Have they published any work in reputable international journals? What are their associations with professional bodies in the same discipline?
9. How many students are enrolled for the course, how many pass and how many do not succeed? Yes, if you want to judge the reputation of a course/exam, it is important that some students donot pass those exams.
10. What percentage of students actually complete the course and why is the percentage so low / so high?
11. What is the recognition of the company or institution from which you plan to do the course?
12. Are the fees comparable with what you would pay if doing a course from more recognized courses?
13. Can you pay the fees in installments, so that as the course progresses you can decide whether you want to continue and pay the balance fees.

Once you answer these questions, you will reach the conclusion.

If you ant to do online courses, please look at well-established, and recognized courses from IGNOU, NPTEL and SWAYAM.

Please share what are your views on this.

Categories: Blog, Courses, education

Tags: app-based courses, IGNOU, nptel, online certification, online courses, online degree, SWAYAM