Low-cost online courses in film and media studies: do they work?

Alexander, I. (2015) Over 30,000 students took these online film and media courses Film Industry Network, November 17

I haven’t been following Udemy, the former MOOC provider which has now moved to offering more vocational online courses, but I was interested in this article, which lists the 10 most popular online courses offered in film and media studies.  Udemy offers a number of these courses, but it is also facing strong competition from Masterclass, another provider of low cost, not-for-credit, online courses.

The average cost of a film and media studies program at a university in the USA is around $30,000. Udemy is offering courses in this domain from $300 downwards, some as little as $10 as promotional courses. However, this excludes the cost of the necessary equipment, which the article estimates at around $5,000.

Nevertheless there are huge savings to be made by going for these very low cost online courses. For instance, in the Masterclass series, you can learn acting from Dustin Hoffman, or tennis with Serena Williams, for as little as $90, through five hours of video lessons.

Most of the Udemy lessons on these courses are very short videos (less than six minutes each), although there are lots (50 in Udemy’s Facebook Marketing course, for example). Courses range in length of study, but are mainly in the range of two to ten hours each. Udemy offers a certificate for successful completion of these courses.

Comment

I have mixed feelings about these offerings. I can see that for people who want to dabble in the field or want to top up on their knowledge of a particular topic, such as Twitter marketing, or are interested in film or media production as a hobby, these courses are extremely good value. In particular, the Masterclass courses seem an excellent deal.

However, it’s hard to see how this would qualify anyone to work professionally in the field. There is no feedback from or interaction with the instructor, and no quality assessment of what has been learned.

So as always with MOOCs and their variations, there are large numbers of people who will get something they value from such courses. However, to pretend that such programs will enable people to get a well-paid, professional job in film and media on these qualifications alone is highly misleading. So it all depends on how they are marketed. Udemy walks quite close to the line on this.

However, I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has taken these courses. What was your motivation? Were you satisfied? What would you recommend to others thinking of taking such courses?