I found this course very exciting and informative!! I learned a great deal about valuing ecosystem services and its complex challenges. I will highly suggest this course to fellow learners!

Interesting course which gives a good overview of Ecosystem Services as a method and concept. The course does a great job of incorporating both supportive and critical voices on the topic.

Great, great course.

If you do not have geography knowledge will be difficult the last case and modelling with the softwares, but you'll do it.

Very important stuff to know:

1, It requires you to do a previous Standfort course (free), so that's a 2x1.

2, This course it is highly mind blowing for economist, policy makers, activist, financial and statistician people.

3, Instructors are great and some of them are la creme dela creme, so enjoy them!

I already had some educational background in ecosystem services prior to this course. The lecturers did thoroughly discuss the ethical implications of monetization over other, more implicit methods of ecosystem services valuation (although they were not as clear as they could have been with those terms, for example referring to "ecosystem services" as a method rather than a term to describe environmental impacts on humans that implies a specific mindset towards the environment). However, the class was poorly organized in that it consisted of a basket of case studies and interviews rather than building from a theoretical foundation. My hope was that this course would provide more technical detail, especially with regard to valuation methods and GIS. I was most interested in the optional module 6 and ended up learning only basic skills with QGIS from it. I'm glad I did not pay for this course, because it was not worth $49.

An interesting course on understanding several ecosystem services more in-depth, as well as the ways these are quantified. I personally enjoyed also the critical perspectives at the concept

Good overview of what is involved in ES work. Would have been more helpful to learn some of the data gathering techniques or have more solid practice with methods for assessing ES. Also would have liked required reading that paired along with the sections. Each section was way too short and watching intro and outro was frustrating. Did not like the interviews mostly because of the way they were shot and the Professor asking questions seemed under prepared and just looked down at his papers...

Excellent course. Very informative, motivating, eye-opening and thought-provoking. Highly interesting subjects addressed. Well-lectured (clear, understandable voices) which is seldom enough to be mentioned. Technically sound also (audio-graphisms-photography) which is important. Most of all, highly respectful of students learning needs, making it enjoyable to/for all learning levels.

Interesting contradictory debates among teachers/lecturers; definitely an innovative approach for a MOOC!

Nothing but videos and the videos were long. Way too long.

It's great to learn about ecosystem services, as it interdiciplinary field that combine biological science, economic, and social science too. The materials provided are just awesome and insightful. The discussion prompts and peer-reviewed assignments are pushing the learners to reflect their understanding upon the materials. However, some materials maybe need to be updated.

An interesting course to learn about the emergence, context, beliefs, methods, experiences and risks of the economic approach to ecological functions. It is well done, with a lot of engagement by the teaching staff, especially Dr. Schlaepfer. Sometimes a little bit to talkative, sometimes a little bit to partial or ideological, sometimes missing of forgetting that there exist other proved integrative approaches to the (e)valuation of ecologic functions – like the verbal argumentative approach in Germany’s landscape planning and EIA - and that most of the nature conservation we can observe today – from the 19^th Century on - was achieved by other than economic or monetary reasoning. I would like to suggest: (first) including a better substantiation of the ecological foundations of the approach considering that the implicit assumption of nature as “capital” offering “services” has a really weak conceptual base; (second) to profound on the issue of our limited capacity to discount the future where I see an interesting option to apply economic thinking to nature conservation; and (third) to include a more modern approach to decision making in political institutions. Since the 1970’s we know in policy analysis pretty well that decision making is conditioned by consensus-conflict-processes and that information processing - even sophisticated one as proposed in the course - is considered in decision making only if it fits to the results of consensus-conflict processes. Kind regards and thanks very much.

Very disappointed with this one! From the sleepy experts talking with monotonous voices about things that much of the time felt out of place. It seems that every single lecture was more or less an improvisation. I think I'd rather see something a bit less haphazard. Also, much of the focus of the course lay on NATCAP. Often it feels like a very boring advertisement for NATCAP. I would not recommend it.

Excellent! I would really like to thank all the teachers, for their excellent pedagogy, who participated in the development of this wonderful MOOC. I loved this combination of theory and the practical examples offered. Indeed, I have been more than enriched by the different modules and I am delighted to see that the environmental problem is not left behind in the sustainable development objectives. I know today what ecosystem services are and what are its scientific (technical) aspects, its economic and socio-political dimensions. However, the economic approach does not seem to me to be a solution, either short, medium or long term, when we look at the history of neoliberalism.

Again "Thank you" for the opportunity of this training which changed my mentality. Now, I will focus on reading the documents I have been able to download on ecosystem services and supplement the knowledge acquired in this MOOC.

To all those involved in this MOOC, I renew my thanks, my respect and my gratitude.

I thank all the Instructors at the University of Geneva for sharing their valuable expertise in the ecosystem services field in this very interesting, informative, and well-organized course. Learning about the ecosystem services method and its applications, mainstreaming, valuation of ecosystem services and biodiversity, incorporating ecosystem services in decision-making, remote sensing, and future scope of the field provided me a new perspective. I also thank all the Experts from various organizations for sharing their expertise and valuable insights from their experience of working on various aspects of the ecosystem services field, including valuation and implementation.

Found the course to be very educational and interesting. The concept of ecosystem services itself appears to be the most obvious development strategy once you hear about it., which makes it very surprising that it does not crop up more often. The course is well structured and gives a good insight into the idea of how ES operates and the challenges that it faces. Plenty of support material to help for additional reading. One issue I faces was with respect to the peer graded reviews. I feel that the information that the assignment asks for is worded in a different way from what is expected (as can be seen from the rubric system that is revealed later)

A strong course, may be not for absolute beginners, but for interested generalists with some understanding about conservation, ecosystem services climate change or related fields, or medium advanced specialists a comprehensive immersion in the ES world. Lots of accompanying material which is made available allows for deepening of course subjects and makes definitely appetite for more .

A great thank you to the instructors, they are passionate specialists in their field, who managed to achieve the most difficult for specialists - to explain their subject matter attractively, clearly, and relatively simple, without lowering academic standards.

This is the best course I have completed so far on Coursera. The course is pitched at a level which is challenging and engaging, unlike some others which can be very basic. It has a range of engaging speakers, and the diversity of the case studies used to illustrate the teachings of the course is superb. The part of the course that I enjoyed most was that it is not simply an introduction to a topic, but a critical, academic discussion on the progress, merits and potential future of a divisive and intriguing concept. Well done to all involved in creating this MOOC and I will certainly use courses from this provider again!

very thorough. Good definitions of ecosystem services (ES) and related concepts. Looked at Case Studies also. Critical review of the strengths and weaknesses throughout by a variety of experts - from environmental scientists to economists to philosophers to policy-makers. Also explains how to model ES and the final week, week 6, even talks you through how to create your own ES using state-of-the-art software!!! Could not recommend enough. Only non-positive thing is conversion of existence->value->monetary value actual mechanisms could have been explored a little more (although the concepts are extensively discussed).

finally the right time for me to take the course 4 years post-production... as some say this COVID pandemic is one of Nature's way of rebalancing itself in relation to us humans

thank you for a very good offering, with very refreshing, very relevant, very resonating honesties* that are familiar in the academic world... as i search for a job/career in environmental protection

*including challenges in bridging honesty/academia/objective science in non-isolated, real world

my course notes on my google drive link: (https://drive.google.com/file/d/12joHXIDEKYJL74UYcwflZKjJsDHA5Qap/view?usp=sharing)

I found this course very interesting and well structured. Professors were clear, quizzes were coherent . It helped me in understanding the framework which I work in. It looks like ESS approach is mainstreaming within myself! Anyway, I have experienced reviewing issues from colleagues who clearly did not read the small papers and rate lowest point (I don't understand the kind of competition). What I do understand is that the Professors and the Admin cannot do anything about that, so I just hope other colleagues will be more serious and fair players.

Me pareció muy interesante el formato del curso, las charlas son cortas y el incluir estudios de caso y entrevistas lo hace muy dinámico. El tema en si es bastante nuevo pero este curso le da dicho dinamismo, mostrando ideas contrarias para formar una nueva versión de afrontar esta temática. Las lecturas asociadas también son muy interesantes, si sería bueno incluir nuevas resultados que se hayan tenido respecto a los casos tratados en los ejemplos para poder evidenciar que resultados se vienen obtendiendo de este tema.

Outstanding MOOC. I gain a lot of new idea, concepts, learned approaches and practical discssions takig place nowadays. I have a mch cleared ideas of how I can contribute to mainstreaming natural capital, ecosystem services making justice to nature, human beeing and keeping in consideration diverse stakeholders needs and ways of thinking. I would do it again and again.

Loved the settings of each smal modules. And I had fun as well! Lerning has been fun and engaging. Well done team!

The ES approach should be developed with well planned scenario, sophisticated data, yet simple presentation to gain easy understanding from important stakeholders in decision making process anywhere in this world. I have gained best critical thinking experience through this course and confidently going forward on this effort of mainstreaming ES. Thank you very much for all lecturers, panelists and practitioners in this course for sharing knowledge, experience and enlighting thoughts.

Excellent course, very interesting but also in depth and thorough

Introduces not only the methods of Ecosystem Services but also the debate around the use of ecosystem services and how valuable they are and can be to improving the relationship between people and the environment.

The professors are also excellent and engaging; it is a very well-thought out course and I can only recommend it to anyone who is interested in environmental protection or in environmental policy.

Es un curso muy importante para la correcta toma de decisiones que afectarán a las generaciones futuras. Brinda un enfoque muy novedoso para evaluar todos los beneficios y los efectos negativos que puede generar un proyecto particular. Lo recomiendo ampliamente para profesionales de las políticas públicas, economistas y personal dedicado a las ciencias sociales ya que estos juegan un papel muy importante en los cambios de paradigma que se tienen que dar en el siglo XXI

Great course to dive into this new concept at the cross border of Economics, Conservation and Policy Making. The course is well balanced, starting with more theoretical concepts, then addressing the criticism heard from professionals of the sector, and then reflecting upon the next steps.

Only regret is the impossibility to download all slides (presentations material from all courses) in one package so that you can follow the course by annotating those slides.