By Marina N
•Feb 20, 2021
This course needs to do some serious improvement work on the auto-grader and the exact instructions for what the auto-grader is expecting. I spent hours on incredibly stupid issues, like the Week 4 assignment needs a blank row on line four for the auto-grader to accept it. The discussion forums are full of confused students who know the material but can't get the auto-grader to pass, due to vague instructions. The video content is good and I enjoyed the teacher, but this course should really be removed from Coursera until the technical issues are fixed.
By Jakub D
•Feb 20, 2021
Amazing contents of the videos. The assignments are absolute disaster-it's such a pity.
By Heino H G
•Feb 5, 2021
There were simply too many technical issues with the jupyter notebook assignments. One should not have to modify hidden .config.ini files etc.
By Taegun P
•Feb 16, 2021
Many of the concepts covered by the lecture are vague and you'll need to refer to extra resources to understand what it's all about. Not to mention that the homework environments are broken and descriptions are misleading.
By Jose L F B
•Aug 23, 2021
While teaching material is progressive and suitable for an introductory course, a large part of the programming assignments have been poorly written or deliver incomplete instructions. This, together with the very scarce value of the automated grading tool - replies are hardly useable - makes it often impossible to understand the errors and causes a substantial waste of time, not proportionate to the complexity of the assignment itself. Moreover, the lack of replies from supervisors or instructors to the numerous queries posted by students seems to show that this course is running unattended. Coursera should seriously consider removing it from its portfolio, considering the very low return on investment for students.
By Rob H
•Aug 30, 2021
Do NOT waste your time taking this course. While the videos give you a good understanding, the submission components are broken. Additionally the first "week" is only about Linux commands and not related to HPC. This course needs a significant overhaul.
By Markus B
•Sep 19, 2021
In the video lectures, the instructor only reads out loud the text on the slides. However, the lectures are not so bad, although more detailed information would be very helpful. The quizzes are very easy (too easy?) and each quiz consists of ~5 questions. The programming assignments are also very, very basic. The actual task is to figure out what should be done and what the correct input format is. I spend >90% of my time reading compaints in the discussion threads hoping for clarification and only <10% of my time coding. Even questions that have been asked 3 months ago remained unanswered by the instructors who seem to be absent from the course. Luckily, some couse participants figured out what the instructors expect as a solution and shared this information.
In conclusion, this was the worst coursera course I have ever taken and I strongly suggest coursera to take action (either take this course offline or make sure it is improved).
By Wesley F
•Sep 30, 2021
This course is generally pretty good. The instruction is good and I didn't have trouble with most of the assignments. However, the instructions in the week 4 assignments aren't really clear about what is expected in order for a learner to pass.
The instructions for the Strong Scaling Study and the Weak Scaling Study should be: enter three lines in your submission file that represent what flags and parameters you would write after "mpiexec -np N ./scale.out" to complete the command for N=1,2,4. Basically, what X, Y and T should be used for N=1,2,4 depending on which scaling study you're conducting. Make sure that you press enter after the third line so that the total number of lines in the submission file is 4.
If the course facilitators could update the instructions for the Strong Scaing Study and the Weak Scaling Study to be more clear about what is expected, learners would like this course more and rate it higher. As it is right now, the instructions imply that you are to run the commands and submit the result to the grader, when in actuality, you are expected to enter the parameter part of the commands for each case of N=1,2,4 to pass the assignment.
By Drew G
•Feb 7, 2021
Good course. The lectures and interesting and the mini-cluster provides an excellent practice environment. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is because some of the assignment prompts are ambiguous and the autograder does not provide any helpful feedback on what you missed. I spent 3+ weeks trying to finish one assignment that should have taken a few hours. But the course is otherwise worth your while if you want a solid introduction to HPC.
By Oscar R S R
•Jun 8, 2021
A very good and interesting HPC introduction course!
By Christian B
•Oct 5, 2022
Course itself nice, exercises and what needs to be uploaded is a mess - luckily there are some hints in discussion threads from other frustrated participants.
By Reema G
•Sep 21, 2022
The videos are great but the assignments are not clear at all, it leads to a lot of waste of time, demotivation and not much gain of actual technical knowledge. It is understandable that auto graders are difficult to work with, but some course support would have been good.
By Denis B T
•Oct 16, 2021
There is no support in the course, do not expect someone helping you with the poorly written assignments.
By Jing Y
•Aug 16, 2022
The content is a good start for those who had little programing experience. The assignments drove me creazy. Exploring the discussion forum to see hints for assignments will save you a lot of time.
By Rob G
•May 13, 2022
Course information was valuable. The lack of feedback on submitting assigments is quite frustrating.
By Naveen M
•Sep 20, 2022
some assignment are not well described
By Shannon D
•Sep 6, 2021
this course was good except that the instructions for some of the assignments are super unclear, the discussion forum is full of people who have wasted hours on tiny little things that could only be found out y trial and error as the required solution for the grading bot doesnt match the assignment instructions. The course authors did not reply within the 3 months it took me to eventually pass all the assignments. so if you just wanna learn this course is good, but if you actually want the certificate and not be annoyed stay away! :)
By Theodore B
•Apr 21, 2023
Great introduction, very clear instructions, and assignments were manageable. Did require some extra reading outside the course to solidify some concepts for myself, but Dr. Knuth provides a solid, coherent base from which to explore further.
By Felix Z
•Dec 30, 2023
I really liked the course; it's not too difficult or too easy, but you still have to think carefully when solving the assignments. It's accessible for non-computer scientists without a relevant background to learn the basic concepts of HPC and parallel computing. My personal highlight was when I had to write a bash script that compiles and executes a parallelized Fortran program using the OpenMPI module and subsequently submit the job to the Slurm scheduler (which sounds more difficult as it is). Cool! The assignments could be improved by being more explicit and removing some minor mistakes in the provided files (see also the Discussion Forum). All in all, it serves as a great entry point for interested non-computer scientists.
By HS
•Mar 18, 2021
Good for an introduction of HPC concepts, but some lectures leave a lot to be desired. In some videos the instructor is just reading out what is written on the slide, without expanding or providing more context. Instructions for some of the assignments were confusing, the submission process was buggy. Thanks to all the students that contributed in the discussion forums where pointers like "add blank line at the end", "edit .config.ini file" etc. proved very valuable. I expected more for a course I paid $ to attend.
By Michelle W
•Apr 3, 2021
Great basic overview, I finally understand what IT is talking about in meetings. I also appreciate the overview of parallel computing and how to structure programs for best advantage. However, the coursera lab environment is buggy. So, I spent more time struggling to just submit the assignments, instead of understanding the assignment.
By KAPIL S
•Dec 9, 2021
Assignments : Lack of clarity in problem statement.
By Amee M
•Nov 19, 2023
Make something that would not waste people's precious time. Get better ways. Waste of time.
By QIULIN R
•Sep 18, 2022
cannot submit the first assignment without explanation
By John R
•Dec 20, 2023
Good course with good overview of HPC systems.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.