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The content is excellent, and I like the idea of using organizational analysis models as "lenses" through which we can look at organizations, networks and situations.

The videos are well made, though the instructor is mostly reading from the provided PDF, which after some point I found more helpful than watching or listening to the videos. The provided PDF is very useful and contains lots of good content structured in a solid manner.

The examples used to highlight the presented theories are mediocre; they are often either far removed from most people's experiences (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis) or too education-focused or too US-centric; the instructor also often uses situations he faces in an academic environment as examples of applying the different theories, which is not interesting for people taking the course to better understand business organizations and/or people not currently enrolled in or considering employment in an academic institution.

The quiz at the end of each week is mostly good, as it builds on the questions posed while watching the videos, though it's possible to answer them by studying the course's PDF. Some questions in the quizzes test attentiveness rather than understanding.

The final quiz is, unfortunately, an exercise in memorization and reviewing the PDF content. There is simply too much nitty-gritty material covered across the 10 weeks of the course and there are too many contrasting theories and aspects to really be able to answer 117 multiple-choice questions in a row without questioning the point of it all.

IMO the many-question quiz is an outdated way of checking for obtained understanding and knowledge, and some of the questions don't really mean much outside of the context of the course. For example: fine, I know that theory A differs from theory B in some minute way mentioned in a video or documented in the PDF. It's however very likely that this difference will not be something I will remember months down the road or something that will impact my application of either theory, so why focus on this difference instead of applicability of the theories on various situations?

I applaud the fortitude and memorization skills of everyone who got 100% on it, though I cannot understand how that translates to proof of a better learning outcome than just barely passing and calling it a day, with the PDF as a useful reference to remember all the nitty-gritty.

For those wanting to dive deeper, the Screen-Side Chat videos are very useful and often more insightful than the main course videos in answering "what if" questions, and I strongly recommend them.

Overall, this is a very insightful and well-delivered course that was a good use of my time. It provided many "aha moments" related to my business experience in change and improvement initiatives, as well as regarding motivations of mergers, acquisitions, and general joint ventures. The course would benefit from a more application-focused and understanding-oriented means of checking the attendee's knowledge retention, but that's really nitpicking.

Unfortunately, not my favorite course. It did contain loads of information and theory names, but a little bit less of explaining. More often than during other courses I had to pause and go back or consult other sources to grasp the concepts (only to learn during the exam that it was still not enough ;) ). I also did not enjoy the reading (by the Professor) of the material - I would have rather preferred him telling in his own words and explaining along the way as it was during the SSC sessions; I do acknowledge though that this may be my own individual learning peculiarity. Also, the choice of examples sometimes seemed interesting; if the course if available worldwide, peculiarities of US educational system require a degree on its own (I am from Europe and had a tough time to figure out what the bottom line/ issue of the example would be..). However, I really do appreciate the amount of work that has been put into the material. Thank you!

Interesting course offering deep theoretical insight into the captivating world of organizations. The frameworks offered in this course provide anyone interested in the field or those thinking about taking some related undergraduate course with a good place to start their (continued) journey. As I have had the opportunity of studying in the United States during my exchange semester, the examples were not completely lost on me. For those also having spent most of their lives in Europe; the practical application of the theoretical frameworks are considerably centered around American affairs and cases. The forum offers some counterbalance, but whose participation and/or contributions are not necessarily of importance to the successful completion of the course. The quizzes were excellently interwoven with the lectures and recapped at the end of the week and provide you precisely with the tools and preparation to the final examination.

I found the course quite interesting as I could relate these theories to the Management Practices & Organisational behaviours that I am very familiar with. There are very insightful and powerful tools & information in these theories for the practising Manager.

Th only improvement I would suggest would be to teach the theories under "management concepts" so that it is easily relatable by working professionals. This means that each week (or module) covers a Management concept say - Decision Making or Resource Management or Managing culture etc. This way, you will attract lot of practitioners your online version of the Course. Otherwise, it appears to be just an exposition of a bunch of sociological theories about Organizations.

Highly recommended course. There is a lot to unpack here, immediately applicable yet with solid theoretical basis. I have learned to ask new questions, and learned to look at organizations from new, very different perspectives. I do think having work experience is an advantage. The course material is very good (reader, videos, transcripts), the lessons are well-presented. The one thing that keeps me from ticking that 5th star is the state of the discussion forum: it's basically dead. Not Stanford's fault, but as an interactive learning tool it's over.

The site lists '28 hours' as time investment, that is an underestimate - it's easily double that.

I thought the course was a start in the introduction of Organizational Analysis. I have reviewed the written text as part of this course - this is a feat, while I have many interdisciplinary comments, questions, critiques - some of the ideas could be clarified. I would elaborate more in the theories of Organizational Anarchies, Network Formations, and think about adding examples of buffering, bridging, and bonding. I've more questions in the development of organizational theories in implementation; thinking many gaps in the realm. Did different individuals write the quizzes?

Serves as a great, thorough intro to the academic field of organizational analysis. The professor puts organizes a ton of content and explains concepts very well.

That said, the course would have been much more useful if the forum were active, rather than all posts being 3 years old. Half the videos (the screen-side chats) are the professor responding to student discussion from earlier iterations of this course. I wish us later learners had that opportunity! As is, it's not hard to blow through this course with minimal real engagement with the concepts.

This course is really great to solidify the concepts about organizations as a whole. It digs in the academic as well as the pratical use cases. Only caveat is that it is too centered on examples from the teaching environment (shools) and public sector in the West. No perspective on organizations in other parts of the globe. It lacks a bit of examples from real life and there should be more tertimonies from third parties, videos, interviews. We have only one view here.

In spite of these limitations, I highly recommended it.

Professor is exceptional - great connections from theory to examples. Some technical glitches meant that I missed some of the nuances (not all is captured by the lecture transcriptions). For example, sound would stop after some of the mini-quizzes and I'd have to start the lecture over again. And some mini-quizzes popped up before all of the content had been covered. Much of the content is particularly more interesting and relevant now, in this COVID-19 environment.

Thank you for the opportunity!

A very informative course and definitely worth it - good job to all those involved!! (a bit hard going at times due to the pace vis-a-vis some of the theory topics).

The side chats expanded on practical application of the theories with examples which was very helpful. It may be worth updating the side chats with more recent questions and comments though as these are currently showing as 2012 and 2013.

I did find the course itself quite interesting and easy to follow. However the weekly forums were essentially dead, most of the posts were dating back months to years. The one or two recent posts did not result in any discussion. I am under the impression, there was any maintenance of the course content since 2013 at the latest.

Though the course is arranged and organized in a very smooth way. But often time during lectures, it gets boring. Too much verbal explanation, that often distract us from the main topic. But overall it was a good course and one can learn a lot from it. The teaching of the professor was awsum.

very well structured, the content is very interesting and the learning material is complete. However sometimes it's quite too heavy and the slides are too crowded. It can be very tiring but with some fine tuning it is a great course! Thank you for making it available to everyone on Coursera.

I learned a lot of interesting concepts in this course. The only thing that I would criticise is that, at times, I felt like some of the theories made up these kind of overly complicated categories to classify simple or intuitive things. But it was a good course overall.

Very good course with lots of content. Could be improved using different presenters and incorporating content other than the lectures. The final exam was almost impossible and took several attempts to complete. Needs to be less complex to make success more accessible.

After many years managing businesses, a good course to add some framework and theory around my acquired skills. Lecturer excellent and clear. Would like to see more examples from the corporate world as opposed to Educational/Governmental but overall very insightful.

This course provides in-depth knowledge about various theories and their applications to organisations in a comprehensible manner. The case examples further provide clarity and application of the theoretical concepts, thereby registering the content in my memory!