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I don't regret taking this course considering its not long and fairly easy , However i have some notes about this course:

1. If u are new to Cyber-Security this is a good course for u (NOT THE BEST) , i had some background knowledge and it felt most of the times its too basic and easy

2. the information is not presented well , often times too repetitive and sometimes focusing on completely specific and unimportant stuff for an "Introduction to Cyber Security" course

3. assignments are not well put , not really testing the overall understanding of information and focusing more of memorizing it

4. the audio and the visuals are very bad and disappointing considering its an IBM course this should be a high level course , u can see that there is no preparation from the instructors , some of them don't have good language skills which led to them not being able to demonstrate well the information

5. the instructors are really boring to watch , no passion or clear effort from them

overall a great course if u are starting in Cyber Security and want to complete all courses from IBM u should start from this one but it's not enough and u should definitely check some more sources to learn from

I enjoyed most part of it, but there were several videos with very poor quality in terms of sound and content.

The firewall and cryptography parts were very shallow (even considering it's a simple introduction) and boring and i got better free content from YouTube related to these subjects.

I had a constant feeling that a wasn't getting all the introduction i needed (i always felt that a could not explain what a learned it to someone else) so I paused this course lots times to complete my understandings by reading and watching extra free content outside Coursera, that sometimes were better than this paid course.

I still recommend it because there's a structure to follow and i helps in a first approach. I also recommend this book: How Cybersecurity Really Works, by Sam Grubb -> this book complements this course 1 of IBM.

Even with a 3/5 experience in the course 1 i'm looking forward to start the course 2, for i clearly need some suggested organization to learn about Cybersecurity.

While there is plenty of very useful information in this course, there are several things that could be vastly improved. The test questions are sometimes oddly phrased and material that is not learned until Week 4 is tested in Week 1 (white hat, grey hat, black hat hackers) . There are several one question quizzes that seem arbitrary (ex. "What did this SOC Analyst say was the most useful tool for him?"). In Week one's Critical Thinking section, there appears to be a video that stops halfway. My biggest criticism is that this is a beginner level course but the instructors will throw out technical jargon that doesn't get defined until later in the course, if at all. The following video is the same video but it shows the whole thing. This has potential to be a truly great class but, IBM should really review this course, see what they can streamline, and identify what it is they want people to take away from this class.

There were 2 major problems with this course:

1. Some of the presenters have such thick accents that it was difficult or impossible to understand them. This is a clear barrier to understanding and learning and should be fixed immediately; however, I notice from the comments of others that the complaint has been made for years and I therefore infer no one cares.

2. Some of the presenters delivered the info at a level higher than beginner. This is also a clear barrier to understanding and learning but I guess as long as people earn an overall passing grade, there must not be an actual problem. However, I suspect many others have done what I did and researched the topics on their own using other resources.

If these problems persist for the other courses, I will definitely non-recommend this course to my associates.

The information in this course is not bad, however I want to issue a complaint about the quality of the English transcriptions, which is far below the mark. It seems they are either computer-generated or made by someone with poor hearing and no understanding of the context and/or subject matter. Even a layman who has read the material as a whole, could do a better job. Some of the presenters also explain things using examples, without first explaining the issue in general terms, leaving the learner guessing as to which part of the example is or isn't relevant to the explanation. Some of the quiz questions do not refer to materials discussed in the lecture (example: a question about Vulernability Assessment Methodology in week 1 or 2, while it is explained in week 4!)

Honestly, I really enjoyed the content and thought the information they said while doing the presentations was great. The problem is IBM seem to be using the worst mic I have ever heard. Like you can see it was done in 2018 but they could afford to give the Lecturer a decent mic?? Unfortunate, else this would be a very good course, its just hard to understand what there actually saying. Even the subtitles don't know what they say sometimes...

Also to note, the quizes are really hard because it doesn't even say what I tried to answer. Disappointing, all the other courses I've done on Coursera at least let me see what I got right and wrong. And then video quality look 360p at times, terrible production quality.

I think the information being discussed and shared is great, the quality of the videos is not good at all though. The audio is different on every video and I you can barely see what's being displayed on the slides, even when I change to higher quality on the settings. I appreciate the industry leaders providing their insight but there's too many "umms" and not enough well spoken presenters. I don't mean to be harsh because I think the content is good but you can barely understand what they are saying. Perhaps someone who's confident & does presentations often should do them. I would even lower the volume on the videos and tried to read what they are saying at the bottom but even that barely makes sense.

Es un curso muy básico, te brinda conocimientos clave en muchos aspectos de la ciberseguridad, pero dan mucha vuelta a ciertas ideas o conceptos, hay cosas que es innecesario repetir y repetir el mismo concepto, el tiempo es algo que no regresa y me disgustó que lo ocupen en repetirte las mismas ideas, de hecho hay conferencias en las que te pueden decir la idea en un minuto y no dar vuelta a lo mismo en 14 minutos.

Otra situación que veo es que hay instructores que tienen fallas en su micrófono o en su conexión de internet y eso provoca que el audio sea pésimo porque se escucha mal y encima de eso tienen mala dicción entonces no se entiende lo que dicen y su discurso se hace incomprensible.

I think overall the way the course is offered is great. There were a few things that I found could use improvement. Audio is definitely something that could use an overhaul. The other thing is the way the information is conveyed. A lot of times the speaker was not only hard to understand, but the delivery made for a bit of confusion. It might help to write out what is going to be said rather than to wing it. Also, the word "So" is overused as well- some improvements in the English department would do a lot of good. Overall, you can certainly learn a basic understanding of Cybersecurity from this course. The convenience of fitting it into a busy life is the best thing about this.

I enjoyed the learning experience but a somewhat hard time understanding some of the content as it was being presented. I had to read the transcripts because either the video quality was horrible or the presentation of the lesson content using the the English language was very inaudible and extremely hard to understand. Some of the presentations should be quality checked for a more effective way of communicating when English is your second language. I found myself relying a lot on the transcripts in order to understand the words being spoken. It can be very distracting when trying comprehend the lessons.

It's alright as an introduction of the world of Cybersecurity. The selection of topics is neat, I just wish the execution was a lot better. The audio quality is really bad for most of the lectures, you'd expect that IBM would have the budget to give good mics to their instructors in 2018. Some of the slides are really bad depending on the instructor, the text is really squished together and for some reason they are plastered with comic sans as a font and silly stock images. Can't say I regret taking this course but I would say it's only for absolute beginners to the topic

This course is very informational and is user / beginner friendly in regards to navigation. An area that can use improvement is the audio and the transcript of the videos. Those 2 aspects are crucial to student learning as they contain the information needed to learn the topics covered. The audio is often impossble to decipher and the transcript is also unable to understand it. Lots of information I had to utilize outside sources to cover due to the course. Aside from that, great course! It was a review for me mostly and some new information learned as well. Thank you :)

Generally good content, but poor and unorganised delivery. The same is throughout other courses within this specialisation. Sometimes the topics are presented at very high level, and our of suddent the next video jumps really deep in details without enough prep or context, than again goes high level.

Some of the presenters are hard to understand because of accents or poor sound quality.

Overall, it is hard to piece the whole picture out of individual vides and courses in the specialisation together; as if the specialisation lacks a logical end to end syllabus.

The course materials were unevenly elaborated, some concepts were very well explained others were not. I would suggest that on topics involving novice audience, it is very important to properly articulate and teach as opposed to delivering lectures. Sometimes, when the audience is more advanced on a subject matter, lecture format would be very helpful. But this course is usually taken by individuals who don't know anything about computers or security. We cannot perceive lecture format about specialized cyber security events as well as professionals can.

kind of average course. Most of the instructors doesn't explain some of the vast topics as in a understandable manner. They seemed to be lazy while teaching and there were some disturbance sound in the background. Moreover, this part of the course mostly focuses on the rules and regulations kind of stuffs mostly related to US. there are students watching outside from US also. Overall the contents of this course is outstanding but as a student it is hard for us to understand hard topics with less explanations. I hope this to be improved.

Some of the Speakers on the courses, while knowledgeable, no disrespect to them or their skills - they should NOT be used to convey the information required throughout this course. It's a very technical and terminology-heavy course, yet you can barely comprehend what they're saying as english is definitely not even close to their first language. please replace 2 or 3 of the speakers with actual clearly audible speakers. Otherwise the course was great, interactive, holds your attention and generally enjoyable to work through.

The content is educational and offers a rudimentary base on which to develop Cyber Security skills. It is easy to understand and ideal for beginners and covers a large scope on the fundamental of Cyber Security.

One major drawback is the quality of the sound in which the videos are recorded. An example where this can severely hinder someone's education is if the student is a non-native English learner. There were sections where I had to switch on the captions in order to properly grasp what was being conveyed.

Overall an informative course BUT there are some serious issues. For example, the content was very repetitive at various points. Additionally, some of the video content is of very low quality (e.g. we cannot see the slide content well or we cannot listen to the speaker clearly). Some improvements will be necessary for the course to be of better value. Right now, it seems like someone took clips from different talks/presentations and tried to compile them into a course (sometimes not successfully..)

The instructors where knowledgeable and articulate, but the audio was terrible and sometimes impossible to understand. The primary reason I gave this course a 3 stars is because: 1. It's riddled with dropped vocabulary terms that are mentioned as important and then never talked about again. 2. The content is poorly written and poorly presented. 3. It's listed as a professional certificate and I couldn't find a single company that required it. Technically it's obsolete and a waste of your time.

The audio on the videos were poor and would go in an out as if the person was moving away and towards the mic. There were several videos that had background noises such as phone notifications and doors closing. Some of the speakers had strong accents that made it difficult to understand but the subtitles helped. Presentation skills need to be improved, speaking clearly, better slides, improve their skills on teaching, etc.

Overall, the content was very helpful and easy to understand.

When you hear of IBM, you think like Oh my God, this must be great since its of IBM but tbh, I was disappointed. Some lectures aren't well explained, some videos have audio error. As this is a beginner level course and the basic step to Cybersecurity, the course should have been explained in a detailed manner and easy way. Still 1,2 teachers were good. I didn't need to study some things after listening the videos. Thank you for making it possible for us to learn.

The quality of the videos and audio is quite low. Some questions in the review quizzes are advanced compared to the level you say it's required. I have an extensive background in networking and found some advanced terminology used (without proper explanation) along the course that would make a beginner level feel completely lost. I was able to absorb a lot of information that will guide me trough this "career change" path. I'm starting the second course. Thanks!