A colleague of mine had been raving about Coursera, and when I found a course by Scott Klemmer from Stanford University on Human Computer Interaction, I happily said good bye to evenings and weekends and hello to a 12 week online course.
The content in the course was fantastic, this included weekly assignments and written tests, which were designed to compliment and consolidate learning from the course videos.
The practical work was peer assessed. You marked 5 other peoples work as well as your own, after the marking period was over, you received the average grades from your peers and some feedback. This feedback loop gives you the opportunity to understand how your work is being perceived by others, and whether you are communicating as clearly as you think.
Despite the long hours involved in taking this course, in addition to working full time, I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable and I would recommend this course to anyone with an interest in UX (or even just an interest in learning).
In case you were wondering; I got a Distinction with an overall grade of 92.4% but more than that, I came away with a host of validated strategies and practical techniques that I am confident in using.
