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Student rating system for ESRI training courses on training.esri.com

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  • It would be great if, once a user is done with a course, have them rate it online. This could be done at the training center at the end of class, and also for the online classes. These ratings, and only these ratings by actual students that have completed the course, could then be seen by prospective students in the course catalog at training.esri.com. Let's face it, we live in a world where we don't purchase much without reading reviews online first, so why should it be any different with training, especially in the current economic market where training and travel budgets have been cut back wildly in many organizations. This would give potential students the ability to get the opinions of their peers and use that to judge if a course is right for them. Reviews could be placed in a "Reviews" tab with the Overview/Software/Outline/Prereq tabs on the course page and of course could be "sanitized" by ESRI before they get posted, just as many online merchant systems do.
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    Posted by   cooperc  to Training Ideas Jul 22, 2011

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Comments (3)


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dananrg 
Aug 2, 2011
>Regarding course instructors: we're not able to guarantee in advance that a specific individual will be
> teaching a particular class as illness, schedule conflicts, and other business needs can come up and
> necessitate an instructor assignment change. 

Thanks for the explanation Suzanne. Makes perfect sense. A week-or-less teaching engagement is different in kind from a semester-long course.

> What we can guarantee is that every Esri instructor goes
> through a rigorous preparation process before teaching a course to customers. We're confident our
> instructors have the knowledge and teaching skills needed to ensure a great learning experience, and
> feedback from students has consistently confirmed that.

You don't have to sell me on Esri instructor quality. No complaints here. Haven't had a bad one yet. However not all instructors have the same real-world experience. The same is indisputably true of profs. Customers should know, particularly for when Esri is contracted to teach on-premise at client sites, that a particular instructor can at least be requested. I know because I've done so. Very glad I did.

Of course there's no guarantee of getting a particular instructor due to the reasons you mentioned.  But having Esri come on-site to teach a class can be costly (yet rewarding) proposition. It can help considerably if the instructor has a broad IT background in certain complex situations and large segmented environments. And/or particular real-world experience in the subject domain. When an instructor has consulted, for example, at a wide variety of client sites and "seen it all" that's gold.

Dana Nibby
GIS for DBAs. Database Concepts for GIS.
http://spatialdba.com


 
SuzanneB 
Jul 28, 2011
We agree that student reviews or ratings could help other users determine if a course meets their needs. We're currently investigating how to add this capability to our online Training catalog.

Regarding course instructors: we're not able to guarantee in advance that a specific individual will be teaching a particular class as illness, schedule conflicts, and other business needs can come up and necessitate an instructor assignment change. What we can guarantee is that every Esri instructor goes through a rigorous preparation process before teaching a course to customers. We're confident our instructors have the knowledge and teaching skills needed to ensure a great learning experience, and feedback from students has consistently confirmed that.


 
dananrg 
Jul 23, 2011
Great idea and rationale.

Would also be nice to know in advance which instructor is teaching a course. Someone for whom your topic is just one of many courses they teach? Or someone with specific and notable real-world consulting experience on the subject. We can't all be experts in everything. Same is true for instructors.

Esri should also consider making its course manuals available online. This would also help prospective students judge whether or not a course was right for them. If you're a college student, it's sometimes nice to know what text(s) a course will use in advance. Another decision point.

Publish instructor led training lecture and exercise manuals online in PDF format
http://ideas.arcgis.com/apex/ideaView?id=08730000000bmrJAAQ

Dana Nibby
http://spatialdba.com


 

 

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