This course is simply great. I am myself an expert in security studies, but I admit that I have leaned a lot. This course has helped to update my knowledge in my major :International Security. The lecturer is actually a professional who explains things, concepts and phenomena with accuracy. The skills I have acquired with this course will undoubtedly help me in my career as a security expert as I shall soon start my new position as an intelligence analyst with the police.

didn't get my certificate just because i passed the deadline

This excellent, balanced course uses a great combination of concise videos and additional reading. I enrolled hoping to better understand this hot-topic and Prof. Bakker's course was perfect.

Great course, just one little problem : the "anglo-saxon" oriented theories on wich this course is based (nothing about the french scholars and studies, although France knows a lot - and a lot more than US scholars for example - about terrorism and specially jihadist terrorism that we unfortunately know since the middle of 80's. Some names : Gilles Kepel, Olivier Roy, Mathieu Guideres). Some assumptions about history of terrorism are factually wrong too: Narodnaïa Volia was not an anarchist movement, but a nihilist (Tchernytchevsky, Netchaiev) one. Militants came from russian aristocracy and their ideology was based on the education of the peasant people of russia when anarchists thank that the revolution would come from the workers and the new proletarian class. And anarchy came first from France (Proudhon, Fourier, etc…) and moved after to Russia. Finally, the role of PFLP in the history of terrorism is much more important than PLO (new modus operandi - plane high jacking and hostages, collusion with left-wing AND right wing movements) : of course I don't talk there about political influence but about history of terrorism, movements and modus operandi.

Check out the great book "Histoire du terrorism" - Gilles Ferragu, Paris, 2014.

Anyway i enjoy very much this course. Many thanks from a parisian student !!!

In general good, but not updated - seems from around 2013, so the new developments are not mentioned.

Interesting course but:

1) The transcripts for each week are appalling. Here is a copied and pasted example: "Separatist groups remained active in almost 90% of decapitation cases where only a third of ideologically ideological organizations such as left wing and right wing organizations. Are damaged by it. And then, in general, in 17% of the cases. So 7% of the cases, decapitation led to the collapse of an organization." How are those that are hearing impaired meant to understand what the course leader is communicating? It took me so long to understand the transcript that I may as well have listened instead. The subtitles option reads the same as the transcript - not much good for anyone with anything but perfect hearing.

2) The estimated timings for each activity are somewhat optimistic. '10 minutes' is the recommended reading time for each week's reading content. Within this reading list are, on average, 8 articles, some of which amount to over 70 pages - if each article is roughly 25-40 pages on average, and there are around 8 articles, how will this reading activity take the student only '10 minutes' to complete?

Apart from that, I did really enjoy the course!!

El curso es excelente, sin embargo la calificación es desastrosa. Coursera debería crear un sistema distinto de calificaciones para no depender el "buen ánimo" de nuestros compañeros de clase. Tuve inconvenientes con la presentación de mi trabajo escrito dado que no hablo inglés y tuve que recurrir a traductores y a mi poco conocimiento en la escritura del idioma para finalizar mi ensayo. El resultado fue que muchas personas no entendieron bien mi trabajo y me han calificado con la nota más baja. Eso hace que el esfuerzo y el intelecto de personas que no escriben en inglés (pero que si pueden entenderlo), se vea afectado y no sea reconocido. Espero que puedan idear otra forma de evaluación más pertinente y acorde con las necesidades de los estudiantes.

Interesting and informative, but the material seemed dated. The paper on Jihadi terrorists in Europe is from 2006, and information from the global terrorism database is from 2010, for example. Some of the lecture content also seemed years behind the times -- like the omission of any mention of the increase in terrorist attacks in Western Europe. (Yes, the lecture on foreign fighters was more current.)

Maybe it's there somewhere, but all MOOCs should disclose when the lectures were recorded.

Good review of the theory but course is outdated given the number of events in the last 2 years that relate to the information provided in the course -- particularly as it relates to attacks

Some readings were not up to date anymore

Useful and well done. This course is an example how to boost resilience in our society with knowledge. At the end of the day is a brick of our holistic counter terrorism actions. Thank you.

Excellent! Accessible, yet detailed, well researched and presented, thought provoking. A good glimpse into what security studies/terrorism academia can be like. I wish there were more!

excelente tema, me gustaría tomar un curso más actualizado por ejemplo un análisis del terrorismo mundial entre el 2018 y el 2019

Excelente curso, diseñado de forma estratégica para envolverte en el tema.

Altogether a useful introduction to an interesting topic -- despite the generalizing approach and the sometimes conservative instead of neutral presentation.

Necesito la traducción en Español de todo el Curso. Gracias de antemano por su atención.

A very good and thought provoking course.

It is a re-run of an archived course and sadly a number of reference materials that had been on the dashboard are not reposted with it. Also there are references to discussion forums that don't exist. If the missing material and content were up to date it would be a strong and complete course.

When discussed in popular media, terrorism is a topic that is quite sensationalized. In contrast, Professor Bakker offered a very balanced view of terrorism in this course, tackling common perceptions of terrorism and counterterrorism in an organized fashion, and backing up his claims with arguments from both sides as well as hard data collected by scholars in the field.

I also like that the course was kept current with added discussion on Syria. The lectures on Syria were a bit less clear and organized than the previous ones, but then again, hindsight is 20/20, and the Syria conflict is a current event.

By and large, I liked that Professor Bakker did not "preach" his thoughts on terrorism, e.g. making leaps of faith and then expecting us to take unproven assumptions as the basis for a further argument. If I had to make one suggestion on how to improve the course, I would say that the handful of videos by external speakers were not properly contextualized in the course. In particular, I didn't understand why there was a video of a woman from Amnesty International talking about drone strikes and urging political action, since it was not referenced at all by other lectures.

Not all the reading materials are opening. The course content is old . There is a need for new and latest issues to be included in the course. There is also a need for advance level of another course.

Among the most informative courses i have taken, the material and videos provided are so detailed and specific to this field. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest matters terrorism.

I highly recommend taking this course, which will allow you to acquire knowledge on the subject of Terrorism.

Great course. Really helpful.

Really interesting course!

Excellent!

Très bien