While I enjoyed the guest speakers, I found that the content of the course was very repetitive. Many of the content could have been summarised to further expand the topics covered in the course. There is a missed opportunity because a lot of the course participants were highly engaged and gave quality assignments (not all courses have the same caliber of participants). The entire course feels like an introduction to an actual course that never came through. There were also videos that were repeated, transcripts that were doubled, and non-functioning links which reflects the overall lack of effort in generating this course. The Instructor Dr J. Simons was mostly invisible and barely gave informative insights. He acted more like a panel discussion host. This is genuinely a missed-opportunity as surely Dr. Simons would have had bountiful information to share on the topic. After just completing a very good course from another university in coursera, I was very disappointed at the level that this course was made. It felt like it was simply offered as a marketing platform to offer the schools Masteral Program, like a click-bait of sort, which I really don't appreciate. Had they given polished and informative content, I would have genuinely considered it as the topic is really interesting.

The whole course can be combined in 30 min lecture/video. All assignments are first-grade level, no recommended readings, no lectures. Most importantly, all assignments are peer-graded and there are not enough people to grade! I can't get my certificate because I need to grade at least 3 assignments each week and they are not available( because noone signed up for the course? noone submitted?), and my assignments are not graded for the same reason. It seems I have to go back to this course every couple of days to check if I can complete the requirements to get my certificate! It's so inconvenient!

This course is quite a waste of money, all the information provided is a basic common sense.

Great course. I had a general interest in diplomacy and wanted a little taste of what it was, this course has provided me just that. It has amazing resources to help enhance our knowledge of diplomacy

Absolutely incredible course in diplomacy that gives you a perfect glimpse of understanding how diplomacy works in practice and what achievements you need to posses in order to become a good diplomat.

Absolutely incredible course in diplomacy that gives you a perfect glimpse of understanding how diplomacy works in practice and what achievements you need to posses in order to become a good diplomat.

This is the ideal course for anyone who wants a peek into what diplomacy actually is. After this course, I learnt that diplomacy is required in everyone's life, in each of our day to day activities.

I've very much enjoyed completing this course. It has been very interesting and compliments some of the areas that I teach. I've been able to fit the study and assessment work into my busy schedule easily, which has been very helpful. I've appreciated the peer assessment process, although it would be great to have some kind of feedback as well from one of the coordinating lecturers. It's wonderful to also receive a certificate that demonstrates achievement and completion of the course. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in international relations and the diplomatic process

very general ideas about diplomacy but nothing concrete

I am aware that critics of this course point out its relatively superficial content as its major flaw, but I couldn't disagree with them more!

One should keep in mind that this is intended as an *introductory* course into the vast, complex and multi-disciplinary field that is diplomacy, and although objectively easy to complete, this course features the exact level of difficulty someone new to this field would benefit from. In fact, it is one of the major factors that personally kept me motivated throughout, and I am actively deliberating on whether to buy the certificate to flaunt my accomplishment.

All in all, this course offers an engaging and relatively reader-friendly bibliography, a varied but concise list of reading materials that are almost obligatory for the succesful completion of the assignments, summative videos that set the scene for every module and are sources of useful information for the tasks, and quite a good simulation of academic discourse and interaction through their peer assessment tool.

Areas for improvement include more targeted reading material (for instance, in Week 5, it is mainly the 5 'Projective Visions' within the 18-page long essay that are of substance, so a simple note to that would go a long way) and a better graded assessment scale. To be more precise, as it stands, one can only award a student 0 or 1, the latter standing for a ''genuine attempt'' to fulfill the task and the former signifying the opposite. This becomes especially problematic when one has to grade responses that mgiht be ''genuine'' in that there appears to be no plagiarism, but the student obviously didn't read the module materials and just breezed through the videos, offering hurried input that does not merit a full grade. In some cases I had to go with zero, but felt that a 0.5 would be more fair to said students, or a 2/3 and so on.

I wish the course creators all the best and I hope to meet them in person, if my studies ever bring me to SOAS.

Exceptionally shallow content. The course material consists of different academics giving their opinion on very general questions eg. "What is diplomacy?", "What makes a good diplomat?" Each week's content will take 5 minutes plus a reading, and you will have little to show for your time.

The assignments do not constitute enough of a challenge to facilitate learning or depth of thought. The bar for passing an assignment is "has the candidate made a genuine attempt at answering the question".

I have come to expect a much higher standard from Coursera.

I have completed two other Coursera courses for certificates, where I learned much more. The quantity and quality of the content - both video's and reading materials - is significantly lower than that of the other courses, where I really had to take notes and read much more. The assignments are way to general and do not require much preparation, which hardly makes them serious learning exercises. Frankly, I could have done some interviews and research online and make a a course like this myself...

Very good for know what is diplomacy. If you are thinking in study this at university, this course help you to decide.

This course is fun, but the instructor or course admins need to put more videos, contents and information to the course than just a few videos, few topics per week like this. The Global Diplomacy course should provide clearer and deeper about diplomacy than to pose what is diplomacy or what the diplomats do in their very actions of daily routines.

Too many speakers. Not very well-coordinated or organized. Very wordy and diffuse. Where is the gist of what they are saying in so many words?

pure waffle

Coming from a biological science background, I wanted to take this course for a view in a new direction. And this course has not disappointed me in that case. I've come to appreciate the art and importance of diplomacy in everyday general interactions after completing this course. Thank you to the course instructors.

This course did not reach my expectations. I did a different course before and it was good. This course was not, to my opinion. The Information given is shallow, the tasks are solely peer review and it is at no point even slightly difficult. It is too easy and the given information is nothing special or new. Finishing this course gives no satisfaction but more of a disappointed feeling. I am sorry to say, but I do not reccomend this course. Coursera was very helpfull and service orientated with my complaint. There are better courses at Coursera, keep on looking for those.

Very little content on offer other than some short clips and mildly interesting readings. The vast majority of the course is dedicated to short writing tasks that are supposed to get you engaged (i.e. discussing) diplomacy, but the practical effect is at best busy work with little new knowledge or insights gained. Extremely disappointed.

I expected much more of the course. The readings are interesting, but the rest is just general information or easy topics I already knew. It might be useful for somebody totally new with the topic, but if you read the news and some literature on international politics, it is not worth.

The course is only a discussion of diplomacy, it does not provide much structure by way of foundational elements. Also, the fact that to complete the course you're required to submit work and grade three or more people is ridiculous. Glad I did not purchase a course certificate.