Introduction to Intercultural Studies: Crossing Borders

I managed to fail this course and have registered my complaint with FutureLearn because, really, this should have been a 5-star review going by the content, especially in the first week when I can honestly say I worked harder than for any other FL course so far.
The course almost expects students to learn from each other with no guidance from moderators or educators (at least up to the point where I complained). They seem only interested in people who would want to study with them and are forgetting that most of us have grandchildren, parents, siblings and friends, so we would be worth the effort in terms of someone answering our questions or, even, minimally, keeping an eye on the content and process, particularly where they ask us to review the work of other students and then get the author to comment on the review. A moderator might spot - where a computer has not - that a student is being asked to review something which does not fit the original brief, is only one tenth of the required length and not covered by the answers expected from the reviewer. On the other hand, if you have made an effort creating your own 500-word piece, it is difficult to comment on, say, review of yes, yes and yes as one-word answers.
If you have a disability in your hands, Google street view is difficult to manipulate for one of the exercises and I was disappointed not to be offered simple photographs for the chosen streets as I was not able to see enough (or even work out if I was in the right place) trying to answer these questions.
Having managed to answer in detail several questions throughout the course and received automated comments which seemed to suggest I was in the correct place (but no human educator feedback on comments or anywhere) I managed to fail the first two multiple choice qs of the final test, therefore failing the course for which I had done a lot of research and created original work for the ipad - as had others, but you don't normally mind this if it is coursework and going to help you complete the studies - and I think they should not have confusing, limiting answers in the final test for those who like to learn the subject and not just parrot course material.
A lot of personal information is asked of students when it comes to "personal borders" including where you live, what religion, what the cultural situation is and what your own borders/barriers might be. Another student pointed out these might provide too much information in a public forum where we have placed our own names and - in some cases - some information on the profile. That was very concerning and I added my fears, but until I failed, there was no answer from the course providers (and none since, though I can't say what happened after I lost heart and stopped looking).
It is a shame about the issues above, as this (content) would probably have been my favourite non-Scottish-based course so far. You can't just put the course up there, glean loads of research and information, and leave automation to look after the humans. You need at least one real person overseeing the course at all times. You also need to make provision for people with disabilities re technical requirements.

I totally loved the course! I'm very happy I joined it and I'll be eternally grateful for this course! The concepts we worked on were well explained, presenting videos and short texts. The additional material was very good as well. There were always some guiding questions to reflect on some concepts seen in class or some tasks do, like short research projects which are very useful if you take the learning process seriously and take time to do it well.

Although I rated the course 5*, I think it could be improved.
What can or could be done better? Well, there were no educators guiding in comments and tasks, which is a pity, because the only feedback we had was our classmates feedback. And if you started the course later you won't even get your peer's feedback as they all will be more advanced in the course.
I think there were around 10 people who usually answered the guiding questions, but rarely commented on each other work, so pity again... they weren't very interactive. I've learnt a lot from their comments but wish the educators fostered and helped buid te interaction between classmates because it makes the learning process way more richer!

I would also love to have access to additional sources and more material (like academic papers and more videos) for deeper understanding and learning. The material which was added during the course was great, but there were a lot of different authors mentioned and it would be really nice to have some of their core papers to read.
Apr-09-2020.

I had been looking forward to this course, but have come away from it feeling disappointed. I had hoped for a more in-depth examination of the impact of crossing borders both on individuals and communities, but treatment of the various topics seemed quite superficial, and in some cases showed a surprising degree of historical ignorance. We were told for example that borders such as the Berlin Wall are barriers which keep people out, ignoring the fact that borders also serve to keep people in, and that the Berlin Wall was one such. We were told that the German-Polish border formed part of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War: it did not.
The course seems to be taking as its target audience secondary school pupils deciding which university to apply to, whereas in fact the few learners on the course (at least those who commented) were clearly not in that category.
As other reviewers have noted, there was no input from the course team at any time during the course. This could have stimulated discussion beyond the 5 or 6 comments left on average on each unit. It appears that the person who originally designed the course is no longer at the University of Leeds, and nobody else seems to have felt inspired to take over.

For such a short course, I found this full of thought provoking ideas, some familiar, some not. The presentations were clear. There appeared to be just a few students on the course when I took it, which naturally limited interaction. This was not a drawback -- the comments which were offered were varied and thoughtful-- except when it came to one assignment where we were to complete a 500 word report and then comment on others' reports. I've done other FL courses with the same sort of assignment and usually find it interesting. In this case though it was as though we each had understood the assignment in a vary different way. Not a bad thing necessarily but made comment challenging. For a brief and somewhat introductory course, I enjoyed and would recommend, with only the caveat that it does really require self directed learning and reflection. If that's not for you you may not enjoy this course.