Excellent!

eXCELELENT

Was Great!

Excelente

Excellent

Excelent!

very good

¡THANKS!

Good !

good

Not being an historian on the Middle Ages, Magic in the Middle Ages seems like an accurate and well planned course. Week-4 and week-5 were the most interesting, with week-5 delving into the knitted relationship of magic in Islam, with roots and lineages directly connected to contemporary practices of "magic" (which is something I did not know and was very curious about regarding the context of political and religious tensions evolving throughout the middle east). I would have liked more activity-based and practical instructional units on how magic and rituals were conducted, especially information on healing, medicines, and alchemy. Geomancy was the only practical component with explicit details on how to cast figures, and it needed to incorporate how it was used with astrology in a practical way. A unit on Astrology and the Astrolabe was needed as well since the videos and literature often referred to astrology, and without a basic working and understanding of how an astrolabe was used to calculate a chart, the student is left hanging on having to figure way too much on their own (which becomes rife with problems and miscommunication). The quizzes and assignments are fun but often awkwardly worded which became confusing, and can easily be cheated on. Grading of assignments was a bit nebulous and put into question others abilities to accurately and fairly grade. People paying money for course content should be separated from students not paying because engaging, stimulating, and critical analysis as discourse cannot be maintained in fidelity. Of course, the credibility of ALL courses on Coursera are at stake because little to no universities and businesses accept the certificates as valid credentials for jobs or career ladder mobility. Ultimately, one is paying for a piece of paper that is not really valued or even usable at the very same institutes that put together the coursework; and that is a very lame proposition! The final kicker is that I needed to submit highly sensitive, personal identification just to get a PDF of the certificate--absolutely ridiculous, especially considering that the topic of interest for this course neither necessitates nor warrants such high-end secure methods.

I enjoyed this course greatly and significantly expanded my knowledge of medieval times and associated magic. I particularly liked that the course included the relationships of magic in Christian, Islamic and Jewish religions.

The lectures were clear and focused and always accompanied by appropriate literature ensuring that they were at the appropriate academic level.

To help with the continuous improvement of the course which you obviously undertake regularly I make the following comments.

It would be useful to include specific clarification of the relationships between

· Miracles and magic.

· The Science of Letters and magic

· Geomancy and magic

I always like to have a rubric presented before I attempt an assessment. This helps you to ensure that the assessment is on target.

I have certainly expanded my knowledge of this discipline and my experience with this course encourages my to do other courses on history.

Great course, very interesting information. A few problems I found though in the course:

1 Some of the lecturers spoke very fast. That's solvable with the 0.75 speed, but still.

2 The Islamic videos were hard to follow because it felt like information that should have been spread over 2-3 modules was crammed into one module - too much information all at once.

3 I found some of the info about Jews and magic/demons to be imprecise. It was unclear on which Judaic sources these certain claims were based on.

4 The final peer-reviewed assignment included taking notes on an image from a medieval blockbook. This particular image featured a naked figure representing the moon, which i sadly glanced at unknowingly. I think that to make the course more appropriate for all people, it would be good to choose a different blockbook image.

Other than all of these points, thank you very much for the fascinating course!

A very interesting quick dip into shifting perceptions of magic in Christian Europe and how other cultures such as Islam enriched the practices of divination, calculation and astrology. For me, the two most interesting aspects were how the authority of the church through the inquisitors worked to divorce earlier belief systems, such as the tradition of nocturnal beings familiar to the illiterate classes, from the practices and beliefs of the Christian Church. Thus, consolidating the purity and integrity of the Christian doctrine, as distinct from previous beliefs and practices and laying the foundations of Christian orthodoxy. A good overview of a number of different aspects of magic. Thank you to the University of Barcelona, the Magic in the Middle Ages team and Coursera

When signing up for the course I didn't realize the course wasn't about magic, but about the history of magic in the Middle Ages. Once I had overcome my disappointment, I actually liked the course content quite a lot. My only quibble is that the videos contain very little visual material .I would recommend, for the next iteration of the course the embedding of illustrations in the videos, or making available supplementary illustrated material in pdf form and/or hyperlinks.

The part I liked most was the chapter on Magic and Islam, which was very well thought out and presented. The supplementary video with the cut-out figures of Arab scholars was (unintentionally?) quite funny.

Los profesores han demostrado una imparcialidad difícil de ver hoy en día en temas históricos y se han proporcionado muchas fuentes para ampliar información. La única crítica que hago es respecto de las tareas calificadas por compañeros. Las considero muy dirigidas en tanto que se espera una forma de responder muy concreta y, en mi opinión, va contra el sentido crítico independiente, además de que ser calificado por otras personas que son, al igual que uno mismo, alumnos, no me parece adecuado ("ciegos, guías de ciegos") incluso dirigiendo la respuesta por parte del profesorado hacia puntos clave. Salvo eso, el resto perfecto y en balance general, muy recomendable.

This was a really enjoyable and interesting course on a subject I had not studied in much detail prior. It contained a lot of detail without being overwhelming, and the lecturers were personable and informative in their delivery. It was also a good length and workload to commit to. My only small criticism would be that I would perhaps have preferred more of the essay and analysis based assessments, as the quizzes only required reiteration of the videos and I think that it would be more helpful to future historians to practice forming opinions and arguments. Apart from that, I have thoroughly enjoyed this MOOC and would definitely recommend.

It has some very interesting lectures specialy those related to islam, astrology and astronomy.

I found language clear, even when they had a large number of foreign names and words and the idea of using maps and other materials to make easier to understand the concepts is a great idea.

I found too extremely and using fancy or stilted language, so I had to play several times some videos even when using the subtitlles to get a clear idea, bacause the questions are very specific.

I highly recommend to give audio in spanish or truly slow down the speed and kind of language used.

A bit less theorical would be great.

Thank you for sharing this course!

I really enjoyed learning about magic in the middle ages and am grateful for the opportunity offered by the University of Barcelona. The lectures were clearly spoken and the content was good.

However, I would have liked to go more into detail about the practices of magic, I missed that a little bit. For example, the specifics of several charms/ingredients/etc are only treated on a few occasions.

I have now also enrolled in different courses on Coursera and I can say that this course could have been organised better, with better assignments, quizzes, etc. So there is still room for improvement.

This course is very interesting and provides objective information and "myth-busters" that prove the difference between what we think of Magic in the Middle Ages and what was most probably the reality. The lectors are all very enthusiastic and it is refreshing to have many different people with different specializations than just one lector. What I didn't enjoy about this course was having to peer review my classmate's assignments; as I often tend to complete a whole course in a short time , this process slowed down my progress and I wasn't enjoying the course as much as I wished to.

The switch from witches, Christianity to magic in the middle east could have been better handled. Maybe in introduction of each instructor and their subject at the beginning would have helped. I also found the variety of accents a bit of a challenge. In other courses I have been able to downloads transcripts of each lesson. Having said that, I loved the course! Thank You. Very informative! I am a Canadian Indigenous women and I certainly would have been burned at the stake. You have given me such clarity on how Christianity has impacted my life.

It is an excellent course, I think it would be very good if they expanded a little more on Kabbalah. Check the link of the last work, it is actually http://www.billyandcharlie.com/planets/luna.html

Using graphic resources like the map in the section on magic in Islam was a great idea. Graphic resources help to better understand concepts and are great allies of memory.

I think it would be very good to add links to articles related to the subject and that the bibliography can be downloadable or written, rather than at the end of the video.

I really enjoyed the material of this course and the professors' careful attention to avoiding passing any judging past eras using today's standards. I was also glad that they did not only include European magic (Middle Eastern magic was also covered). The only issue I had with this course was that peer-reviewed assignments (i.e. the written ones) were difficult, in that it was not always clear what was expected of the answers (namely that fairly specific things were required of the answers, whereas the questions seemed more open-ended).

I'd give this a 4.5 if I could, overall I really enjoyed this course! Weeks 1-3 were strong, week 4 didn't hold my attention as much but it came back strong in week 5. I'd knock some points off for the written assignments, the phrasing was sometimes confusing so I had to do some digging in the discussion forums to figure out what I was supposed to write. There are also links to pictures in the week 5 assignment that are broken, would be nice if those could be edited for future students.

This course gives general information on the magic of middle ages. However, I wish the course could be arranged in a more logical and coherent way, such as geographical or chronological, which will help to understand and memorize. Material in Week 4 is very confusing. It is hard to get the key points from those materials and what the instructors want to tell me. On the other hand, materials in Week 2 is easy to be understood and reflected in the first written assignment.