In my opinion, this course is great. I'm doing my MSc in Forensic Psychology and I did this course to learn more about terrorism.

The professor does a very good job at keeping the audience interested and he speaks clearly and slowly enough for everybody to understand.

For a 7 week course, you get tons of information and, most importantly, it is well organized, going through modules in a systematic and thoughful way. Every week you have about 3 or 4 required readings, which will deepen your knowledge about the subjects addressed during the videos.

I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who wants to have someone very knowledgeable guide you through an interesting and current topic. Thumbs up to Coursera as well, everything went perfectly.

I found this course to be a very useful one to refresh already received knowledge as well as to understand how interconnected theory and practice in counter-terrorism are. Therefore, it is not only useful for academics, but for practitioners as well. Being the latter I was able to analyze in a very short time-framework the amount of materials that would take me months to systematize and only then isolate the needed material for analyzing. Kudos to Professor Bakker for a very intensive, yet not boring history of terrorism from anarchists to FTFs (this part of the course is especially appreciated from my side). Recommended to anyone who is interested in learning about this phenomenon.

Excellent work. I am currently pursuing my Masters in Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies with Henley Putnam University and I wanted to express my gratitude towards the course syllabus, reading materials, and all the wonderful scholarly articles that have enabled me and provided much food for fodder towards my degree program. Thank you, Edwin Bakker, and yes I have purchased your book Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies - Comparing Theory and Practice on the first day I started this course. A very big thank you to guest lectures like Alex Schmid and others for providing so much insight on the topics of Counterterrorism. Once again, excellent course and excellent instructors.

Bom Dia

sou jornalista do terceiro site mais acessado do Brasil nas redes sócias na categoria geopolítica, o nome do meu site e Assuntos Militares ( www.assuntosmilitares.jor.br ) e minha 6 tentativa de finalizar esse curso, que seria de extrema importância a no meu currículo, mais infelizmente não estou conseguindo, gostaria de deixa registrado

Ricardo Pereira Azevedo

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What skills did I learn in this course?

The history of terrorism, its main causes, several terrorist groups that I did not know and several events that have occurred in past decades that I did not know. I also learned a lot of literature and many literary and academic sources that are based on international research and gave me a broader view of terrorism history, myths, policies and trends. On the other hand I was updated in modus operandi of different groups and statistics that helped me to understand the phenomenon.

Excellent course. Many thanks to the teachers, directors, classmates, and all those who have made this course possible. Especially Edwin thanks

I have been very interested in this course since the beginning, and although it has been an additional effort to the language of the language and to have to make it compatible with my working life, I have not thrown the towel and I have put a special effort to finish it. I have learned to approach this problem from a professional perspective thanks to the approach and structure that Professor Bakker has given to this course and has also served me to document extensively as well as to learn to investigate terrorism and counterterrorism. My most sincere congratulations to the professor and to the whole team of the University department.

I really enjoyed and got lots of concrete advantages in taking part in this course, mainly because West Africa where I am living, has been daily targeted by violent extremism ( Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, etc.), and it was great time for me to understand more the origins, consequences and acceptable strategies , plans and measures states, communities and individuals can put in place to reduce the impact of these violent actions on our lives and futures. Huge thanks for have given me chance to access such a wide range of knowledge, skill and practical tips on Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Merci beaucoup!!!

Interesting way of explanations on terrorism, very detailed in such a small amount of time. could be said it has touched some of the essences of studies on the subject and can be considered as an appetizer to go for the large scale studies on the subject.

Missing some deeper root causes and factors causing terror to be extreme but we all know that there is a problem to reach to all material needed for this research - the need for security clearance is not granted to many researchers, and if yes then their research is never published only for government.. eyes so to say.

Thank you very much, nice made videos and added literature.

I think it is significant to spread results of academic researches on topics connected with (counter-)terrorism and real facts. At first, it promotes popular myths deflation; secondly, it encourages listeners to create and can conduce new openings. The most insightful lessnos for me was the ones about modern groups in Syria, assumptions on T and CT and also about problems of terrorism definition consensus.

It is also sad that there are almost no duscussions on the forum (excluding the first weeks).

Thanks to this course lecturer, professor Bakker, for the scope of information and easily understandable English!

Very interesting course. I found the reading material sources particularly relevant without exceeding unnecessary in quantity and issues. Professor Edwin Bakker didactic approach is especially suitable to my ideal concept of how a teacher should communicate with his/her audience. Together with Moral Foundations of Politics held by Professor Ian Shapiro, I would rate these two the most attractive and expectations matching courses I've ever come across online.

Thanks to Coursera, Leiden University and all the people who makes this miracle of quality online teaching for free ever possible.

Stefano

I am enjoying this course very much, it is informative and very well organized and presented. I highly recommend it to anyone with an internet in the topic as it provides an excellent overview and includes current academic and non academic (mass media, world leaders. etc). perspectives. The video lectures are exciting and I look forward to the time I spend viewing them, the core readings are relevant and there are good suggestions for those wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the material. Dr Edwin Bakker the professor for this course is an excellent educator.

Ich habe dieses Thema vorher an der University of Georgetown absolviert. Ich bin froh diesen ausgewogenen Kurs an der Universität Leiden absolviert zu haben. Ich habe nun eine genauso fundiertere, aber weniger einseitige Sicht auf das Thema und insbesondere auf das Phönomen der foreign fighters.

I have previously completed this topic at the University of Georgetown. I am happy to have completed this balanced course at the University of Leiden. I now have an equally profound, but less one-sided view of the subject and in particular the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

Excelente curso. Creo que es una muy buena manera de aprender sobre uno de los temas más importantes en las agendas políticas del mundo. Lecciones que se caracterizan por su claridad y concisión, y que brindan la posibilidad de acceder a una amplia bibliografía sobre terrorismo y contraterrorismo. En mi opinión, es un curso que debería ser tomado por todos aquellos que trabajan en relación con los medios de comunicación, ya que ayuda a conocer mejor este fenómeno y dejar de lado muchos mitos que distorsionan la visión que las sociedades tienen del mismo.

The course "Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice" provides important subsidies for those who would like to better understand these phenomena, with a strong theoretical background and excellent didactics. I was interested in the course because I am finishing my degree in International Relations and my monograph required me to understand better about it.

I can say that this goal has been achieved. I read the articles suggested by Professor Bakker and attest to the great quality of the course.

Thank you and until next time!

The course is extremely well organized. Theoretical part is presented in a comprehensible way. Mainstream views, their flaws and possible solutions are given, the author always mentions counteragruments and does not try to impose his personal thoughts. Individual tasks allow to get deeper into the studied cases. I also admire external invited partisipants of the lectures, as it provides more diverse perspectives. And last, but not least, it`s great that the course evolves with current agenda.

Thank You for this wonderful work!

An extremely informative and well designed course, I had a wonderful experience learning from Prof. dr. Bakker, his team and colleagues and all the guest scholars who gave their valuable time to this course. I think this curse is a shining example of the wonderful novelty of coursera in providing quality education to people literally across the globe!

It's been a pleasure doing this course and I recommend it to all my friends interested in this field and look forward to working on many other courses in the future!

I found this course to be very interesting. In the US you hear many things from our politicians and media but very little of it has to do with actual numbers and statistics. Now understandably some of those numbers have changed since this course was put together but I think the general idea that terrorism is a constantly evolving entity was presented well. Although I had several distractions tugging at me during this course the information presented has motivated me to continue my study in this area. Thank you.

Dear sirs and madams! Thank you very much for this interesting and useful course. It contains a lot of information and reading materials which help to get deeper understanding of phenomenon of terrorism. It helps to aproach to different acts of violence from different perspectives. Also for for those course participant whoes country is ivolved in some armed conflict it helps to get deeper and more attantive aproach to classification of people being involved in conflict and deal respectively with them.

It is an excellent course which provides basic understanding about terrorism and counterterrorism studies. The teaching method of the teacher is also convincing and illuminate about many theories. if someone wants to understand the phenomenon of terrorism, he/she must take this course. This course has also removed my confusions about theories of terrorism and counterterrorism. I would like to request Dr Edwin Bakker and his team to introduce more advance level course on the issue.

Regards

You MUST take this course, if:

If you want to know the Academic approach of the modern counterterrorism

If you need to have a concentrated knowledge about the historical facts

If you want to know about the best bibliography and know about modern scholars

if you are working in counterterrorism

etc.

or if you are curious to know what is terrorism according to scientists and experts.

I recommend this course.

My congratulations to Professor Edwin Bakker and to his team for this excellent work.

When i started this course i did not know what to expect but as i progress i became very impress with the materials provided and the dept of information available on the subject. Terrorism has now moved from an item on the news to me to an intimate subject worth exploring further. I became intimately connected with this subject and vowed to continue exploring the phenomenon deeper. Thank you very much for the wealth of knowledge presented.

Vannie Curwen

I really like the professor, all the material given, and of course the topic. It's a very interesting course and I love that the professor provides names of important authors in the field, books, films and also schools specialized in studies on terrorism and counterterrorism. I started considering counterterrorism as a career path after my Law degree, we will see how the course will go, but so far (week threem, about to start week four) so good!

I liked very much the course and I would like to get enrolled in others courses related. It helped me a lot to much better develop my work of inter-faith's dialogue and i think important my institution to include the theme of counterterrorism and foreign fighters at our magazine as prevention to avoid conflicts and wrong decision by youngers. As christian, to better understand the muslim and islam world to promote peace is fundamental.

J'ai vraiment adoré cette formation. Ce cours m'a permis d'apprendre beaucoup des choses et m'a permis de mieux comprendre les dessous des conflits et les motivations des Groupes terroristes dans le monde. Vraiment un magnifique contenu!!!!. je remercie beaucoup les responsables de ce cours bien élaboré. Et J'ai hâte de suivre une autre formation sur ce sujet si passionnant qu'est le terrorisme. Merci encore.

This was my first course on Coursera. After completing the START course from the University of Maryland, I can say with confidence that this course is a much deeper look at the concepts of terrorism and counter-terrorism (vs analysis of data and statics from the GTD). The exams were harder but the level of understanding is also deeper than the START course. Also, Dr. Bakker is very engaging and interesting.