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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Usable Security by University of Maryland, College Park

4.6
stars
3,291 ratings

About the Course

This course focuses on how to design and build secure systems with a human-centric focus. We will look at basic principles of human-computer interaction, and apply these insights to the design of secure systems with the goal of developing security measures that respect human performance and their goals within a system....

Top reviews

IR

Jun 20, 2016

I like how in depth this gets. it explains it very well an in ways for people who are starting off in this field to get a basic understanding in exactly what we are learning. very well put together!

DG

Jun 28, 2016

Despite not being very fond of areas such as human-computer interaction, I found this course to be well-presented and useful. Definitely a necessity for anyone planning on building secure software.

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1 - 25 of 788 Reviews for Usable Security

By Scott S

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May 26, 2019

This course is fine for what it is, but the content has not been updated since 2014. It would be great if this course were refreshed to account for changes in the security landscape and the technologies that now are in common use in 2019. That said, the course itself is a reasonable foundation for some core concepts in usable security and privacy policies.

By Chris T

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Oct 8, 2018

The course was too basic to be engaging. The other courses in the specialisation are much more challenging and you learn a lot more. I do not feel like I learned much in this course.

By Kelvin M

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Jul 15, 2018

It gave me a broader scope in terms of developing a process or a system. It taught me that designing usability and security must come during the early stages of design instead of an after thought.

By Jigar D

•

Feb 8, 2019

nice

By Mohammad M

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Sep 22, 2017

I am really happy to join this perfect course . i want to continue in this course and i will every time of my life to learn many things . specially from the Coursera community thank you very much.

By Rayan M

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Oct 6, 2017

I really liked this course. even though I work in IT security field, I learned so much from usable security it was an eye-opener. Professor Jennifer Golbeck did an exceptional job in delivering information, especially in her TEDX lecture when she explained HCI and how easy it is to gather users data and make easy to anticipate personalities and what users likes

By Dario G

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Jun 29, 2016

Despite not being very fond of areas such as human-computer interaction, I found this course to be well-presented and useful. Definitely a necessity for anyone planning on building secure software.

By Iziah M R

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Jun 21, 2016

I like how in depth this gets. it explains it very well an in ways for people who are starting off in this field to get a basic understanding in exactly what we are learning. very well put together!

By Ivan G

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Jul 14, 2019

waste of time

By Christoph R

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Jan 17, 2018

Great introduction to usable security. Taking this course, you will understand that usable security is as much as important as any other parts of designing and implementing security. You will learn methods to measure usability, how to design usable security and how this will change success and acceptance of your security implementations (in business terms: reduce security costs!).

The knowledge is well presented and the author is very passionate on the topic. Thanks alot for this great course!

By ARINDAM K

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Mar 22, 2021

This course is my first one in coursera. i really like the way Jennifer teach all the topics. Thanks to Jennifer.

In this course i got to learn about how to design a system such that it is user friendly, secured and respect the users from its starting phase. Specifically i learn about Human computer interaction , Usability of a system, how to design a good privacy policies and lot more. Thank you.

By veer s (

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May 27, 2021

It was a great experience for me, although I am not a student of cyber security but this course helped me very much in getting started with cyber security and it was very smooth the best thing about this course was the method used by ma'am the experimental methods helped me way more in understanding the topic rather than the explanatory part. Thank you very much ma'am.

By TADI V K

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Mar 20, 2022

it tells us all about the security and how it is used.

we can learn a lot.

we can learn how the security works in our day to day using apps and websites.

By Nikolas L

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Feb 16, 2022

To the point and well explained course with easy language and great examples.

By Alexandre F

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Mar 19, 2022

Great teacher.. Clear communication

By matthew a

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Aug 19, 2021

seems the course has no updates for many years.

the first module is mostly about human computer interaction and the appropriateness about usability.

the first assignment requires you to post a screenshot of your work - only you cant actually post a screenshot because its not possible instead you need to use a third party site and provide a link somehting you need to work out for yourself. However given the assignment is about a "hall fo shame" for usability its interesting that the assignment is totally unusable. There are queries about this from 2016 which are unanswered.

I first used coursera nearly 10 years ago with one of the very first courses in R programing - it feels you're losing the way and the philosophy of the origional purpose. I never understood how it could all be free so enrolling in coursera plus was a good way of paying for something, but while the content is reasonably good, the lack of updates and the feeling that I'm doing a course that hasnt been looked at in 5 years made me feel let down. Admittedly I didnt go past week 2 but the experience in week 1didnt inspire me to go much further.

By Musaddiq A

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Jan 25, 2020

Course was very informative, well structured, specially instructor was very competent. She has good knowledge and skills to deliver knowledge also tremendous. So overall a good package and I have learnt so many new things that i didn't suppose to even as important during designing a usable and interactive secure system. Overall a very good course and i really recommend to others as well to must take this course. And i also specially thanks to Coursera for providing such opportunity.

By LaDon W

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Nov 17, 2016

I sincerely enjoyed this course. The instructor was clear, concise, and obviously passionate about the subject matter. I appreciate that reading materials were complimentary to the videos. I can say I actually walked away with information I can apply to my career. I gained a new perspective about usability (testing and implementation) that I will be employing in my network authentication practices and policy development.

By Liang G

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Jan 30, 2017

I find this course a good example of online course. It combines proper introductory material, good video courses, reading materials, and quiz. The quiz exercises are a bit challenging, and the final exam has very good questions, which require careful and independent thinking. As the final exam can only be taken once, it increases the challenge of passing this course, and makes the certificate more valuable.

By Felicia B

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Dec 15, 2021

Very interesting course and I learnt a lot from it and the videos are well articulated. We are given ample time to complete the course which is an advantage to us who are always busy at work. I'm enthusiastic to learn more on cyber security through coursera because the mode of delivering the courses is excellent and interesting. This has motivated me to learn more, thank you for this opportunity.

By Adri J J J

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Apr 23, 2020

The course was absolutely useful. Most security professionals concentrate on addressing security issues but will ignore the fact that poor usability causes a major breach in the system. This course provided a deeper insight into the usability design issues relevant to security. I thank the course instructor for carefully designing the course, so that learners could obtain a maximum outcome from it.

By Ali J N

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Mar 12, 2021

It was a very happy moment when I first realized that I can take a course in Coursera free, and it really helped me a lot to gain additional knowledge about my future field(CyberSecurity). Thanks, Coursera for giving me a free course to study. I would always appreciate your kindness. Lots of love from a student in one of the corners of the world.

By Chandrasekhara R T

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Sep 7, 2020

It is an amazing course. I learned lot of things with this course, as of now i am not aware of the importance of Usable Security in the Cyber Security domain, this course really enlighten me how the design of Human Computer Interaction in-concerned with Security. Dr. Jennifer Golbeck explained about those concepts with clear practical examples.

By Priyanto G

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Apr 2, 2022

This course covers lots of ground in the field of users security and privacy. It explains the difference between permission, authorization, and what is the acceptable practice as a system designer when designing a system. The information in this course serve as a base knowledge for me to continue my study in the cybersecurity realm.

By Vijay V

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Mar 11, 2020

An excellent Course on Usable Security & Privacy. Congratulations Professor Jennifer Golbeck on exceptional job!

The course layout is simple and the flow is very convenient and helpful. The instructor was clear, concise, and passionate about the subject matter. Her skills to deliver knowledge is tremendous. Thank you Professor.