Google Course Builder: Initial Review

By: Justin Ferriman • September 2, 2013
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course-builderNot too long ago, Google came out with a Course Builder program, designed to allow schools and institutions an easy way to set-up their own MOOC platform.  Today, I decided to take a look at the program to get a sense of their offering and what it can do.  Naturally, I have some high expectations, I mean, this is Google after all.

The first thing that I did was navigate to the Google Course Builder “home”.  Quite honestly, I couldn’t help be feel a bit overwhelmed when I came to this site. With so much information, it’s a bit hard to know where to start.  It’s clear that Google has a specific target in mind with this page: developers (or at least very web-savvy).  In other words, if you are relatively new to setting-up online training programs, then you will likely find the Google Course Builder page is not user-friendly.

The “Get Started” link (if you can find it) takes you to a rather cold, wiki-type page that details the entire program from start to finish.  Again, great if you’re a developer, but not very user-friendly to the casual MOOC fan. I can’t help but wonder why Google didn’t make this a bit more intuitive.  Even for a developer, it’s a lot to come up-to-speed with, but at least it is comprehensive.

I took a moment to look at some example sites made with Course Builder, and well… here take a look (some are in Spanish):

Perhaps it’s just me, but the success of a training program is more than the “bones” of the software, it’s the entire presentation.  There is a lot to be said about user experience, and the setup that is currently offered by the out-of-box Google Course Builder program is about 10 years behind modern design theory.  I think just providing some various templates would be helpful.

Google is certainly downplaying the importance of ease-of-use in regards to the adoption of the program.  I think this is one reason why so many people turn to WordPress for their formal and informal learning programs.  The ability to easily customize the site, implement a user-friendly design interface, and add functionality is second to none.

Now, to be fair, this entire program is very much in the beginning stages. It is obviously providing a useful way to build MOOC programs for some institutions, but they have quite a bit of ground to cover compared to other programs out there.  Here’s to hoping that the development doesn’t go the way of Google Sites.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter