If you need help you can ask questions in the course discussion forum. Sometimes your peers will answer, and members of the course staff will also frequently look at the forum and answer specific questions or respond to reported problems.
On this page, we will collect the frequently asked questions and their answer.
On Quizzes and Exams:
1. What is the difference between intro quizzes, practice quizzes and graded quizzes?
We include quiz questions in our MOOCs for different reasons: first of all, we like to assess whether you have learned something to the level that we find adequate. So we include a formal, or graded quiz at the end of each week. These quizzes count towards your final grade and certificate for the course. Second, we know that quizzes can also help you study: they give you the ability to assess yourself, so you know to which topics you need to pay some extra attention. For this, we included the ungraded practice quizzes during the week. Third, we know that we can stimulate your curiosity for and subsequent engagement with the (video) lectures by asking you a few questions before a lecture. These ungraded intro quizzes can trigger and activate everything you already know about the subject, and therefore make you more receptive for more information on the subject. Or they make you realise you don't know certain things, and therefore you can pay more attention to the lecture.
The intro quizzes and practice quizzes are ungraded, you don't get points, and they don't count for your final grade or certificate. But you get feedback to learn from them. And you may see some of them back in the weekly graded quiz.
2. Why do I sometimes see a 'submit' and sometimes a 'check' button at questions?
We include quiz-questions that we have developed on the edx platform (all with 'submit' buttons) and questions that we have created on a platform called H5P. The latter questions usually have a more graphic character (e.g. drag-and drop), and they can have a 'check' button when they are ungraded (in practice or intro-quizzes) or a 'submit' button when they are graded.
3. Why do I not get the correct answer or feedback on the graded quiz questions?
The graded quiz question are first and foremost included to be able to assess your level of learning and performance, and not as a learning tool. For those, we have the practice quizzes that give you answers and feedback. Also, we give you the opportunity to try as many times as you want, to give you the full opportunity to pass our course, but you need to do the work. If you didn't get the answer right, you need to go back to the chapter and reread, re-watch, or re-take some of the practice quizzes.
4. How often can I try a graded quiz?
You can try the graded quizzes as often as you like, but only once every 24-hrs. So if you fail on a quiz or you want to take it for a higher grade, you need to wait 24 hrs. We feel that this provides you with ample opportunity to revisit some content again.
5. Why can I not see the answer ('show answer') for a graded quiz question?
The graded quiz question are first and foremost included to be able to assess your level of learning and performance. If we want to keep using these questions for next course runs, we don't want the answers to become publicly available. Also, we give you the opportunity to try as many times as you want, to give you the full opportunity to pass our course, but you need to do the work. If you didn't get the answer right, you need to go back to the chapter and reread, re-watch, or re-take some of the practice quizzes.
6. Why do some quiz questions - like the drag-and-drop questions - look very different from other questions?
This is because we develop questions on the edx platform and on the H5P platform. The latter questions usually have a more graphic character (e.g. drag-and drop).
7. What score do I need to get form my certificate?
You need to have 70% correct of all graded materials. That means that when you score a 100% on the first 7 graded activities, you are there and you could theoretically stop and get your certificate. However, we would suggest that you do all 10 graded activities.
On Videos and Slides
1. Can I download the videos?
Yes, you can download most videos in most of EPFL MOOCs. But sometimes we embed videos from other sources or webpages, usually using an iFrame. Those videos can't be downloaded from the course platform, but you may be able to download the video when you go to the YouTube (or third-party website) page directly, by clicking on the YouTube link in or below the video.
2. I love your illustrations. Anywhere that I can find them and reuse them?
Yes, most of our illustrations from the slides are available for reuse, please have a look at our repository of course materials here: https://library.graasp.org/collections/a92399d9-61b5-4e74-a1fc-f09c23502852
3. What is the difference between the "In-video search bar" and the "EPFL Graph search bar"?
The In-video search bar uses only the information from the current course videos to search for your concept and thus only provides you with links to video segments of the current course. The EPFL Graph search is a generic EPFL search function that looks for matches within many different EPFL databases and thus provides you with a general description of the concept you searched, and links to different courses, teachers, labs, videos, publications. We suggest to use the In-video search tool for revisions of the course materials, whereas the EPFL graph search can be used to find additional information about a specific topic or concept.
On Additional Information
1. There is so much additional information in each chapter. Do I need to read or go trough all of it?
The additional information sometimes gives you more (broader) information on a topic, and sometimes deeper information on another topic. It may help you understand certain concepts better, and may be useful to brush up your knowledge on some topics that are considered a pre-requisite for our MOOC. The online tools and databanks that we list in the additional information are for you to explore and get a feel for how researchers and professionals can work with these tools. Concluding: Some of the additional information may help you prepare for the graded activities, but will not be examined.