Nutrition and Health: Human Microbiome

Over the last months I’ve taken the verified track of the Microbiome course and successfully completed it with a certificate. Overall, it was an interesting course that added to my understanding of the human microbiome and it’s (possible) role in health and disease. Not much prior knowledge is required (although some may come in handy) to understand and successfully complete the course.

However, there were a few things that bothered me while taking the course:

1. There’s really a lot of repetition throughout the modules, using the same examples over and over again and explaining basic concepts like scfa multiple times.

2. There are a lot of contradictions and inconsistencies in the course material, which is a little unprofessional. To me that felt like the course was rushed through the developmental process, and was never given a proper review by the developers.

3. English language is not always clear, which sometimes makes understanding the course material harder, and made exam questions disputable (e.g. module 3 question 3). But since there’s no way to communicate privately with staff, there’s no way to discuss this.

4. Staff is hardly present on the discussion boards, however when you pose a question, you do get a reply so that’s handled well. But in the beginning of the course, students were given individual replies, whereas later on no replies were given any longer. I think staff could and should do a much better job in encouraging students and encouraging discussions. Personally I got really demotivated by this and decided not to use the discussion board any longer.

5. The knowledge clips were short, lacking enthusiasm and the speaker was just reading the text out loud (and often making annoying pronunciation mistakes in the process).

This was the first verified track I completed so I cannot compare this course to other courses, but I found it rather expensive considering everything is peer-reviewed and the material came across sloppy at times. However, I’m glad I took the course, it has definitely added to my knowledge and understanding of the human microbiome.

Not the best course. The course feels sloppy, unacademic and lacks impact. Given Wageningen's reputation, I had expected better from them. Below an eleboration on my opinion:

- Many small mistakes in the videos. In the videos about aging for example, often the ages were incorrect: 104-109 whist the presenter was talking about 105-109, listing 99-104 twice for centenarians and super-centenarians.
- Overall look of the presentations is messy, information that is missing or plainly contradicts the story of the presenter.
- Quite often, illustrations are not clear or do not match with what the presenter is talking about. During my studies a guiding rule for images is always that illustrations should be self-explanatory regardless of the topic and if part of it is not talked about, that part should be left out. Perhaps this principle could be useful in this course to help clear up the presentations.
- Often, I feel like I am looking at a documentary for lay people written by experts in the field, played at 3x speed. At times, the information given is very basic and feels like it lacks academic foundation (e.g. research methods are not explained, data is not shown). Yet it is littered with super specific knowledge which, on the face of it, is not necessary for understanding the bigger picture (e.g. names of the sub-species of beneficial families). To my understanding, this course is meant for academics who have some background knowledge about related field. It would be nice if the course reflected this.
- I felt the course is missing impact. As is stated in the videos, most of the research done right now is still associative rather than causative. Yet it would be interesting to know the leading theories in the field right now on the impact of behaviour on development and health, and how this is impacted by the microbiome.

A great class! It is meant for medical professionals and students. Still, it is very useful for anyone interested in understanding various facets of the human microbiome. It is a very important health topic and everyone will benefit from learning about our microbiota.

A lot of learning can be put into practice in developing a healthy microbiome, with awareness about how our microbiomes differ and how we can protect our gut health. Gut health is related to overall health and poor gut health can result in various diseases.

Nice to learn about differences in different terms ---like pro-biotics, pre-biotics, syn-biotics, and post-biotics!

Still, this class does not provide much information for learners who want to learn about food. I have audited this class. For the learners who audit, even some content of general interest is locked in every module!

I enjoyed some of the content in this course, but it was not what I expected. I expected this course to have a more practical use, and to learn more about diet plans and other methodologies in order to improve your gut health. There are barely any opportunities to interact with your teachers, and I consistently found myself getting 100% on all ungraded aspects of this course yet receiving horrible grades on the graded exams. The exams contained information that was not presented to us (or at least not in a clear manner). On multiple questions I expected to get at least partial credit for getting some correct answers, but was given a 0. There are many spelling/grammar errors which make the questions unclear. Not to mention, videos are the only content being offered. In the videos, the words they share on their screen are not accurately lined up to what the teacher is discussing. If you are a visual learner, it may seem that the videos are helpful but they are not. I felt as though I had zero interaction with this course and constantly found myself stressing about the graded exams. In other courses I have taken, they give you 2 or even 3 chances to correct your response without showing you the answer. Personally I would not recommend this course to other learners if you are looking to be verified. It is OK for people just looking to learn more about microbiota in general but no practical use.