Best Javascript Courses - Q2 2023

Content Coverage (5/5)

This course is structured into 4 modules comprised of video lectures, readings, discussions, quizzes, and exercises. The content coverers the majority of topics that we consider essential in a Javascript course.  The course also goes in-depth on working with the DOM and Events.

Essential topics missing in this course include:

• Managing Objects
• Classes and Inheritance

Lecture Quality (5/5)

The instructor for this course is organized, confident, clear, and poised.  The lectures are short (usually less than 10 mins) and targeted.  Most lectures consist of the instructor introducing a topic with a slide containing simple graphics explaining the topic. The instructor then demonstrates the topic through screensharing as he codes.  The instructor does a good job of demonstrating common mistakes as he works in real-time in Visual Studio.

Quiz Quality (5/5)

There is a summative quiz at the end of every module of this course.  The quizzes consist of very well-written multiple-choice and multiple-select questions.  The number of questions are adequate to test the learner’s knowledge of the material in each module.

Quizzes are automatically graded.  For questions that are answered incorrectly, learners are given hints of which topics to review.  Learners must receive an 80% or higher to earn credit for the module quizzes and can retake the quizzes up to 2 times every 8 hours.

Assignment/Exercise Quality (4/5)

Much of this course is structured around actual projects that the learner is expected to work on after they watch the instructor demonstrate the project.  The projects are well suited to beginners and files and documentation is provided.  However, the projects are optional and there is no feedback provided by any expert.

There are also frequent discussion prompts, but participation by other learners seems to be very low.

Certificate Brand Quality (5/5)

This course is offered by UC Davis through the Coursera platform.  UC Davis is a well-known and respected university and Coursera is one of the leading learning platforms.

Content Coverage (5/5)

This course is structured into 18 sections comprised of video lectures, code exercises, and quizzes.  It is an extremely thorough course, covering nearly all topics that we consider to be essential for a javascript course.  The one topic missing is Classes and Inheritance.

The instructor has added several topics that we don’t consider essential, but may be helpful anyway.  These include type conversion; regular expressions; errors and debugging, and events.

Lecture Quality (5/5)

The instructor for this course is very knowledgeable and poised.  Most of the lectures consist of screenshares as he writes specific code examples and variations while providing audio explanations.  The examples are usually very focused and organized.  The instructor is relatively casual, sometimes making and corrects syntactical mistakes as he codes.  In this case, we find this to be beneficial to the learner, as syntax errors can be frustrating when learning a new language.

Quiz Quality (3/5)

There are only two quizzes in this course containing multiple choice and true/false questions.  The quizzes are thorough – covering most of the essential content within the modules they teset.   The questions are well-written with plausible answer options.

Students are presented with one question at a time and the questions are automatically graded.  Feedback is simple correct/incorrect. There is no minimal score required and students can keep trying answers until they answer correctly.

Assignment/Excercise Quality (5/5)

This course has many assignments throughout that allow learners to write actual javascript code and see the output.  The assignments work directly in the browser and don’t require downloading or installing any special software.  Each assignment also provides feedback and hints after the student has submitted.  This is an excellent way for learners to practice and apply javascript.

Certificate Branding (3/5)

This course is offered by Abhay Talreja through the Udemy platform.  Talreja is a software consultant and team lead with over 10 years of development experience in many languages. While Mr. Talreja is certainly qualified to teach the course, he is not well known within the computer science industry. Udemy is one of the leading online learning providers, but course quality varies widely within their platform. For these reasons, this course may not have as big of an impact on a resume as some of the others in this list.

Content Coverage (5/5)

This course is organized of 5 modules comprised of video lectures, readings, discussion prompts, ungraded “knowledge check” quizzes, and graded quizzes.  The course covers all of the content we consider to be essential for a course on Javascript.  In addition to these essentials, the course also covers topics such as:

• The DOM API
• Callback functions
• Handling events
• Working with forms
• The javascript API

Lecture Quality (5/5)

The instructor for this course is Michel Buffa,  a professor/researcher at University Côte d’Azur (France) and a staff member of the WIMMICS research group, a joint initiative of INRIA and the I3S Laboratories (CNRS).  He is very experienced, confident, organized, and poised in his delivery.

Lectures consist of the instructor speaking in a “window box” in the lower left while screensharing as he codes javascript in the main screen.  All of the coding examples are well prepared and focused.

Every lecture is accompanied by text and code examples that thoroughly explain the concepts further.

The instructor does have a relatively strong French accent, but his English is excellent and we found him easy to understand.

Quiz Quality (5/5)

There are three types of quizzes provided in this course:

Short “Knowledge Checks” at the end of specific lessons.  These are not graded, but do provide an excellent tool for learners to test their knowledge before moving forward to the next lesson.

Graded module quizzes.  These are quizzes that thoroughly test the learner’s knowledge of all content covered in the module.  Questions can be answered and graded one at a time and correct/incorrect feedback is provided immediately.  Some questions allow more than one attempt.  Once all attempts have been used, a detailed explanation can be viewed by the learner.  Each module quiz accounts for 18% of the final grade.

A final exam in the last module.  This works just like the graded module quizzes, but covers the entire course and counts for 28% of the final grade.

Assignment/Exercise Quality (1/5)

There are no assignments or exercises offered in this course.

Certificate Brand Quality (5/5)

This course is offered by W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) through the EdX platform. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.   They have an long-standing and excellent reputation in web development.

Content Coverage (5/5)

This course is structured into 7 modules comprised of brief (less than 5 min) videos and quizzes.  The course covers the majority of topics we consider to be essential in a javascript course, but does not go deeply into HTML, the DOM or CSS.

Lecture Quality (5/5)

The instructor for this course is clear, confident, and engaging.  The lectures are high quality, consisting of conceptual graphics and well-prepared screenshares of the instructor writing actual code.

Quiz Quality (5/5)

Each module ends with a quiz containing well-written multiple choice questions.  There are an adequate number of questions to test the learner’s knowledge of the material in the module.

Questions are presented one at a time and automatically graded.  Learners receive helpful feedback for questions answered incorrectly, as well as links back to the lectures covered in the question.  There is no minimum grade required; learners receive credit for the quiz after answering all questions.

Assignment/Exercise Quality (1/5)

There are no assignments or exercises included in this course.

Certificate Brand Quality (4/5)

The certificate is offered by LinkedIn Learning.  Formerly Lynda Learning, this is a very well-respected corporate learning platform.  LinkedIn Learning certificates can be automatically added to Learner’s LinkedIn profile.  Given the notoriety of Lynda Learning and LinkedIn, this certificate is likely to impress employers.