Review of the course Applied Cryptography
Back to the courseComparing the Coursera and Udacity Cryptography classes
Over the spring, I worked my way through two online cryptography classes:
Professor Dan Boneh's course, hosted at Coursera
Professor Dave Evans's course, hosted at Udacity
Taking both classes was not a waste; the two presentations nicely complemented and reinforced each other, and in the end I felt that I learned a lot from each.
But there were both differences and similarities between the courses, which I found interesting.
Both formats are broadly the same:
Both classes are, roughly, upper-division undergraduate classes in modern cryptography, covering roughly the same material
Both classes are presented as video lectures, in the style of allowing you to view the virtual whiteboard that the lecturer is drawing on, while listening to the lecture.
Both classes augment the video lectures with quizzes, homework assignments, additional reading, and forums for students to gather and discuss the material
Some of the differences in the classes were mechanical:
The videos for the Boneh class were generally 12-20 minutes in length, each, while the videos for the Evans class were generally 1-3 minutes in length, each
The slides and quizzes for the Boneh class were typeset, and were supplemented by a certain amount of free-hand annotation, while the slides and quizzes for the Evans class were presented entirely in free-hand
The classes present the material in a different order
Although the materials used largely similar notation, there were notational differences (e.g., Boneh uses the terminology "public key/secret key" and the letters "p" and "s", where Evans generally uses the terminology "public key/private key" and the letters "u" and "r")
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