Does auditing a course hold any value?

Question

I was quite curious about doing neuroscience so I reached out to a prof in my institution (IIT-K), who suggested me an online course on the same (MCB80). I have audit the course and am following it through, but recently I was wondering that apart from the knowledge gained, will I have any proof that I did audit this course and I have sufficient amount of knowledge about the course? Will I be able to use evidence of my audit (screenshots) as an evidence of completing the course? How am I expected to communicate with any one else that I have done this course properly?

This is an issue because purchasing the entire course on the edX site is not possible for me as I do not have the required financial support.

Answer 1

Many of your questions (about edX) will be answered by Wikipedia. Whether you can get transferrable credit for any course is up to the individual institution who might accept such a course or not. I don't know, but doubt, whether and institution would tell you before you take such a course whether it would "count".

However, it is a potentially viable resource for learning. But that depends on what you actually do in the course, not just what you see or sign up for. If the course provides you sufficient practice and feedback on your efforts then you could learn something, even if you have no visible "credit" for it.

Audits, even in face to face instruction can be valuable provided that the student does the work and gets appropriate feedback.

And even if you "purchase" an entire course there is no guarantee that a university will accept what you have done. It is pretty risky for certification, even if they issue "certificates". However, the sponsoring institutions (MIT and Harvard) are reputable, so there is likely less risk than if it were run by "Dr. Buffy's Online Diploma Mill". I'm pretty sure that one is disreputable.