I recently completed the Antiquities Trafficking and Art Crime MOOC (Massively Online Open Course) on Futurelearn, my first MOOC ever. This was a three week course with an estimated 4 hours of time each week. Week 1 was about Stolen/Looted Antiquities and Trafficking, Week 2 was Art Crimes, and Week 3 was about Reparations and Returns. The course was led by Donna Yates.
I really enjoyed the course. Particularly week 2 when we covered Art Crime, Week 1 was also very enjoyable. Most memorable was Ai WeiWei’s smashed Ancient Urns and the resulting museum crime (of someone smashing one of his Urns), The Gardner art theft, and the concept of art smuggler networks.
The format of the course involved primarily videos, and Articles with some Quizzes, Discussions and a couple activities. The estimate of 4 hours was relatively accurate depending on how much time you spent digging deeper into the topics at hand.
Overall I feel that the course was well worth the time, and served as a introduction to a really interesting and expansive topic. I was satisfied with the amount of time spend on the various topics covered by the course.