I’ve always had a distaste for the idea of marketing. I saw marketing as a fluffier part of business – as compared to subjects like accounting and finance – and I was uncomfortable with the idea that corporations actively work to shape our desires. I might not have taken a marketing course at all, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m using MOOCs to mimic a degree-bearing MBA program course-for-course, and most if not all MBA programs include at least one course on marketing. Introduction to Marketing, a MOOC from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, quickly disabused me of my mistaken notions about marketing. In fact, by the end of the course I was convinced that marketing is a central component of business strategy – perhaps the central component. The course is taught by three professors – Barbara Kahn, Peter Fader, and David Bell. Each prof teaches one unit – Branding, Customer Centricity, and Go-to-Market Strategies, respectively. Introduction to Marketing is part of the Wharton foundational series – along with Introduction to Accounting, Introduction to Operations Management, and Introduction to Corporate Finance. I’m still counting my lucky stars that one of the top business schools in the country started giving away free online versions of its core courses just as I started putting together my free version of an MBA. Without further ado, let’s go through my three-part rubric for evaluating online courses.