That's the promise of Coursera. Of course, the users do not attend the universities themselves, instead, they can pick whichever course they want and study it at their own pace !
Coursera centralizes and process content from more than 200 universities across the globe to make it available for anyone under the same conditions. Hence, it functions as an interface between the student (Customer) and the University providing courses inside the platform.
Customers' database
o Courses taken- updated regularly
o Balance – Updated regularly
o Profile - stored once
• Coursera database
o Course ID number - stored once
o Course name - stored once
o Course Program - stored once
o Course Price - stored once
o Course Grade - updated regularly
o Course Level - stored once
o Number of times the course has been taken- updated regularly
• Course database
o Course ID- stored once
o Enrollment date- stored once
o current date - updated in real-time
o Customer id - stored once
o Grades - updated regularly
o Exams – updated once
This is what the principal interactions are :
o a data is created : the student answers a quizz / deposit a homework
o a data is read : the student accesses a course
o a data is updated : a mark is created for an activity
o a data is deleted : a student resigns his course
This project simply couldn't exist online as it is without using databases. Databases are what allow Coursera to centralize all the course data, while updating a lot of information (Exams, grades...) in real-time for the customer and University to see.