For those of you who haven’t taken an EdX course, I audited one last year and found it to be very user friendly. For example, as you are probably aware, each class is taped and therefore you can watch each one at a time that is good for you anytime during the timeframe that the course is open (six weeks in this case). So, although the first Sabermetric class video is “released” on May 8th, if you know you won’t have time to start the course until after, say, the third class, you could still take the course. In such a case, you simply would need to catch up sometime before the course ends. (In an extreme example, you could watch all classes on the last day the course is open.)
Another thing I found very convenient is that a clickable transcript is provided on the same page as the class video. This is convenient because it allows the viewer to skip to a particular point in the video merely by clicking on a particular, corresponding portion of the transcript. Therefore, you can assure that you’re only spending time on material that’s of use to you. (For example, let’s say the first part of the first class is spent covering basic rules of baseball that you’ve long known, you could scan the transcript to find a portion of the video that’s of interest to you.)
All of the above was true of the course I audited, at least. I don’t know if this course will be run differently, or if different rules apply for those who will be taking it for certificate credit.