There is a good course on coursera just for recommendation systems. Evaluation of different models is something many algorithm oriented posts don't talk about but is covered well in this course.
Yes. I have used its material and found it helpful.
Machine learning: recommender systems and dimensionality reduction also looks good but it starts in July. If you are already familiar with dimensionality reduction techniques the first one should be enough to get you going. There are other self paced courses on dimensionality reduction on coursera too.
This is a good course for the fundamentals. Although IIRC the programming assignments aren't that great because it mostly involves plugging in their recommender system framework that was developed by one of the instructors