Last month, on the topic of career education, we wrote a post that included “The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience“. That post was meant to help deepen your knowledge, this one should help you broaden it.
Every year, US News produces a list of the top universities. None of the names on the top of the list will come as a surprise, we’ve all heard of them and they represent the most prestigious universities in the world. Many of them are Ivy League schools, but not all. Aside from being expensive, they all have something else in common. All ten offer free course work to the general public.
A number of years ago, I attended a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about their MIT OpenCourseWare Initiative. A project that placed all of the necessary materials online for various undergraduate courses offered by MIT. The project had been running for a few years and was extremely successful. An interesting takeaway from the talk was the fact that most of the interest in the free courses was not coming from impoverished areas of America, but rather Pakistan and India. It may speak on some level to global science and technology employment trends.
What’s happened since MIT’s OCW?
MIT’s launch initially focused on text only (lecture notes, syllabus, reading material, etc…), but has come a long way. Over the years, many schools have launched similar initiatives, going even further to include both assignments and tests. So far, we haven’t seen any that offer free courses for credit, but there are some that will award a certificate indicating that the student understands the coursework.
From the US News Report, here are the top ten universities in order (including the addresses of their OpenCourseWare courses):
- Princeton University (https://online.princeton.edu/courses)
- Harvard University (http://online-learning.harvard.edu/courses?cost[]=free&sort_by=popularity)
- University of Chicago (https://www.class-central.com/university/chicago)
- Yale University (http://oyc.yale.edu/)
- Columbia University (http://online.columbia.edu/moocs.html)
- Stanford University (http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/HomePage.php)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm)
- Duke University (https://www.coursera.org/duke)
- University of Pennsylvania (https://www.coursera.org/penn)
- Johns Hopkins University (http://ocw.jhsph.edu/)
MIT hosts its own courses as do some of the other great universities not appearing on the above list. If you wanted to look for a specific university’s program offering, Search for the university by name on google (www.google.com) along with the search terms “open courseware” and “MOOC“. MOOC stands for “Massive Open Online Courses”
What are the best MOOC Platforms?
Another option is to peruse some of the various platforms on which some schools host their courses. It’s important to recognize that there isn’t one specific platform that hosts all courses. But here’s a great place to start looking:
- Coursera
- edX
- Kadenze
- NovoEd
- Udacity
- FutureLearn
- Canvas Network
- Independent
- iVersity
- Open Education by Blackboard
- Khan Academy (for younger learners)
- Codeacademy (for learning how to program)
edX is a non-profit run jointly by Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley. Coursera is a for-profit company started by two former Stanford professors. They are perhaps the most popular platforms.
Whether you’re interested in Math, Writing, or even Astrophysics, technology is now delivering the best education to you for free. Take a moment to look at some of the courses available and do me a favor… Write back and let us know what you thought of them.