List of free online courses

List of free online courses


Free and low-cost courses online we’ve tried, tested and now shortlisted. Ignite a new passion, supplement school or university study, or ramp up for work or a new career.

GENERAL     TECH     SUBSCRIPTION

General / MOOCs

  • Coursera
    https://www.coursera.org
    A huge variety of courses covering most areas you’d expect to find in any large university. All are free to audit. A small fee is required to earn a verified certificate.

  • edX
    https://www.edx.org
    At a glance, edX looks like a STEM-heavy MOOC provider, but if you open up the list of courses by subject, you’ll find music, the humanities, law and business on offer for free. Like Coursera, all courses are free to audit or pay a small fee for a course certificate.

  • Udacity
    https://www.udacity.com
    Tech-focused plus a handful of non-tech courses that are still within the STEM world. Many are free, but they also offer affordable “nanodegree” programs.

  • FutureLearn
    https://www.futurelearn.com
    A growing collection of MOOCs from universities around the world. Like Coursera and edX, courses run for 3-6 weeks on average.

  • The Open University (UK)
    http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses
    They count over 800 courses to choose from in almost any topic you can think of.

  • Khan Academy
    https://www.khanacademy.org
    Loads of subjects aimed at high school students, but also a number of humanities, tech and economics courses. All free.

  • Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
    http://oli.cmu.edu/learn-with-oli/see-our-free-open-courses/
    Around 30 introductory courses in their entirety across various disciplines are offered here all for free.

  • Open Yale Courses
    http://oyc.yale.edu
    There are around 40 courses on offer across numerous disciplines, mainly introductory, but all free.

  • Berkeley Webcast
    http://webcast.berkeley.edu
    A backlog of course videos are permanently available through to Spring 2015 after which new content will be published on edX exclusively. There are hundreds of courses on subjects that don’t change much or at all over the course of a few years (unlike tech, for example), so it’s still a valuable resource to consider.

  • MIT Open Courseware
    http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by-department
    Loads of courses listed, unfortunately, not all complete. It is, however, a great place to look for reputable sources or books for essays or if you’re perusing a subject area and want to know what might be involved.

GENERAL     TECH     SUBSCRIPTION

Tech / coding / development

  • Microsoft Virtual Academy
    https://mva.microsoft.com
    Hundreds of free video courses covering both Microsoft and non-Microsoft tech at all levels of proficiency, taught by experts and optionally supplemented by free software a few clicks away.

  • Code Academy
    https://www.codecademy.com
    Free courses to help get you started in popular scripting languages in a hands-on online environment.

GENERAL     TECH     SUBSCRIPTION

Paid / subscription

  • Udemy
    https://www.udemy.com
    Tens of thousands of courses in any subject or topic you can imagine, for free or for a small fee per course. The problem with Udemy is courses aren’t always taught by qualified instructors or institutions, which makes finding a course worth doing a lesson in itself.

GENERAL     TECH     SUBSCRIPTION


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