MOOCs: Finding a MOOC

Freemium: Courses are free for a limited time (e.g. a 'four week course' might be free to access for six weeks, after which you need to pay to retain access) and you can pay for a certificate at the end if you want one.

Librarian's comment

FutureLearn is a UK based platform owned by the Open University and a private training company called SEEk Ltd. It has an extremely wide range of courses from an equally wide range of reputable academic providers (including many universities). All of the courses linked in the introduction box above are from Future Learn.

Pros

• Very wide range of courses from reputable providers
• UK based, so some courses may feel more geographically relevant than those from US based platforms
• Courses are largely free as long as you complete them in time

Cons

• The time limit on courses adds pressure - don't start one if you don't think you can finish in the recommended time-scale as it could be frustrating to have to pay or lose access when you are part-way through
• Courses are generally longer than the shortest courses on e.g. Alison or The Skills Network. That's not necessarily a bad thing though as it means they are more in-depth. The shortest courses on FutureLearn are around 2 hours a week for 3 weeks, but there are lots of great courses that are 2-3 hours a week for 4-8 weeks. Remember that they are self-paced so you can do them faster if you know you will have a chunk of spare time, e.g. during a holiday. Find the shorter courses by choosing the 'short course' option from the courses menu bar (see below) and then filtering using the subject headings on the left.

Freemium 'lite': Courses are all free and not time limited. You only pay if you want a certificate at the end.

Librarian's comment

Largely focussed on career related courses but also has some interesting personal development courses too, such as Introduction to Communication Skills and Physical Fitness - Fitness Tips and Workout Routines and also some language courses.

Pros:

• Has a fair number of short (1.5-3 hour) courses
• All courses are free (unless you want a certificate at the end) and are not time limited

Cons:

• Largely aimed at adults and very workplace focussed (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!)
• Quite a bit of embedded advertising on the website
• Check who the course provider is for each individual course. Alison seems to have fewer universities providing courses than some sites, but that isn't necessarily a problem.

Entirely free

Librarian's comment

The Skills Toolkit was set up by the UK Government National Careers Service in April 2020 to help people learn new career related skills during the first COVID-19 lockdown. It's quite a small selection and I'm not sure whether all the courses count as true MOOCs but there are certainly some interesting ones in there. They are all free and range in length from 30minutes to 70 hours.

Topics are:

• Practical maths
• Computer essentials
• Personal growth and wellbeing
• Professional development
• Business and finance
• Digital design and marketing
• Computer science
• Coding

Pros

• All free
• Range of reputable providers
• Wide range of lengths to suit everyone

Cons

• Quite a small number of courses and narrow range of topics

Free and Paid: Coursera does hosts a significant quantity of paid content, but there are almost 1800 courses you can take for free

Librarian's comment

Start by selecting Take a free course from the Explore menu at the top left of the homepage. Then you can use the excellent filters (below) to find a course that interests you. This is one of the better sites I've seen for allowing you to filter both by course duration/level and subject in order to find a course that suits you, although the subject filters are very broad.

Pros

• Wide range of courses, both academic and personal development
• Course providers are well-respected universities and businesses

Cons

• Make sure you filter out paid content before you start
• Filters are a great idea but aren't that accurate - I noticed that when I set the 'languge' filter to English it failed to filter out some courses in Arabic and French!

Freemium and Paid: A real mix of freemium courses where you pay for extended access and certification and fully paid courses which can be hundreds of dollars

Librarian's comment

EdEx was started by Harvard and MIT in 2012 and hosts content from a range of high level universities and businesses from around the world but mostly in the US. The site is initially quite difficult to navigate if you are just looking for a short course (there are lots of degree level or careers programmes and these tend to be the more expensive ones). However the key seems to be to filter by 'courses' rather than 'programs' (click on the image below to get straight to this page).

After that the filters are fairly straightforward to use and there are some great courses on offer.

Pros

• A wide variety of courses from a range of reputable providers
• Filtering makes finding a good course relatively easy (once you get to the right start page - click image above)

Cons

• You can't tell until you click on a course for more information whether it will be a paid for one or not, which can be irritating, but very few of the short courses seem to be so this isn't too big an issue.
• Unusually, although these courses are self-paced they seem to have specific set 'start dates'. Most are also Freemium so you only have access the the course materials for a month and then would have to pay to finish the course if you have not completed it in that time.

Entirely free

Librarian's comment

Khan Academy is one of the older players in the online education market having started in 2006, well before the 2012 MOOC boom and some would argue that Khan Academy isn't entire a MOOC provider at all. Unlike many of the others listed here Khan Academy does have a great deal of content aimed at schools as well as college (university) level content. The main focus is Math(s) and Science, but it also has a small collection of History, US Politics, Art and Economics courses plus some personal development courses.

Pros

• Aimed at your age group
• Entirely free
• Very clear course structure - you can see exactly where you have got to and how far you have to go
• No need to sign in or create an account to access any content

Cons

• You need to understand the US school structure to navigate the course menus (US grades are 1 below UK school years - e.g. 11th grade is year 12)
• Limited range of topics - but coverage within Maths and Science is very good
• No suggestion of how long a course will take (but if you've had a go at one you can work it out because the structure of all of them is the same)
• Quite a 'bitty' structure, involving a lot of clicks to move through a course. Clear that the courses are aimed at school level - feels a bit like BBC Bitesize at times. Some of the other MOOCs feel more grown up. Despite this there is some high level sophisticated content here, particurly for Maths and Science.

Pretty much anything! You might choose:

• Something to support and extend your A-level studies such as Frontier Physics, Future Technologies or How to read French Poetry
• Something to develop a skill such as How to suceed at writing applications, Improve your study techniques or Developing your research project
• Something relating to a hobby or interest such as Digital wellbeing to An introduction to recreational math or How to write your first song
• Or something topical like COVID-19: Understanding the research behind the pandemic

Check the level of the course you are signing up to to make sure it is appropriate for your current skill level in that area.

No. There are many free courses, but open just means that there are no entry requirements - anyone can join. Several models have emerged over time:

• Entirely free (getting rarer)
• Freemium - the basic course is free but you can choose to pay for some services, such as access to tests or completion certificates or access to the course for longer than a set time frame.
• Subscription and pay-per-course. Sites such as Udacity, Udemy and The Great Courses offer platforms where you pay for each course you take or pay a monthly fee for access to a range of courses. I haven't included these in my reviews because I have focussed in free and freemium content.

No. Like any other internet content, MOOCs can be designed by anyone. Try to find MOOCs from reputable providers such as well-known universities or those recommended by authorities such as the UK Government Skills toolkit. The list of MOOC access points below is just that, it does not guarantee that all the MOOCs on those platforms are equally worthwhile.

You choose. MOOCs can be as short as 1.5 hours, there are many you can take for a couple of hours a week over 4-6 weeks and they go all the way up to online degrees intended to be taken over several years. Make sure you check the length of the course you are commiting to before you sign up, particularly for a Fremium course where you might lose access after a certain length of time.

This also varies greatly. Most involve some video and/or audio content, which may range from simple recordings of university lectures to tailored content created for an online audience, they may also involve assignments (although if any feedback is offered on these it is likely you will need to pay for that service), quizzes, or online discussion forums. There may also be downloadable, printable course materials. Think carefully about how you will take notes, particularly if there is no downloadable content, so that you can refer back to what you have learnt once you lose access to the course itself. You might want to take screenshots of important points for your own notes but remember that the course material may well be copyrighted (although some is creative commons) so you should not share these with others or post them online.