Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Universities with the Best Free Online Courses

No tuition money? No problem! There are many top universities that offer free courses online. This list ranks several of the best free university courses available for people who want to enhance their personal knowledge or advance in their current fields.

Take Free Courses. Earn Real College Credit.

Most free courses don't lead to college credit. Education Portal Academy's free courses do!
Here's how it works:
1. Watch free video lessons.
2. Take free quizzes.
3. Pass an exam to earn real college credit.

Top Universities with Free Courses

The free courses from these schools don't offer a path towards credit, but they are strong resources if you want to learn from some of the best professors in the world.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)

If you are looking for a wide range of free courses offered online, MIT is your best option. More than 1,800 free courses are offered through the school's OpenCourseWare (OCW) project. Courses are in text, audio and video formats and translated into a number of different languages. Students all over the world use MIT's OpenCourseWare and 96 percent of visitors to this site say they would recommend it to someone else.

2. Open University (open.ac.uk)

The Open University is the UK's largest academic institution and a world leader in distance learning. OU's OpenLearn website gives everyone free access to both undergraduate and graduate-level course materials from the University. Courses cover a wide range of topics, including the arts, history, business, education, IT and computing, mathematics and statistics, science, health and technology.

3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)

Carnegie Mellon University offers a number of free online courses and materials through a program called the Open Learning Initiative. OLI courses are intended to allow anyone at an introductory college level to learn about a particular subject without formal instruction. Course options include such offerings as statistics, biology, chemistry, economics, French and physics.

4. Tufts University (tufts.edu)

Like MIT, Tufts has OpenCourseWare that is available free to everyone. Courses are sorted by school (i.e. the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, etc.) and include assignments, lecture notes and other supplementary materials.

5. Stanford (stanford.edu)

Stanford University, one of the world's leading academic institutions, has joined forces with iTunes U to provide access to Stanford courses, lectures and interviews. These courses can be downloaded and played on iPods, PCs and Macs and can also be burned to CDs. If you don't have iTunes, you can download it here for free.

6. University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)

UC Berkeley, one of the best public universities in the nation, has been offering live and on-demand webcasts of many of their courses since 2001. Hundreds of UC Berkeley classes, both current and archived, are now available as podcasts and webcasts. Courses cover a range of subjects, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, psychology, legal studies and philosophy.

7. Utah State University (usu.edu)

Utah State University also provides access to free online courses through OCW. Study options include everything from anthropology to physics and theater arts. These comprehensive text-based courses can be downloaded as zip files or viewed directly on the site.

8. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)

Kutztown University's Small Business Development Center offers the largest collection of free business courses available on the web. Course topics include entrepreneurship, accounting, finance, government, business law, marketing and sales. Comprehensive text, interactive case studies, slides, graphics and streaming audio help to demonstrate the concepts presented in each course.

9. University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)

The University of Southern Queensland in Australia provides free online access to a number of different courses through yet another OpenCourseWare initiative. Courses from each of the five faculties are available covering a broad range of topics, including communication, science, career planning, technology, teaching and multimedia creation.

10. University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)

UC Irvine, another of the nation's top public universities, is also a member of the OCW Consortium. Their growing list of courses covers topics like financial planning, human resources, capital markets and e-marketing. Course materials include syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams.

Earn Real Credit from Free Courses

While the free courses above don't award credit directly. There are two widely recognized and affordable options for exams and credit.

Option #1: The CLEP Exams

The College Board's 33 CLEP exams allow you to test out of your general education requirements. Credit is accepted at 2/3 of colleges and universities in the U.S.

Option #2: Excelsior College's Credit-by-Exam

Excelsior College offers over 40 exams that lead to transferable credit. You can also earn three full degrees by taking free online courses and earning your credit by exam.
Learn how Education Portal Academy will pay you to earn credit!
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