Free Online Courses

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by TCord1964, Oct 8, 2005.

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  1. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    I am sure you are going to cross-validate it with Pebble Hills University, aren't you? :)
     
  2. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Yep, that was my target school! How did you know?

    I think I might be getting wiretapped...
     
    Johann likes this.
  3. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Sure looks like it. Move the curtain half an inch or so, then take a peek at all those Government-looking black SUVs across the street... :eek:
     
  4. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Good idea - hope they work. I've always been a little diffident about creativity courses. I think it's largely something you've got - or you haven't. That's subjective, of course. If they've really got something that might turn me into the next Tolkien or Torvalds (Linux) -- I should look into it. I'd think that would have to take more than 3-5 hours, though...
     
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  6. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    The real creativity here is in convincing the university to create free courses that provide absolutely no benefit to the school so that you can claim to be have been a course designer for a major state uni on your resume :emoji_grin:
     
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  7. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I think this is an ultra-important (and oft-neglected) area of education: Personal Finance. Free online personal finance course from one of Canada's premier universities - McGill U. in Montreal. Have a look.

    https://www.mcgill.ca/desautels/industry/community-engagement/mcgill-personal-finance-essentials

    From the site: "The course is non-credit non-transcript and does not count towards any McGill University program, degree, diploma or certificate." Sorry - but this is still a really well-reputed school - and you do get an "Attestation of Completion" on successful completion. And you learn about a very important subject, of course.
     
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  8. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

  9. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    To add to this, I really enjoyed the Brief Tobacco Intervention Training Program (BTITP) I did online a few years ago from Curtin University in Australia. I see they've decommissioned it and replaced it with this (https://education.quit.org.au/). Unfortunately the new site wants an Australian address so I'm not sure if the program is still available.
     
  10. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

  11. eriehiker

    eriehiker Active Member

    I don't know if these have been posted before, but...

    https://open.hpi.de/courses

    These are MOOC's from Germany. The courses themselves are free. However, ECTS credits (2 per designated course) are available with on online proctor and qualified certificate. That process costs 60 Euro. A Euro is currently $1.19.

    This one merits some investigation. Most of the courses are tech-related and at about $75 per credit hour, that would be a pretty good deal.
     
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  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yes - it would. Unless, of course, a US holder of these credits actually needs to use them - i.e. for his/her degree plan - and has to get them evaluated. That costs. Especially course-by-course for a couple of handfuls of them. I'm sure they're worth 2 ECTS - but is there any way they can be equated to usable US credits without a 3rd party (evaluator) taking a huge cut?

    I'm thinking perhaps for the knowledge alone, these courses are a very good deal. For use of credits, outside EU - YMMV. And for about half the courses, I'd say you'd need pretty good German. The majority of the IT related courses are taught nur auf Deutsch. Says so. Each course indicates language of instruction.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2020
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  13. innen_oda

    innen_oda Active Member

    As soon as I see Eriehiker has posted anything in the free online courses thread, I stop whatever it is I'm doing and click through. You find such good stuff!

    I was looking into XAMK a few months ago, as they also offer ECTS credits for low or no cost, and I'm still trying to figure out if the transfer of ECTS credits has a standard acceptance process in European universities. Even going to a few websites of random uni's in Europe (just ones that came to me off the top of my head), I couldn't find much mention of whether they were open to accepting ECTS credits, and if so, how, and where.

    There's plenty of info about earning ECTS credits, and how great they are - but so little on what to actually do with them once you have them.

    I've enrolled in one of the HPI courses anyway, but it'd be great to unearth some info on where in Europe I can take these credits when I'm done.
     
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  14. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    You might try Googling "Übertragung von ECTS Credits" Or "Transfer of ECTS Credits." I just did. Either way, the info comes up in English and German. Lots of it. Hope that helps. And yes - I believe the best way might be to use these European credits towards a European degree, rather than for one being earned across-the-pond.
     
  15. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    MOOC "Climate Action – Solutions for Carbon Neutral Transport". 2 ECTS for free. https://mooc.lut.fi/
    Heck, I like these Finnish universities!!
     
  16. SpoonyNix

    SpoonyNix Active Member

    I am about 1/2 done with that one.
     
  17. innen_oda

    innen_oda Active Member

    Unfortunately, almost exactly the same results I found earlier. Plenty of info on how great the ECTS system is, and how the system works, but not so much in the way of specific universities who will accept ECTS credits.

    Seems unis are happy to tell you how they hand out ECTS credits, but rather reticent to detail how they might accept ECTS earned elsewhere.
     
  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Sorry about that. I'll try to do better.
     
  19. Mac Juli

    Mac Juli Well-Known Member

    Yup.
     
    innen_oda likes this.
  20. eriehiker

    eriehiker Active Member

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