I’ve been using online learning platforms for a couple of years now – in fact, I’d say I’m one of the most active users in this niche. There are many online learning platforms but some are maybe poorly supported. Others do not really offer good courses for certain areas of interest. The big names though are massively popular for sure. I’ve personally used ones like edX, Coursera and FutureLearn. These are three largest online learning platforms but there are many others you should consider too if you are interested in this type of activities.
Here are a couple of online resources like coursera that you will embrace.
ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive System Online) offers Free Online Courses, Workplace Skills, Interactive Education and Multimedia learning. With ALISON you can take online courses with certificate of completion or Diploma level, on a wide range of courses.
Coursera
Coursera is just about the best online learning platform out there, as well as one of the most popular. They collaborate with over 190 top companies and universities, such as Google, IBM, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania, and they have thousands of courses and specializations to study completely online.
On top of the regular free online learning courses, you can also earn professional certificates and full university degrees for a nominal fee. Or, you can join Coursera Plus, which is around $59/month, where Coursera offers unlimited access to take as many courses and classes as you want with full certificate benefits! You can get a 7 day free trial here.
Some options on their online learning platform include:
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate
- Negotiation, Mediation and Conflict Resolution Specialization
- Master of Computer and Information Technology
- Introduction to Physical Chemistry
Coursera offer high quality courses from top universities, for free to everyone to improve your resume, advance your career, expand your knowledge, and gain confidence. This online learning platform currently host courses from Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania.
Udemy’s goal is to disrupt and democratize the world of education by enabling anyone to teach and learn online. It seeks to dramatically change education by empowering millions of experts around the world to teach & share what they know. Whether you want to learn excel, business & entrepreneurship, academics, the arts, health & fitness, language, music or technology, there is a comprehensive course for you.
When Udacity started its first courses in February 2012, the model was that all online courses are open enrollment; you can learn at your own pace and access all of the information you need at any time. Upon completion of the class, you download your class certification to demonstrate your level of achievement in the course, all for free. However in April 2014, it announced that effective from May 16, they will be phasing out certificates for free courseware completion. Students are now required to pay to complete courses and get a verified certificate. Read this comparison article between Udemy Vs Udacity.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is one of the most popular online learning platforms on the internet, serving just about everyone, from preschool through to adult learners. As well as all the free online classes you or your children can take, they offer the site in Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and they are currently translating their online resources into more than 30 other languages.
During the coronavirus crisis as everyone is working and studying from home, they even have daily learning schedules and resources for children aged 2–18, so high school students, middle school students, and their younger counterparts can effectively learn online, as well! All are free courses you can do self-paced, a perfect online education for busy students and young professionals!
Some options on their online learning platform include:
- Macroeconomics
- Trigonometry
- AP Biology
- Finance & Capital Markets
edX
Just as powerful and feature-rich as Coursera, with some top-tier schools in their course catalog, edX offers more than 2,500 massive open online courses (MOOCs). With courses put on by MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Boston University, you can get a world-class education from the comfort of your own home.
Beside their standard courses, they also offer professional certificates, a MicroBacherlors program, a MicroMasters program, and their Global Freshman Academy. Definitely one of the best online learning platforms out there, though you’ll have to pay to take some of their university-level certificate and degree programs. But if you want to learn a new skill from one of the best video-based course platforms, edX is hard to beat!
Some options on their online learning platform include:
- Marketing Analytics: Competitive Analysis and Market Segmentation
- Instructional Design and Technology
- Cosmic Rays, Dark Matter, and the Mysteries of the Universe
University of the People (UoPeople) is proclaimed the world’s first tuition-free online university dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education. UoPeople offers Associates and Bachelors degree programs in Business Administration and Computer Science.
If you’re a student who uses Apple devices, you will be happy to know that you have access to iTunes U, which gives you access to different educational courses from all leading universities for free! Did you dream of studying at MIT, Oxford, Yale, or Cambridge? This is your chance to learn various subjects from the best colleges and universities in the world.
Saylor strives to provide quality education for free for everyone around the world. The Saylor team hires credentialed professors to create course blueprints and to locate, vet, and organize Open Education Resources – OER materials into a structured and intuitive format. Each course culminates with a final exam, and students receiving a passing grade can download a certificate of completion.
If you are looking to learning a new skill, or improving on your proficiency in Photoshop, Illustrator, or HTML, Skillfeed offers unlimited access to high quality video courses from a worldwide community of instructors. You have a month’s free trial which thereafter, you will subscribe to a monthly fee to gain unlimited access to *all* courses!
FutureLearn
FutureLearn lets you learn online from universities and companies all over the world, including Anglia Ruskin University, King’s College London, Monash University, and the University of Wollongong. On top of their university partnerships, they also partner with specialist organizations such as Accenture, Amnesty International, the British Library, and UNESCO.
From personal development video lessons to employment-related course content, FutureLearn definitely deserves its place near the top of our best online learning platforms list.
Some options on FutureLearn’s online learning platform include:
- Understanding Fashion: From Business to Culture
- Work-Life Balance and the Impact of Remote Working
- Allergies: When the Immune System Backfires
- Cognitive Behavioural Skills to Treat Back Pain: The Back Skills Training (BeST) Programme
Academic Earth has curated links to over 750 online courses and 8,500 individual online lectures, giving students of all ages unparalleled access to college courses they may otherwise never experience. Whether supplementing existing coursework, or learning for the sake of learning, anyone with an internet connection has the freedom to learn at their own pace from world-renowned experts, without the burden of rising tuition costs.
The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a worldwide collaborative initiative that brings together OCW from universities across six continents.
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a permanent free web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content and is open and available to anyone around the world. The over 2100 OCW materials reflect almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
Online courses at Harvard Extension School have either an online video or live web-conference format. Some courses also include a weekend of intensive on-campus lectures. Online courses span a full semester and have scheduled assignments and exams. Due to the interactive nature of the web conference lesssons, you will have to pay for certain courses here!
Are you a bachelor or high school student who is undecided about your future course of interest? Yale Open Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. Discover a range of timely and timeless topics taught by Yale professors, each with a unique perspective and an individual interpretation of a particular field of study.
Open.Michigan, University of Michigan’s OCW initiative, features a giant collection of courses from 19 of the university’s schools, colleges and units. Ranging from literature to dentistry to public policy, the extensive list hosts a variety of courses — all complete with syllabi, course lectures and supplementary material.
Canvas
Unlike edX or Coursera, which each have big names on board as far as universities, Canvas is a MOOC platform with smaller local universities and community colleges teaching its online courses. Some of these include the University of Colorado Boulder, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the Swinburne University of Technology. Also, rather than simply offering courses for anyone, Canvas caters more towards teaching current instructors as well as the next generation of educators.
Some individual courses on their e-learning platform include:
- University Governance and Academic Leadership
- Safe and Resilient Schools: Threat Assessment and School Safety
- Writing In The Disciplines Professional Development Course
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health offers comprehensive materials for dozens of courses on topics like chronic diseases, global health and injury prevention.
Harvard Medical School’s OCW initiative includes dozens of materials from its course catalog. It’s more of a library of resources than a list of full courses — the collection includes classes with video clips, lecture slides, notes and projects.
Carnegie Mellon only has a handful of courses, mostly in the STEM fields. However, the courses are comprehensive and the layout is conducive to a streamlined learning experience. Though there aren’t any video lectures, the classes are laid out like online courses. All notes are completely digital, and there are interactive practice problems for students to self-check their understanding of each lesson.
Choose from schools of dentistry, medicine, nutrition policy, veterinary medicine, arts and sciences, engineering and international relations. Each course contains a variety of materials: PDFs of lecture slides, homework assignments and exams.
Notre Dame’s OCW program offers courses across two dozen of its departments, from aerospace engineering and classics to mathematics and theology. Each course includes a syllabus; others have class structure outlines. Classes also include professor biographies — so you know you’re learning from an accredited source. Audio lectures, PowerPoint slides, illustrations and texts are all free to use.
UC Berkeley webcasts offers a large selection of courses in a comprehensive list of departments — bioengineering, Japanese, legal studies, public health. Since the webcasts are more or less recordings of actual lectures, as opposed to courses optimized for web, they lack lecture notes and supplementary materials. However, each course has audio recordings of lectures via iTunes or video recordings of lectures via YouTube.
Conclusion
online learning platform is the place where anyone can take free online courses from top universities. The number of online courses has been increasing tremendously, as people become more aware about distance education. However, it is not always easy to find a good platform for your online learning needs.