Learning online from the Best Universities

As more and more Universities offer courses online, education is crossing borders and making knowledge available worldwide, to anyone, anywhere. We bring to you a list of the best universities that offer education online.

MIT: MIT was among the pioneers of offering education online. It offers almost all its courses online and students can choose the subjects of their interest. MIT’s Open Courseware (OCW), it claims, helps students explore additional sources to help them succeed, academicians to enrich their curricula, and independent learners to enrich their lives and help find solutions to global problems.

 

Harvard: Harvard offers over 600 courses online, from topics ranging on art and museum studies to computer science and engineering.  It also offers courses on campus in the evening, and students have a choice to attend those lectures or complete the course online.

 

Stanford: Stanford offers options for continuing education for professionals and lifelong learners across the world. Stanford Online is a university wide initiative which advances faculty-driven online learning initiatives and research, providing exceptional educational opportunities to Stanford students. Stanford launched its own open source software for online courses (Stanford OpenEdX) and its engineers have contributed new functionality to the open-source software, including real-time chat and new installation scripts. Other universities can also use the open source software to conduct their own courses on the website.

 

Cambridge: Cambridge offers online courses for students, executives, and anyone else who is interested in learning. The course format includes an introductory orientation week to help candidates familiarise themselves with their classmates and prepare themselves for five weeks of independent studying. Also, students will have access to the course material provided to them for two years after they complete the course to enable them to research and explore the course subject further.  “Googling the Earth: online resources for discovering landscape archaeology”, “Interpersonal dynamics of executive coaching”, “Creative writing: An introduction to life writing”, are a few course titles that are available currently.

 

Oxford University: Oxford University offers over 90 courses online. Most courses are 5-10 weeks long and are accredited. A few courses, however, are for a longer duration and result in an Oxford qualification. Courses are structured as weekly online meetings, where interaction with the tutor and other students is facilitated in a virtual environment. Credits from these courses can also be used for Oxford’s award programme. 

 

University of Toronto: The School of Continued Education provides many opportunities for interested people to learn at their own pace. Course topics range from studying the Japanese language to creating effective strategies for a web presence.