The Education Portal offers a short listing and useful introduction to free college and university courses; definitely worth a read by those new to the world of open educational resources. ____JH
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"Pros and Cons of Free Universities
There are a few other drawbacks to free universities, as one might expect. Many courses include reading lists filled with books that are not available for free -- meaning you have to go out and buy them if you want to take full advantage of the course. And some 'courses' are just six or ten web pages of easy-to-read text followed by a multiple-choice quiz. This hardly compares with a full semester of in-depth readings, classroom discussions and all-night study sessions.
Still, many course offerings are surprisingly comprehensive, including dozens of hours of audio lectures, supplemental movies, interactive quizzes and self-directed assignments. For example, UC-Berkeley archives each lecture for courses as diverse as General Astronomy, Heidegger and Human Emotion, and then makes them available as podcasts.
Judgment Call: How Good Are Free Online Courses?
Some schools have assembled a formidable online arsenal of learning. Other schools' online offerings are barely worth the time.
Ultimately, what each student gets out of free online learning depends on his or her investment into the process. Free classes aren't substitutes for a real university education, but the best schools' offerings might just help you build the core knowledge you've always wanted in a certain subject. Purchase the recommended reading books, complete the assignments and take the interactive tests seriously, and you might find that you've actually, well...learned something.
And, really, isn't that what it's all about?"
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