Free Online Courses from Top Universities

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if I could take any course I wanted, from any university I desired, for free. Believing that the best universities would have the best professors, I decided to do a little research and see what pops up. To my surprise, I discovered that practically all of the top universities offer free courses. How did I decide which universities were "top universities"? I 'googled it', of course, and decided to use the US News rankings of national universities.

Many of the universities are operating under the OpenCourseWare Consortium's shared model. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.

Quoting from OpenCourceWare: "An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality college and university%u2010level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. OpenCourseWare are free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anytime via the internet."

I personally prefer MIT's offering of these courses. MIT includes course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. I am especially excited about the MITx initiative,, which combines research, technical innovation and new online learning opportunities.