General Information
What is a MOOC?
- A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. MOOCs are college level courses taught online by colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning to thousands of students across the world at the same time.
- Some MOOCs are free and others have fees. Some MOOCs are presented as video lectures, while others might be interactive websites filled with multimedia.
- Some MOOCs provide certifications or college credit for classes. Please check with your school or employer if you have questions about whether they will accept credits or certifications from a MOOC.
List of Online College Courses
MOOCs
- The Great Courses: Hundreds of courses are available on-line for free through RT library’s Kanopy streaming service.
- Coursera: This for-profit MOOC provider has partnered with approximately 98 of the top Ivy League and research universities. Coursera offers classes from Yale, Cal Tech, Duke, Brown, and Rutgers. Coursera offers both free and paid classes, some of which may be available for college credit.
- EdX: A non-profit MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard that has partnered with over 40 leading universities including UC Berkley, Colgate, and Cornell.
- NovoED: Wharton, Princeton, and Standford have teamed up to offer a more social peer based learning experience for entrepreneurship and creativity based classes.
- Futurelearn: If you’ve always wanted to attend lectures at a prestigious UK or Australian university, Futurelearn might be right up your alley.
- OpenupEd: International learning from prestigious European universities from France, Russia, and the Netherlands.
- Udacity: Co-founded by MOOC pioneer Sebastian Thrun, Udacity’s “mission is to bring accessible, affordable, engaging, and highly effective higher education to the world”. Udacity is not affiliated with any universities.
- Khan Acadamy: Khan Acadamy is an extremely popular MOOC that is used by students to help learn math and a host of other subjects. They are a non-profit sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Job & Career Accelerator: Sponsored by the NJ State Library, this free job hunting tool has great videos for learning a variety of computer programs, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.
- Lynda.com: Classes are not free, but Lynda.com (aka LinkedIn Learning) has great videos for a whole host of computer topics, including programming (Python, C, and many more), Management, Computer Aided Design, Photography, Microsoft Office, and almost any other computer topic you can think of.
- MOOC List: Search this directory to find specific courses by topic, university, or instructor.
What Other Options Do I Have If I Don’t Want To Take a Class Online?
- The Rockaway Township Public Library is currently offering a large selection of in-person computer classes and workshops in a variety of areas and interests. We can also help you access a wide range of academic journal articles through our databases.
- Many area museums offer fascinating cultural and educational programing. View current offerings by clicking on the Morris County calander of events.
- Rutgers University offers tuition free in-person college courses through its Senior Citizen Audit Program during the spring and fall semesters on its Camden, New Brunswick, and Newark campuses. See the link above for more information.