135 Completely Free Distance Education Courses
Whether you’re studying online or at a traditional college, there’s no question that school is expensive. But not everything has to cost an arm and a leg. There are plenty of free distance education resources out there for cash-strapped students—if you know where to look. Here are 135 free ways to enhance your education online.
Free Classes
Many of these schools and sites offer a large number of free courses and courseware. These links to individual classes represent only a small sampling of what they have to offer, and the sites are worth exploring further.
Research Tools
Access to scholarly journals:
Google Scholar: Search scholarly articles with Google.
Resource Shelf: See the results of searches performed by professional researchers, scholars, professors, and reference librarians.
Directory of Open Access Journals: Online access to scholarly and scientific journals—all free.
Rutgers Library Online: Rutgers library archives on African American history, literature, and culture.
CiteULike.com: Privately-run website where academic researchers can store online academic papers—a user-contributed web library.
Questia: Online library. Searchable access to journals and books.
University of Houston Libraries: Directory of free-access scholarly journals online.
JournalSeek: Online access to scholarly journals.
Virginia Tech Electronic Journals: Free, open-access e-journals at the Digital Library at Virginia Tech.
Easy explanations, tutorials, and touch-ups:
How Stuff Works: Easily understandable explanations of how just about everything works, from plasma converters to antibiotics.
Wikipedia: Online encyclopedia; good for quick definitions of terms and concepts, but not considered a valid reference resource for papers.
Mathcasts: Math tutorials.
The Owl at Purdue: Online MLA style guide, plus advice on writing academic and scientific research papers.
Education Online for Computer Software: Tutorials for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other basic software useful in online learning.
Cliff Notes: Free online access to Cliff Notes literature summaries and analysis.
Physics Tutorials: Tutorials and explanations of basic physics concepts.
Biology Tutorials: Tutorials on a wide variety of biology subjects.
HTML Code Tutorial: Offers tutorials on HTML, applets, CSS, and other programming topics.
Learn2Type.com: Brush up on your typing skills—very useful preparation for online classes.
Webfoot.com: Beginner’s guide to effective email.
5-Minute Guide to the Internet: Good resource for those just getting started with Internet basics.
Glossary of Internet Terms: Definitions to both basic and advanced online terms and acronyms.
News sources:
U.S. News Archives on the Web: News coverage of current and past events in all 50 states.
BBC Archives: News coverage on events all over the world. Good for a non-American perspective on events.
The U.S. Library of Congress: Newspaper and current periodical reading room. Links to on and offline news sources and archives.
NewsDirectory.com: Immense directory of newspaper and magazine archives, browsable by country or region.
Refdesk.com: American newspaper websites, listed by state.
Interactive research:
Yahoo! Answers: Ask questions for other users to answer.
Answers.com: Free, searchable access to millions of published documents. You can also ask and answer questions online.
Scientific American: Bring your science questions to professional scientists.
Ask an Expert: find an expert and ask questions in a wide variety of fields.
AllExperts.com: Volunteer experts on a wide variety of subjects. The net’s oldest Q&A website.
PointAsk: Ask and give answers to users online.
Able2Know.com: Q&A forums with subject experts.
Experts Exchange: Mostly technology, computers, Internet, software and hardware experts.
Math Central Quandaries and Queries: Bring difficult math questions here for explanations.
References for specific topics:
Mayo Clinic: Database of diseases and conditions. Type in symptoms to match with diseases, or study individual conditions. Great resource for medical students.
Cornell Legal Information Institute: Comprehensive online resource on U.S. law code, Supreme Court decisions, and more.
National Human Genome Research Institute: A collection of resources on DNA science and genome research.
American Anthropological Association: Online resources for anthropology students.
ThomasNet: Online resources for industrial design and engineering students.
Erratic Impact: Resources for philosophy students.
Small Business Administration: Resources for students in on starting a new business
All Business Schools: Resources for students in business and accounting.
Firefly: Information about the disappearance of fireflies in urban and suburban areas
Public Library of Science: Open-access database of free scientific journals.
The Educator’s Reference Desk: Resources for education majors.
Social Science Research Network: Vast online library of social science research and data.
Astrophysics Data System Scanned Article Service: Scanned scholarly articles from Harvard’s astrophysics library.
Free Medical Journals: Database of important medical journals that offer free online access.
Artcyclopedia: Comprehensive online guide to all genres of visual art and artists.
Gray’s Anatomy Online: Bartleby.com’s online edition of Gray’s Anatomy. It’s a searchable database, complete with hand-drawn illustrations.
Social Support
Meetup: Start or join a face-to-face group of online learners in your area.
Yahoo! Groups: Find an online gathering of like-minded online students.
Craigslist: Immense online classifieds. Advertise or find an advertisement for online students interested in starting a study group.
StudentCenter: Make connections with other college students. Mainly aimed toward a younger crowd.
Sources
Comments:
Great list. Thank you... very interesting.
You can finally take that course in Geriatric Dentistry that you've always been interested in!
Yes! Thats a great course!
Great resource for those wanting an online course of study!
I just wanted to know whether you get a certificate when you finish the course or not, please need answers
Should we need to answer the exam to get certificate?
I don't miss school all that much but I still feel strongly with the writer of the post that is still is essential. My problem is with the fact that we now have $1.4 trillion dollars in student loan debt. Sure, we get the education and degrees but then spend the next 3 to 5 decades paying off the bank loan we funded ourselves. Read Modern Money Mechanics, page 6, you'll see what the banks do and how they trick folks.
Definitely an awesome resource for distant learning!
Distance learning is a much better alternative for busy professionals with careers. Glad this is becoming more of an option for folks who, in the past, never had it.
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Great job, special thanks for your efforts :))