So whether you're just starting out in private practice, need guidance on marketing your business or find yourself managing employees for the first time, you'll find a course designed to support you.
Why study an OpenLearn course?
- Easy to register online
- All courses are free
- Start and complete your training in your own time
- Printable statement of participation on completion
- Track your progress and completed courses
We've grouped the courses by subject, skill level and length so you can easily find the right courses for you. Topics covered are:
- Business and entrepreneurship
- Finance and accounting
- Human resources
- Marketing and communication
- Management and leadership
- Organisational and workforce development
- IT and technology
- Corporate social responsibility
At the bottom of the list you'll find a selection of badged courses. These courses take 24 hours to complete and provide a free digital badge on completion which you can download, display and share as a mark of your achievement. The badges are not accredited by the Open University but they're a great way to demonstrate and provide evidence of your continuing professional development. You will also find a link to a course on our OpenLearn Create platform which was written in collaboration with BACP as a response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
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Business and entrepreneurship
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Business communication: writing a SWOT analysis
This free course, Business communication: writing a SWOT analysis, is designed to develop your writing skills for business. You will be taken step by step through the process of writing a SWOT analysis, with clear advice on selecting key information from a case study text, making concise notes, choosing an appropriate structure and using language effectively. You will learn how to write a formal report including recommendations, based on a case study analysis of the British company, Brompton Bicycle.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Making creativity and innovation happen
The trailer below explores one aspect that will be covered in the course: the paradox of choice.
Free course
10 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality
This free course, Entrepreneurship: from ideas to reality, is about starting and running your own business. Using case studies it will take you through the decisions from generating initial ideas through to deciding what you will do and how to establish your business and grow it. It will guide you through business models, funding options, business types and the influence of location and importantly assessment of your own skills, values and attitudes to risk. It is focused on practical advice from real entrepreneurs, and will signpost learners to where they can find additional support and how they can further develop their own capabilities.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Entrepreneurial impressions – reflection
In this free course, Entrepreneurial impressions - reflection, you will be encouraged to unpack your own experiences of, and perceptions about, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. You will also take a look at the relevant research evidence on entrepreneurial personality and on the role of informal ties with family and friends. There are still many unresolved questions about the nature of entrepreneurship, and as a consequence you can find people with radically different experiences and opinions.
Free course
7 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Project management: the start of the project journey
This free course, Project management: The start of the project journey, introduces projects, what they are, how they come about, responses to problems and planning. It explores the role of key players including the project manager, feasibility studies, decision making and project life cycles.
Free course
35 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Finance and accounting
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Fundamentals of accounting
Learn about the essential numerical and double-entry skills required for accounting. This free course, Fundamentals of accounting, will explain the fundamental purpose and role of accounting as well as the double-entry rules that are the foundation of all financial records and reports in any modern business.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Introduction to bookkeeping and accounting
Learn about the essential numerical skills required for accounting and bookkeeping. This free course, Introduction to bookkeeping and accounting, explains the fundamental rules of double-entry bookkeeping and how they are used to produce the balance sheet and the profit and loss account.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Financial accounting and reporting
This free course, Financial accounting and reporting, discusses how accountants act as processors and purveyors of information for decision making and the needs of those who use accounting information. It also looks at the role performed by accountants and notes the need to be aware of relevant regulatory and conceptual frameworks.
Free course
12 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Challenges in advanced management accounting
This free course, Challenges in advanced management accounting, focuses on strategic management accounting and selected concepts and techniques. It will help you to successfully navigate mid- to long-term challenges to creating sustainable organisations. This OpenLearn course requires a prior understanding of basic management accounting approaches.
Free course
15 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Human resources
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Developing high trust work relationships
Learn about trust in the organisational context. This free course, Developing high trust work relationships, introduces the concept of trust, what it means to you and how it may affect your organisation.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Conversations and interviews
This free course, Conversations and interviews, explores how to ask and answer questions in interviews and conversations.
Free course
5 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Human resources: recruitment and selection
Does the recruitment and selection process fill you with dread? Discrimination and equal opportunities legislation can make this area feel like a minefield. If you are faced with appointing a new employee then this free course, Human resources: recruitment and selection, will provide a straightforward guide to the process: from writing job descriptions to finally assessing who to appoint.
Free course
12 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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What is strategic human resource management?
This free course, What is strategic human resource management?, is about the interplay between decision making in HR and the multiple environments within which such decisions are made. The underlying premise is that, normally, better choices are made when they are informed by an understanding of the multiple contexts which are relevant to those choices.
Free course
4 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Developing your skills as an HR professional
This free course, Developing your skills as an HR professional, will help you to develop some of the skills you will need to be effective as an HR professional. You will practise learning reflectively and you will also develop the skills of organising yourself, managing time and stress, and working in teams or groups.
Free course
9 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Marketing and communication
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Commercial awareness
This short course encourages you to look across your organisation, at your place within it and the value you create. It considers how getting different perspectives and widening existing ones within your organisation can enhance commercial awareness.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Marketing communications as a strategic function
Marketing communications help to define an organisation's relationship with its customers. This free course, Marketing communications as a strategic function, emphasises the strategic importance of such communication and its long-term effect on consumers. Communication models can act as a predictive guide, but in the end it is important to recognise the autonomy and unpredictability of consumers.
Free course
6 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Marketing in the 21st Century
This free course, Marketing in the 21st century, offers a managerial perspective on how to deliver more effective marketing in an organisation, regardless of whether it is based in the private, public or non-profit sector. This is achieved through a variety of learning techniques, including case studies, videos, activities and group discussions. Supporting this learning, students are encouraged to become critical thinkers about both how they undertake their own decisions, as well as how marketing influences our society.
Free course
6 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Communication, management and your own context
In management the ability to communicate clearly and confidently is of key importance. This free course, Communication, management and your own context, looks at the role of language in management communication, and helps you identify areas of English language you may need to develop for work or when studying for a management qualification such as an MBA. It includes reading, writing, listening and speaking activities based on material related to the field of management, and encourages you to relate these to your own work context.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Social marketing
Never before have social issues been more at the centre of public and private debate. From concerns about sustainability and the future of the planet to the introduction of smoking bans, there is a growing recognition that social marketing has a role to play in achieving a wide range of social goals. This free course, Social marketing, examines the nature of social marketing and how the adoption of marketing concepts, frameworks and techniques developed for commercial marketers can be applied to the solution of social problems.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Management and leadership
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The importance of interpersonal skills
To succeed in management you need good interpersonal skills, you need to understand how to deal with other people. This free course, The importance of interpersonal skills, will help you gain an awareness of your own skills and understand that an awareness of the interpersonal skills of others can help us enormously in dealing with the work tasks we are responsible for.
Free course
3 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Understanding management: I'm managing thank you!
This free course, Understanding management: I'm managing thank you! provides you with a set of ideas for developing your approach to managing your own work what we might call self-management. In order to do this, we will examine some of the key processes of management decision making, such as allocating time, staff, physical and financial resources: prioritising and problem solving and monitoring performance.
Free course
5 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Introduction to operations management
This free course, Introduction to operations management, will introduce you to the role of operations management in organisations, and gives you the opportunity to understand what an operations manager does. It looks at how the role might influence the short- and long-term success of the organisation. It is important to develop a clear understanding of the impact of good and bad operations management practice on the performance of an organisation as a whole.
Free course
6 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Working life and learning
Please note: this course will close on 16th June 2022. You can continue to study this course up until this date. What is your experience of work and what have you learned from this experience? This free course, Working life and learning, will enable you to reflect upon what you have learned from work and will support you in improving how you learn at work. It will encourage you to think critically about work-based learning and review your own professional knowledge and skills.
Free course
25 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Discovering development management
Discovering development management is a free course that sets out to build up the basic capacities for managing the multiple challenges of development – any development. It rests on the assumption that management is a political and ethical process, a matter of the use of power to bring about desired goals in contexts characterised by conflicts of interests, values and agendas. It is of relevance to managers in every sector, nationally and internationally.
Free course
3 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Making decisions
Do you hate making decisions? Does the ability of others to make snap decisions really frustrate you? This free course will help you understand some of the processes involved in decision making. Attention to the psychology of decision making and the social context in which decisions are made can improve your understanding of others and yourself.
Free course
4 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Understanding operations management
Operations management is one of the central functions of all organisations. This free course, Understanding operations management, will provide you with a basic framework for understanding this function, whether producing goods or services or in the private, public or voluntary sectors. In addition, this OpenLearn course discusses the role of operations managers and the importance of focusing on suppliers and customers.
Free course
4 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Managing and managing people
This free course, Managing and managing people, will introduce you to the world of management. We will be looking at a range of topics, including what managers do, what skills they require, and how you can develop as a manager.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Management: perspective and practice
What does it mean to be a manager? Being a manager is a complex and challenging activity. This free course, Management: perspective and practice, introduces you to the role of the manager. In this OpenLearn course you’ll look at an array of activities including leadership, human resources, finance, project management, change management, operations management and stakeholder management.
Free course
10 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Discovering management
This free course, Discovering management, introduces you to the role of the manager. It covers management activities looking at leadership, human resources, finance, project management, change management, operations management and stakeholder management.
Free course
15 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Organisational and workforce development
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Difference and challenge in teams
This free course looks at how teams ‘travel’ together on a journey of development. Those journeys are hardly ever smooth. The course encourages you to recognise difference and challenge amongst individuals in the team who are pulling in different directions. It will help you identify where such challenges can be embraced for the benefit of your team and your organisation.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Facilitating group discussions
Gain an insight into facilitating meetings and discussions in the workplace. In this free course, Facilitating group discussions, you will look at some of the behaviours effective facilitators exhibit. Informative and engaging videos will introduce you to examples of facilitation in practice.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Three principles of a coaching approach
This course provides a good sense for three of the core skills required of an effective coach. Whether or not you recognise the use of a 'coaching approach' in your workplace, you will be able to use the learning in the course to enhance your day-to-day interactions in your workplace.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Developing high trust work relationships
Learn about trust in the organisational context. This free course, Developing high trust work relationships, introduces the concept of trust, what it means to you and how it may affect your organisation.
Free course
2 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Working in groups and teams
This free course, Working in groups and teams, explores team working from start to finish. It looks at how successful teams are created, roles within a team, the life cycle of a team, how to manage conflict within teams and evaluating team performance.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Employee engagement
Engagement is a key buzzword in 21st century management. Strategic human resource management rests on the belief that people are the key to achieving competitive advantage. Employees need to be seen as assets to be developed, not costs to be controlled. This free course explores three key themes: employee engagement, employee involvement and collective aspects of employee relations.
Free course
10 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Employment relations and employee engagement
This free course, Employment relations and employee engagement, looks at raising levels of employee engagement, which is the latest in a long line of managerial strategies aimed at releasing employee ‘discretionary effort’ and aligning employee interests more closely with managerial goals, on the assumption that this will in turn boost organisational performance. Employees who are more engaged with their work are thus viewed to be more likely to behave in positive and cooperative ways, to the benefit of both the firm and themselves.
Free course
10 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
IT and technology
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Internet of everything
The internet of everything (IoE) is the networked connection of people, process, data and things. As more people, data and things come online, we develop processes to harness the vast amounts of information being generated by all these connected people and things. The goal of this free course is to introduce you to fundamental concepts and technologies that enable the IoE and the internet of things.
Free course
15 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Managing the software enterprise: the organisational and business context
This free course, Managing the software enterprise: the organisational and business context, relates software to the organisation that it supports, drawing on basic ideas from organisational theory and management. We see how organisational practices become embodied in IT systems, practices that had previously been part of peoples tacit expertise become externalised and codified in procedures and software. The software and its relationship to the organisation are constantly changing as part of a process of organisational learning.
Free course
5 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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Managing virtual project teams
Many projects are now ‘virtual’, i.e. some or all of the team are located remotely and may be working in different time zones. The project manager needs all the traditional soft skills, and more. This free course, Managing virtual project teams, looks at knowledge and techniques which underpin team selection and then consider the additional expertise needed to manage teams in a virtual environment.
Free course
8 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
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How teams work
This free course, How teams work, provides an introduction to working in virtual project teams by explaining terms and concepts related to teams and to projects. The complexity of the interaction of people and technology is highlighted.
Free course
10 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
Corporate social responsibility
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Sustainable innovations in enterprises
This free online course, Sustainable innovations in enterprises, introduces you to the importance of sustainable innovations, the role it plays in commercial and social enterprises and the importance to society. It explores cases of sustainable innovations in specialist areas – arts and humanities; science, technology and engineering; health & social care. The course also evaluates three methods for measuring the societal impacts of sustainable innovations. Learners are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences of cases where sustainable innovations drive success or failures in enterprises and how the positive impacts on society can be evaluated and sustained.
Free course
9 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Understanding the environment: Learning and communication
This is the second course in the 'Understanding the environment' series. For more information, see the introductory session here.
Free course
12 hours
Level: 2 Intermediate
Badged courses
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Understanding your sector
This free course, Understanding your sector, will help you to understand the difference between sectors, industries and professions. It will also help you to gain the inside knowledge to impress in applications and at interviews and to put together an action plan that is tailored to you.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Working in diverse teams
This free badged course, Working in diverse teams, will help you consider your experience of working in teams and the different roles you play in them. It will increase your confidence in marketing this key skill to employers as well improve your ability to perform well in teams you are currently part of.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Leadership and followership
This free course, Leadership and followership, will help you to explore what makes a good leader, recognise common leadership challenges, and identify the skills you need to develop if you want to enhance your own leadership experience.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Exploring career mentoring and coaching
This free course, Exploring career mentoring and coaching, will explain what mentors and career coaches do and how a colleague or expert who can ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and help an individual to find the best solutions for themselves, can make a significant difference in a wide range of situations and contexts.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Personal branding for career success
This free course, Personal branding for career success, considers what a personal brand is and whether you currently have one. You’ll look in detail at theories and examples of personal branding, and relevant marketing processes and practices. You’ll identify the values, skills, knowledge and expertise that you want to promote to employers, and consider different ways to build and present your own brand.
Free course
24 hours
Level: 1 Introductory
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Mastering systems thinking in practice
This free course, Mastering systems thinking in practice, provides a primer for someone wanting to take the postgraduate qualifications in Systems Thinking in Practice. It will help you develop new ways of thinking about and approaching situations that cross multiple discipline and skill boundaries. You will learn to think more holistically about complex and messy situations, understanding the roles other people play, taking account of the interconnectedness of all the components making up the problem situation and working more collaboratively
Free course
24 hours
Level: 3 Advanced
About BACP
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is the professional association for members of the counselling professions in the UK. We exist for one simple reason – counselling changes lives. If you would like further information about us and what we do, please visit www.bacp.co.uk.
The Open University and the BACP have teamed up and have a course on OpenLearn create, as a response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The aim of the course is to offer a primer on working online as a counsellor or psychotherapist at a time when face-to-face therapy is neither possible nor safe. Course completion will boost your knowledge and confidence, and will support counsellors and psychotherapists to offer technology-based counselling safely and effectively. Find out more here.
For help and assistance on OpenLearn, get in contact by email: openlearn@open.ac.uk
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