Produced by The Open University, a world leader in open and distance learning, all OpenLearn courses are free to study. We offer nearly 1000 free courses across 8 different subject areas. Our courses are available to start right away.
A growing selection of our courses offer a free Open University digital badge. Badges demonstrate your interest in a subject, a commitment to your career or provide evidence of continuing professional development.
Got a few spare minutes? Brush up on your knowledge with our range of free bite-size courses and activities.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Exploring issues in women's health
This free course, Exploring issues in women's health, will introduce social model approaches to health and wellbeing, which take as their starting point not the scientific context of the body, but the social context in which women live. The focus is on women and the impact of social and cultural factors on women's health. The course touches on various issues concerning women's health, such as abortion, periods, the menopause, mental health and fertility.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Facilitating learning in practice
Are you interested in mentorship or looking to develop your mentorship skills? In particular, are you involved in nurse mentorship? If so, then this free course, Facilitating learning in practice, is for you. This badged OpenLearn course explores the principles and best practices underpinning mentorship. The authors draw on their experience in nursing to help you develop your knowledge, understanding and skills of mentorship practice that can be applied to many workplace environments.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Social care, social work and the law - England and Wales
This free course is made up of four extracts related to social care, social work and the law in England and Wales. The extracts are stand-alone sections but follow on from each other to make up this course. You will be introduced to five main themes that shape practice in the field of social care and social work. The aim of this course is to enhance your understanding of the relationship between social work practice and the law.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Diversity and difference in communication
Interpersonal communication in health and social care services is by its nature diverse. As a consequence, achieving good or effective communication whether between service providers and service users, or among those working in a service means taking account of diversity, rather than assuming that every interaction will be the same. This free course, Diversity and difference in communication, explores the ways in which difference and diversity impact on the nature of communication in health and social care services.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Exploring sport coaching and psychology
This free course, Exploring sport coaching and psychology, investigates how scientific and management ideas contribute to success while also taking you on a journey through unique sporting case studies and insights that will change how you view and study sport. You will consider how the mind, the body, the environment and training techniques all contribute to optimum fitness.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Forensic psychology
In this free course, Forensic psychology, you will discover how psychology can help obtain evidence from eyewitnesses in police investigations and prevent miscarriages of justice.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
The psychological aspects of sports injury
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE IS CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED TO OFFER YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO EARN A FREE DIGITAL BADGE ON COMPLETION OF THE COURSE. THE NEW VERSION OF THE COURSE WILL REPLACE THIS EXISTING COURSE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE VIA THE SAME LINK FROM WEDNESDAY 31 JULY 2019. ONCE THIS HAS HAPPENED YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO VIEW THE CURRENT CONTENT, AND THE COURSE WILL NO LONGER APPEAR IN YOUR MY OPENLEARN PROFILE. THIS ALSO MEANS THAT YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE STATEMENT OF PARTICIPATION. IF YOU HAVE ALREADY COMPLETED THE COURSE AND EARNED YOUR STATEMENT, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU DOWNLOAD IT NOW SO THAT YOU HAVE A COPY FOR YOUR RECORDS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET COMPLETED THE COURSE AND WISH TO DO SO, YOU NEED TO COMPLETE IT BEFORE WEDNESDAY 31 JULY 2019.For many people sport is a way of life, so imagine the emotional distress that a sports injury can bring when it restricts someone's participation in sport. This free course, The psychological aspects of sports injury, examines the role of psychological factors in sports injury. You will look at both the psychological factors that can lead to a sports injury and the psychological reactions that a sports person can experience when injured, including insight from Olympic hockey gold medallist Helen Richardson-Walsh. This course is for you if you have ever experienced a sports injury, if you work with injured athletes or if you have a general interest in the area.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Introducing healthcare improvement
This free course, Introducing healthcare improvement, explores quality improvement in healthcare settings. It begins by defining healthcare quality and describing the meaning of quality improvement in healthcare. You will also learn about the different dimensions of quality and the broad aims of healthcare improvement. The course will help you better understand how and why we seek to improve healthcare quality.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Supporting and developing resilience in social work
What does it take to become a resilient practitioner in social work? This free course, Supporting and developing resilience in social work, will guide you through some important concepts. An understanding of ‘emotional resilience’ and ‘professional leadership’ will help to guide you through taking a positive approach to problems that ----- in social work practice. You will also be introduced to some ideas about leadership in social work practice.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Challenging the biomedical model of childbirth
Health means different things to different people, and this is reflected in the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in this free course, Challenging the biomedical model of childbirth. People's views on health and disease are often influenced by official discourse which today, just as in times past, has projected authoritative messages about what should be considered important. Such official accounts contain judgements about health, emphasising some ideas and practices while marginalising others. In childbirth, there have been many challenges to these official ways of seeing and doing, and this course focuses on some of them.
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Education & Development
Children and young people’s participation
Listening to children is a first step in the participation agenda, which is reasonably well established. By contrast, enabling children to share in decision making lags some way behind. This free course, Children and young people's participation, emphasises that the adoption of an integrated approach to participation by different sectors of the children's workforce is of crucial importance.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Partnerships and networks in work with young people
The term 'partnership' is used to describe a wide range of organisational arrangements and ways of working: from informal networking between individuals, to more formal partnership structures. In this free course, Partnerships and networks in work with young people, you will explore a range of meanings for the word 'partnership' and see that it is used to describe a range of practices, structures and processes. You will also look at some of the difficulties, as well as the potential benefits, that can come from working in partnership.