All our free courses
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History & The Arts
What do historians do?
What do historians do? In this free course you will explore some of the ways that historians work to develop our understanding of the past. You will learn about three aspects of the historian’s craft through three topic areas: landscapes, infant health and criminal justice. Through the activities in the course, you will experience a wide range ...
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History & The Arts
Agatha Christie and the golden age of detective fiction
In this free course you’ll examine one of Agatha Christie’s most significant works, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), and explore the evolution of British detective fiction in relation to Christie’s background, literary modernism and the development of middlebrow fiction.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Supporting older people with learning disabilities and their families
This free course, Supporting older people with learning disabilities and their families, stems from research that explored how to improve the care and support for older people with learning disabilities and behaviours that challenge others, and their families.
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Education & Development
Leadership for inclusion: what can you do?
This course will help you to develop your understanding of how to promote and support learning for all, within classrooms with a diverse student and staff population. It will encourage you to embrace your own capacity to lead at any level of an organisation. You will explore the tensions around collective responses and individualised challenges,...
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Education & Development
Leadership for inclusion: thinking it through
This course will help you to think about your professional educational situation and the ways in which you can develop your practices alongside others. It will provide you with a better understanding of competing values within the school system and how to identify and build upon opportunities to lead and collaborate in this context. You will ...
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Languages
A short introduction to the English language
This free course, A short introduction to the English language, will look at the role language plays in our lives, with a particular focus on the English language. It will examine the history and the future of the language, from the Anglo-Saxons and Shakespeare to social media communication and stand-up comedy.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Caring for an older family member with learning disabilities
Whether you are a parent or sibling caring for a relative with a learning disability, this free course, Caring for an older family member with learning disabilities, is designed to help you navigate the system as they grow older. It has been developed from a cutting-edge research project that explored how to improve the care and support for ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Introduction to complex analysis
This free course, Introduction to complex analysis, is an extract from the third level Open University course M337 Complex Analysis, which develops the theory of functions of a complex variable, emphasising their geometric properties and indicating some applications.
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Society, Politics & Law
Advancing Black leadership
In this free course, learners will develop and explore skills to empower themselves as leaders.
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Education & Development
An appreciative approach to inquiry
This free course, An appreciative approach to inquiry, is designed to support groups of practitioners or individuals adopt an appreciative inquiry approach to reflecting, questioning, and developing their collective or individual practices. It is particularly aimed at those working in education at any level and any context to engage in teacher ...
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History & The Arts
Diversity in religion: Islam
In this short course, Diversity in religion: Islam, you will explore how attitudes and opinions within a single religious tradition can be internally diverse. You will look at Islam in particular, considering the diversity of Muslim attitudes to same-sex relationships. This will focus mainly on relationships between men because Muslim legal ...
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Education & Development
Introducing multidisciplinary study at The Open University
This free course, Introducing multidisciplinary study at The Open University, provides an overview of the materials and resources there are to support you if you’re studying or thinking about studying an Open qualification (Degree, and/or Masters) with The Open University. It provides useful background information to the qualifications and helps...
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Money & Business
Gweithio hybrid: cynllunio ar gyfer y dyfodol
Oherwydd pandemig COVID-19 yn 2020, bu rhaid i sefydliadau gynllunio ac addasu o fewn wythnos er mwyn symud eu gweithlu cyfan bron i weithio o bell, ac roedd yn rhaid i'r rheini a oedd yn gorfod aros 'ar y safle’ roi mesurau diogelwch ar waith yn gyflym. Roedd hwn yn ymateb byd-eang digynsail na fyddai llawer o sefydliadau wedi'u rhagweld a bu ...
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Money & Business
Hybrid working: planning for the future
In 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic organisations had to plan and adapt within a week to move almost their entire workforce to remote working, and those who had to remain in ‘onsite’ environments had to quickly implement safety measures. This was an unprecedented global response that many organisations would not have foreseen and had to adjust ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Understanding science: what we cannot know
This free course, Understanding science: what we cannot know, investigates the boundaries of our understanding across numerous scientific fields. It asks whether it's possible that we will one day know everything, or whether some knowledge will always lie beyond the bounds of human comprehension.
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Money & Business
Gweithio hybrid: dechrau yn y gweithle
Gall dechrau mewn gweithle newydd – p'un ai dyna eich swydd gyntaf 'go iawn' ar ôl gorffen eich addysg, neu'r cam nesaf yn natblygiad eich gyrfa – fod yn gyffrous ac yn frawychus. Os mai sefydliad hybrid ydyw, a bod eich diwrnod cyntaf mewn lleoliad anghysbell yn hytrach na gweithle ffisegol, gall hynny fod hyd yn oed yn fwy dryslyd. Nod y cwrs...
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Digital & Computing
Gweithio hybrid: sgiliau ar gyfer trawsnewid digidol
Mae dyfodol y gweithle'n parhau i ddatblygu, ac mae trawsnewid digidol yn cyflymu, gan ofyn am alluoedd, ymddygiadau a dealltwriaeth newydd yn y maes digidol. Mae'r rhaniad digidol wedi bod yn ehangu ac mae data'n dangos bod y bwlch sgiliau yn y DU yn tyfu gyda phrinder pobl â sgiliau digidol. Mae gan bron bob swydd ryw elfen o sgiliau digidol...
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Digital & Computing
Hybrid working: skills for digital transformation
The future of the workplace is continuing to evolve, and digital transformation is accelerating, requiring new digital capabilities, behaviours and understanding. There has been a widening of the digital divide and data shows that in the UK the skills gap is growing with a shortage of people with digital skills. Nearly all jobs have some ...