NewsletterProduced 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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Money & Business
Retirement planning made easy
This free course on money and retirement planning has been produced by The Open University in collaboration with Legal & General. Planning your retirement is probably the most important aspect of financial planning for you to consider. Making the right decisions and building a sound financial plan can help to ensure that you have the quality of life in retirement that you aspire to. Watch the following video in which Emma Byron, Managing Director of Legal & General Retirement Solutions, talks about some of the things you need to consider when planning your retirement and how this course can help you. Transcript68 This course sets out the series of stepping-stones to a financially secure retirement. As Emma explains, most people approaching retirement now have more options both about when to retire and about how they use the pension 'pots' they have built up. This course examines these options to help you decide with confidence which are right for you. You'll look at what you can do if your pension is not sufficient to cover your spending needs in retirement, and learn about the impact of divorce and bereavement on pensions and household finances. You will explore a mixture of reading, short videos and activities, and there's a quiz at the end for you to check your understanding. Please note: the content of this course relates to the UK, although there are some parts that generally apply when planning for retirement, such as forecasting your expected spending and identifying all the sources of pension income.
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Money & Business
Using data to aid organisational change
This free course explores how to use data to inform a change you would like to make within your business or organisational context. It looks at the type of evidence you can gather to inform your proposed change, and how to evaluate data with a view to using it as part of this transformation. Specifically, you will learn about internal and external sources of secondary information and how to evaluate them. You will also examine how to negotiate access to different types of information in a work context. Finally, you will obtain hands on experience in collecting and using secondary sources of information in the context of researching and making this organisational change. Transcript
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Money & Business
MSE’s Academy of Money
The Open University has joined forces with MoneySavingExpert (MSE) to produce this new free course to give you the skills and knowledge to master your finances. Packed with videos, audios, quizzes and activities the course covers all the key aspects of personal finance in six sessions of study that each take around two hours to complete.
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Money & Business
Exploring evidence-based policing
This course, Exploring evidence-based policing, examines the basic elements of evidence-based policing and gives insight into how more evidence-based approaches can inform better policing practice.This course was produced by The Open University in association with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
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Money & Business
Business models in strategic management
In this free course, Business models in strategic management, you will be introduced to the theory and practice of business models as they have developed in strategy literature. In particular, you will explore the emergence of the business model idea, types of business models and how business models can be designed. Inherent in this course is the idea that, despite being more frequently used in business, business models are not limited to the business context. Neither are they meant for strategic planning in organisations only. Rather they may have wider applications in our lives. For instance, you will see how they can be applied to build strategies of your professional development and career growth.
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Money & Business
Academi Arian MSE
Mae'r Brifysgol Agored wedi ymuno â MoneySavingExpert (MSE) i gynhyrchu'r cwrs rhad ac am ddim newydd hwn i roi'r sgiliau a'r wybodaeth i chi feistroli eich arian. Ysgrifennwyd y cwrs gan y Brifysgol Agored, gyda chyngor ac arweiniad MSE.
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Money & Business
Justice, fairness and mediation
This free course, Justice, fairness and mediation, considers the concepts of justice and fairness from various perspectives but mainly focuses on effective policing and community empowerment. This course was produced by The Open University in association with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
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Money & Business
Decision trees and dealing with uncertainty
This free course introduces basic ideas of probability. It focuses on dealing with uncertainty in a financial context and explores decision trees, a powerful decision-making technique, which can help you to simplify and formulate business decisions. The course also includes videos that introduce the key ideas and guide you through numerous examples.
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Money & Business
Engaging with children and young people
This free course, Engaging with children and young people, explores how police engage with children and young people and how this can be approached differently.This course was produced by The Open University in association with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
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Money & Business
Understanding your customers
This free course, Understanding your customers, is a short introduction to understanding customers. The course underlines the relevance of understanding customers as individuals, members of society and members of organisations. It clarifies some key marketing concepts and terminology and highlights some differences between consumer and business-to-business marketing. The course is suitable for a variety of learners, including small business owners and those working in small businesses with limited access to specialists, as well as marketing professionals and those thinking about pursuing a course of study to become a marketing professional. This free course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B206 Understanding customers355. Transcript36
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Money & Business
Companies and financial accounting
This free course, Companies and financial accounting, introduces you to the legal characteristics of limited companies and how limited companies raise finance through ordinary shares and loan capital. It also introduces the interests of company stakeholders, and looks at three different perspectives on companies and their role in society. Finally, it introduces the formats of company financial statements in comparison with those of sole traders. This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B293 Financial accounting in context. Transcript
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Money & Business
Organisations and the financial system
Learn about the main types of financial resources available to organisations, how these funds can be used to start up a new business or sustain day-to-day operations, as well as develop long-term expansion plans. This free course, Organisations and the financial system, introduces the key operational and decisional features of the process of business financing and also considers organisations’ specific structures and goals. Transcript