Free courses
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.
- All topics
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Money & Business
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 ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Seeing institutions in different ways
To help you to understand the complexity of institutional development, this free course, Seeing institutions in different ways, will present institutions in three key ways: as rules and norms, as meanings and values and as big players. The rules govern social life and the norms establish how people should behave, while institutional development ...
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Money & Business
Liquidity management
In this free course you will focus on liquidity management, one of the fundamental aspects relating to risk management that has come under intense scrutiny in the past few years.
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Money & Business
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 ...
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Money & Business
Project governance and Project Management Office (PMO)
Whether a project is large or small, innovative or similar to other projects, governance and administrative support will be needed. The type of governance, and level of support, will vary considerably between projects of different types and complexity. This course, Project governance and Project Management Office (PMO), considers project ...
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Money & Business
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 ...
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Money & Business
Understanding different research perspectives
This free course, Understanding different research perspectives, explores the development of the research process looking at the different perspectives from which an issue or phenomenon can be investigated; and highlights the main methodologies that can be used to investigate a business issue. By looking at different perspectives/approaches to ...
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Money & Business
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 ...
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Money & Business
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 ...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Lead and manage change in health and social care
Change is everywhere in health and social care work and can evoke a variety of emotions, from excitement and eager anticipation, to fear and outright hostility. In this free course, How to manage change in health and social care, you will explore the role of managers in the change process and the skills required for managing and leading change ...
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Money & Business
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...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Health and environment
To be able to understand the importance of the environment for our health, we need to know a little about the interdependence between environment and humankind. This free course, Health and environment, will look at interactions between plants, animals and the physical and chemical environment, as well as considering ways in which humans have ...