Study skills
Studying can be daunting. These free courses will refresh your study skills and prepare you for success.
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Education & Development
Am I ready to be a distance learner?
Distance learning can open up opportunities for study. You might have not studied for a while, you might be returning to education, or you might not have had the chance to study at a higher level before. This free course, Am I ready to be a distance learner?, will help to boost your confidence. You'll explore useful skills so you can discover ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Reading and note taking – preparation for study
This course introduces different techniques to help you to alter the way you read and take notes according to the type of material you are studying.
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Education & Development
Learning how to learn
This course invites you to apply various ideas and activities to your own study and increase awareness of your own learning. Most learning has to be an active process and this is particularly true of learning how to learn.
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Education & Development
English: skills for learning
Develop the English reading and writing skills needed for university success.
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level 3: advanced icon
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Education & Development
Succeeding in postgraduate study
This course will help you to become familiar with the requirements and demands of postgraduate study and to develop the skills and confidence to pursue your learning further.
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History & The Arts
Start writing fiction
Have you always wanted to write, but never quite had the courage to start? This free course, Start writing fiction, will give you an insight into how authors create their characters and settings. You will also be able to look at the different genres for fiction.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Data analysis: visualisations in Excel
Evidence comes in the form of qualitative or quantitative data about the world around you. It is not always obvious, however, how to structure, aggregate, analyse or interpret the data to help you make decisions. In this free course, you will look at how to use data to make decisions in a systematic way using Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel ...
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Education & Development
Talk the talk
This free course introduces the mechanics of effective, persuasive oral presentations, by giving you the opportunity to analyse examples and then create your own. Using resources such as TED Talk videos, you will see how experts deliver professional talks and famous speeches, observe what works, and identify how language connects ideas and keeps...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Succeed with maths: part 1
If you feel that maths is a mystery that you want to unravel then this free course is for you. It will guide you through how numbers are put together, give you confidence with using percentages, fractions and negative numbers and provide you with problem solving skills for your everyday life and the wider world.
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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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Languages
Describing language
This course introduces you to the basics of describing language. Using examples from English, you’ll learn how words are built, how they fit together to make sentences, and what labels like noun, verb and adjective mean. You’ll see how language patterns in regular ways and how the meaning of a sentence is more than the sum of its parts. This ...
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Languages
How to learn a language
This course introduces the skills and strategies for language learning, setting realistic goals when learning languages and keeping motivated, practise speaking skills and vocabulary learning strategies. It will enable you to evaluate resources and create a virtual immersion environment.
Find the right course for you
At The Open University, we're pioneers of flexible learning that's respected by employers and affordable for you. That's why more than 170,000 students are studying with us right now.
Whatever subject you want to study, and whatever qualification you want, we've got the right course for you.
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