Coursera Partners with Leading Universities to Offer Master’s Degrees at a More Affordable Price

in Business, Computer Science, Online Courses | October 24th, 2017

If you’re a reg­u­lar Open Cul­ture read­er, you’re already famil­iar with Cours­era, the ed tech com­pa­ny, which, since its found­ing in 2012, has giv­en the world access to online cours­es from top universities–e.g. cours­es on Roman Archi­tec­ture (Yale), Mod­ern and Post­mod­ern Phi­los­o­phy (Wes­leyan), and Bud­dhism and Neu­ro­science (Prince­ton). And you’ve per­haps noticed, too, that Cours­era has recent­ly bun­dled cer­tain cours­es into “Spe­cial­iza­tions”–essen­tial­ly areas of concentration–that let stu­dents spe­cial­ize in fields like Deep Learn­ing and Data Sci­ence.

But what if stu­dents want to deep­en their knowl­edge fur­ther and get a tra­di­tion­al degree? In what per­haps marks the begin­ning of a sig­nif­i­cant new trend, Cours­era has part­nered with lead­ing uni­ver­si­ties to offer full-fledged grad­u­ate degrees in a more afford­able online for­mat. As described in the video above, HEC Paris (the #2 busi­ness school in Europe) now offers through Cours­er­a’s plat­form a Mas­ter’s in Inno­va­tion and Entre­pre­neur­ship. Designed for aspir­ing entre­pre­neurs, the pro­gram con­sists of 20 cours­es (all online) and takes an esti­mat­ed 10–16 months to com­plete. The total tuition amounts to 20,000 Euros (rough­ly 23,500 U.S. dol­lars), a sum that’s con­sid­er­ably less than what exec­u­tive edu­ca­tion pro­grams usu­al­ly cost.

For stu­dents look­ing for a broad­er edu­ca­tion in busi­ness, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign has launched an entire MBA pro­gram through Cours­era. Con­sist­ing of 18 online cours­es and three cap­stone projects, the iMBA pro­gram cov­ers the sub­jects usu­al­ly found in b‑school programs–leadership, strat­e­gy, eco­nom­ics, account­ing, finance, etc. The com­plete cur­ricu­lum should take rough­ly 24 to 36 months to com­plete, and costs less than $22,000–about 25%-33% of what an on-cam­pus MBA pro­gram typ­i­cal­ly runs.

(The iMBA is actu­al­ly one of three degree pro­grams the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois has launched on Cours­era. The oth­er two include a Mas­ters in Account­ing (iMSA) and a Mas­ter of Com­put­er Sci­ence in Data Sci­ence (MCS-DS).)

Now, in case you’re won­der­ing, the diplo­mas and tran­scripts for these pro­grams are grant­ed direct­ly by the uni­ver­si­ties them­selves (e.g., the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign and HEC Paris). The paper­work does­n’t car­ry Cours­er­a’s name. Nor does it indi­cate that the stu­dent com­plet­ed an “online pro­gram.” In short, online stu­dents get the same tran­script as bricks and mor­tar stu­dents.

Final­ly, all of the degree pro­grams men­tioned above are “stackable”–meaning stu­dents can (at no cost) take an indi­vid­ual course offered by any of these pro­grams. And then they can decide lat­er whether they want to apply to the degree pro­gram, and, if so, retroac­tive­ly apply that course towards the actu­al degree. Essen­tial­ly, you can try things out before mak­ing a larg­er com­mit­ment.

If you want to learn more about these pro­grams, or sub­mit an appli­ca­tion, check out the fol­low­ing links. We’ve includ­ed the dead­lines for sub­mit­ting appli­ca­tions.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Note: Open Cul­ture has a part­ner­ship with Cours­era. If read­ers enroll in cer­tain Cours­era cours­es, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Deep Learn­ing Cours­es Released on Cours­era, with Hope of Teach­ing Mil­lions the Basics of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence

MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties (Many With Cer­tifi­cates)

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Judy Blume Now Teaching an Online Course on Writing

in Online Courses, Writing | September 27th, 2017

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

After announc­ing that Mar­tin Scors­ese will be teach­ing an online course on film­mak­ing, Mas­ter­Class made it known today that Judy Blume has cre­at­ed an online course on Writ­ing. In 24 lessons, the beloved author of Are You There God? It’s Me, Mar­garet and Tales of a Fourth Grade Noth­ing will show you “how to devel­op vibrant char­ac­ters and hook your read­ers.” The indi­vid­ual course costs $90 and is now ready go. You can also buy an All-Access Annu­al Pass for $180 and explore every course in the Mas­ter­Class cat­a­logue. Some cours­es worth explor­ing include:

You can take this class by sign­ing up for a Mas­ter­Class’ All Access Pass. The All Access Pass will give you instant access to this course and 85 oth­ers for a 12-month peri­od.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Enter an Archive of 6,000 His­tor­i­cal Children’s Books, All Dig­i­tized and Free to Read Online

Hayao Miyaza­ki Picks His 50 Favorite Children’s Books

A Dig­i­tal Archive of Sovi­et Children’s Books Goes Online: Browse the Artis­tic, Ide­o­log­i­cal Col­lec­tion (1917–1953)

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Martin Scorsese to Teach His First Online Course on Filmmaking

in Film, Online Courses | September 22nd, 2017

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

If you need to make movies, if you feel like you can’t rest until you’ve told this par­tic­u­lar sto­ry that you’re burn­ing to tell, then Mar­tin Scors­ese has a course for you. Through Mas­ter­Class, the direc­tor of Good­fel­las, Rag­ing Bull, Taxi Dri­ver, and Mean Streets is now set to teach his first online course. Accord­ing to the video trail­er above, Scors­ese will explore in 20+ lessons every­thing from cin­e­matog­ra­phy and edit­ing, to work­ing with actors, on-set direct­ing, and devel­op­ing a per­son­al film­mak­ing style. The $90 course won’t be released until ear­ly 2018, but any­one who pre-enrolls now will get ear­ly access to the class.

While you wait, you can also take Wern­er Her­zog’s own course on film­mak­ing (also offered through Mas­ter­Class). Or explore Scors­ese’s lists of rec­om­mend­ed films that we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture. Find them in the Relat­eds right below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Note: Mas­ter­Class is one of our part­ners. So if you sign up for a course, it ben­e­fits not just you and Mas­ter­Class. It ben­e­fits Open Cul­ture too. So con­sid­er it win-win-win.

Oth­er Mas­ter­Class cours­es worth explor­ing include:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­tin Scors­ese Cre­ates a List of 39 Essen­tial For­eign Films for a Young Film­mak­er

Mar­tin Scors­ese Makes a List of 85 Films Every Aspir­ing Film­mak­er Needs to See

Mar­tin Scors­ese Names His Top 10 Films in the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion

Great Film­mak­ers Offer Advice to Young Direc­tors: Taran­ti­no, Her­zog, Cop­po­la, Scors­ese, Ander­son, Felli­ni & More

Wern­er Her­zog Teach­es His First Online Course on Film­mak­ing

 

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Dr. Jane Goodall Is Now Teaching an Online Course on Conservation, Animal Intelligence & Activism

in Environment, Online Courses | September 17th, 2017

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

Back in June, we men­tioned that the great pri­ma­tol­o­gist and anthro­pol­o­gist Dr. Jane Goodall was gear­ing up to teach her first online course on envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion, ani­mal intel­li­gence, and activism. Now, it seemed worth giv­ing this quick update–Goodal­l’s course is ready to go. It fea­tures 29 lessons and costs $90. You can sign up and take the course through Mas­ter­Class here. (You can pur­chase an All-Access Annu­al Pass for every course in the Mas­ter­Class cat­a­log for $180.)

Above watch a trail­er that intro­duces the course. Below see her dis­cuss the course on the Tonight Show with Jim­my Fal­lon.

Oth­er cours­es cur­rent­ly offered by Mas­ter­class include:

Find more cours­es taught by star instruc­tors here.

Note: Mas­ter­Class is one of our part­ners. So if you sign up for a course, it ben­e­fits not just you and Mas­ter­Class. It ben­e­fits Open Cul­ture too. So con­sid­er it win-win-win.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Free Courses on Design from the Famous California Design Firm IDEO Start This Week

in Design, Online Courses | September 14th, 2017

A quick fyi: This week, the famous Cal­i­for­nia design firm IDEO has launched two free courses–a 7‑week Intro­duc­tion to Human-Cen­tered Design and a 4‑week course on Pro­to­typ­ing.

As you might recall, we recent­ly fea­tured A Crash Course in Design Think­ing from Stanford’s Design School. If that piqued your inter­est in design and design think­ing, then IDEO’s cours­es might hold appeal. You can enroll in both cours­es, at no cost, today.

More free cours­es can be found in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media

Saul Bass’ Advice for Design­ers: Make Some­thing Beau­ti­ful and Don’t Wor­ry About the Mon­ey

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Mil­ton Glaser’s 10 Rules for Life & Work: The Cel­e­brat­ed Design­er Dis­pens­es Wis­dom Gained Over His Long Life & Career

Abstract: Netflix’s New Doc­u­men­tary Series About “the Art of Design” Pre­mieres Today

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Follow Cartoonist Lynda Barry’s 2017 “Making Comics” Class Online, Presented at UW-Wisconsin

in Comics/Cartoons, Creativity, Online Courses | September 8th, 2017

Pro­fes­sor Skeletor—aka car­toon­ist and edu­ca­tor Lyn­da Bar­ry—is at it again. Mak­ing Comics (& oth­er Graph­ic For­ma­tions), her fall offer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wisconsin’s Insti­tute for Dis­cov­ery is just get­ting under­way.

Those of us who can’t study in per­son with an edu­ca­tor whose depart­ment chair called her “the best class­room teacher” that he’s ever seen can hap­pi­ly fol­low along online.

As always, her hand­writ­ten home­work assign­ments will be post­ed to her Near­sight­ed Mon­key tum­blr account, along with in-class reflec­tions and inspi­ra­tional bits and bobs pulled off the Inter­net.

The first task, famil­iar to read­ers of her Syl­labus work­book, is to begin a dai­ly diary prac­tice, fill­ing in a tem­plate frame of Barry’s own devis­ing.

Begin by putting your phone on air­plane mode. “The phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key ele­ments of dis­cov­ery: lone­li­ness, uncer­tain­ty and bore­dom,” she stat­ed last year, on a vis­it to NASA’s God­dard Space Flight Cen­ter. “Those have always been where cre­ative ideas come from.”

Amen.

Any one of the exer­cis­es will renew your pow­ers of obser­va­tion and sense of con­nec­tion with the world around you. Don’t be sur­prised if you find your­self get­ting up ear­ly or skip­ping some must-see TV in order to ful­ly com­ply with Pro­fes­sor Skeletor’s feel-good assign­ments. There are no wrong answers, pro­vid­ed you go at the assign­ments with ener­gy and a will­ing­ness to play. As Bar­ry said in an inter­view:

Because we tend to give up on the arts so ear­ly in life, I became real­ly inter­est­ed in what would hap­pen if we rein­tro­duce the arts with­out the thought of ‘you’re going to do this to become a great writer or painter,’ but rather that it might help peo­ple with the oth­er work in their field.

For added val­ue, com­plete your first dai­ly diary frame to an audio record­ing of Barry’s timed instruc­tion here. (Ignore the back­ground noise of your teacher’s life—her sneez­ing cat, her hap­py pet birds—or bet­ter yet, let her household’s zesty ener­gy seep into your work.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lyn­da Barry’s Illus­trat­ed Syl­labus & Home­work Assign­ments from Her New UW-Madi­son Course, “Mak­ing Comics”

Lyn­da Barry’s Won­der­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed Syl­labus & Home­work Assign­ments from Her UW-Madi­son Class, “The Unthink­able Mind”

Join Car­toon­ist Lyn­da Bar­ry for a Uni­ver­si­ty-Lev­el Course on Doo­dling and Neu­ro­science

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A Free Trial Offer for The Great Courses Plus: A Special Deal for Open Culture Readers

in Online Courses | September 4th, 2017

We’ve told you about the Great Cours­es Plus (now called Won­dri­um)  before–a new video sub­scrip­tion ser­vice that lets you watch free cours­es (about 8,000 lec­tures in total) across a wide range of sub­jects, all taught by some of the best lec­tur­ers in the coun­try. The top­ics cov­er every­thing from His­to­ry, Phi­los­o­phy, Lit­er­a­ture, and Eco­nom­ics, to Math, Sci­ence, Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment, Cook­ing, and Pho­tog­ra­phy. And you can binge-watch entire col­lege cours­es in a mat­ter of days by watch­ing videos on your TV, tablet, lap­top and smart phone, with the help of apps designed for Apple, Google Play, Kin­dle Fire, and Roku.

Inter­est­ed in try­ing out this ser­vice? Right now, the Great Cours­es Plus/Wondrium is offer­ing a spe­cial deal for Open Cul­ture read­ers. If you click here, and sign up for a free tri­al, you can use this ser­vice for 30 days … for free. And then, if you would like, you can con­tin­ue to sub­scribe and pay their nor­mal prices. If you have time on your hands, this is a great way to keep your mind engaged and stream what PC Mag­a­zine has called “an excel­lent library of col­lege-lev­el lec­tures.”

Note: The Great Cours­es is a part­ner with Open Cul­ture. So if you sign up for a free tri­al, it ben­e­fits not just you and Great Cours­es Plus. It ben­e­fits Open Cul­ture too. So con­sid­er it win-win-win.

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How to Listen to Music: A Free Course from Yale University

in Music, Online Courses, Yale | August 30th, 2017

Taught by Yale pro­fes­sor Craig Wright, this course, Lis­ten­ing to Music, oper­ates on the assump­tion that lis­ten­ing to music is “not sim­ply a pas­sive activ­i­ty one can use to relax, but rather, an active and reward­ing process.” When we under­stand the basic ele­ments of West­ern music (e.g., rhythm, melody, and form), we can appre­ci­ate music in entire­ly new ways. That includes every­thing from clas­si­cal music, rock and tech­no, to Gre­go­ri­an chant and the blues.

You can watch the 23 lec­tures above, on YouTube, or Yale’s web­site, where you’ll also find a syl­labus and infor­ma­tion on each class ses­sion. The main text used in the course is Lis­ten­ing to Music, writ­ten by the pro­fes­sor him­self.

Lis­ten­ing to Music will be added to the Music sec­tion of our ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

It’s also worth not­ing that Prof. Wright has cre­at­ed an inter­ac­tive MOOC called Intro­duc­tion to Clas­si­cal Music. You might want to check it out.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Eve­lyn Glen­nie (a Musi­cian Who Hap­pens to Be Deaf) Shows How We Can Lis­ten to Music with Our Entire Bod­ies

Down­load 400,000 Free Clas­si­cal Musi­cal Scores & 46,000 Free Clas­si­cal Record­ings from the Inter­na­tion­al Music Score Library Project

Play­ing an Instru­ment Is a Great Work­out For Your Brain: New Ani­ma­tion Explains Why

1200 Years of Women Com­posers: A Free 78-Hour Music Playlist That Takes You From Medieval Times to Now

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.