Inhalt
- What are MOOC?
- Academic-level Free MOOC in German and English
- Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills With a STEM Focus
- On Public Universities in Germany
- Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills in Computer Sciences, Mathematics, Management and Leadership
1. What are MOOC?
Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills on all sorts of topics are out there anywhere. ‘MOOC’ means ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ and already includes the idea that the offered courses are learnt online. Here you are with a more extense explanation: an interactive MOOC intro. It was set up by U.S. News’ author Jordan Friedman goes through 10 informative facts on MOOC in 1-3 sentences each. That’s a great overview.
In short, some MOOC are self-study courses, others are accompanied by an instructor. Some have a forum included, others not. Some expire, others are accessable lifelong. There are added features with for-pay MOOC like i.e. certificates, and often they’re affiliated with universities. In this category fall the MOOC you’ll be learning about here.
This is what this article is about: one German online resource on academic level, which lists all the below MOOC for free. These online free MOOC increase your skills at higher education level in two languages, either German OR English, depending on the course. Compelling for the foreign language learner is to find highly specialized MOOC for free taught only by German native speakers.
2. Academic-level Free MOOC in German and English
You’ll come across various free MOOC, which you’ll find direct links to in this post. In the general link to the website you’ll find a great filter in English to search not only for MOOC but diverse courses by
- status: running, starting, …
- fee: from free to 500€+
- category: what to study
- certificate: up to Master’s level
- topic: if academic or not
- language: German, English, Danish, French, Arabic
- type: MOOC, supervised, self-paced, webinar, and more
- duration: from 2 hours to 6 semesters
They’re all offered by higher education institutions of a northern Germany academic online network called oncampus. They also have for-pay courses but lots of online free MOOCs addressed at various age groups. In this, you’ll only come across a selection of free courses in the below table. The title points to the language – either English or German. If you want to focus not so much on a STEM perspective but straight on language learning find unusual free and paid German language resources.
3. Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills With a STEM Focus
What kind of a website is that? ‘Oncampus’ reflects a network of public higher education institutions with a STEM focus in Germany, ‘. STEM is an abbreviation for ‘Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics’, and it’s ‘MINT’ in German. Some of the courses featured on OnCampus represent external providers, some regionally focussed, some affiliated to a commercial. The representation of courses is somewhat unclear but colors lead you to pricing. Green-coloured courses are free (dark green) or low-priced (light green).
4. On Public Universities in Germany
Quick note on the reputation of public universities or universities of applied sciences in Germany. Education is free in Germany, and so is higher education – with exception to an inscription fee for each semester. The quality however, is somewhat comparable to private universities in the USA – with exception of Ivy-League universities. So, it’s kind of reverse with US and German education systems because public universities in Germany make ~90% of all higher education institutions.
Find an overview of the number of higher education institutions in Germany by type. And you find a filter to search German higher education institutions by different categories like where or what to study. Both resources are in German. If you’re in formal education and prepare your students for career-readiness, you may be interested in an introduction of Germany’s formal education system as different from the American one.
One more comment on Germany’s public or private higher education institutions. Public institutions are accredited, of course and are chosen to study at by the majority of students because they can leverage a long tradition in many cases, like i.e. Tuebingen for Theology, Muenster for Jura, LMU Munich for Economics.
There’s no such thing like SAT- and ACT-assessments to enter higher education, at all. Instead, German students enter higher education by the GPA called ‘Numerus Clausus’ of their final high school exams or A-Levels. Find more on formal education grades in Germany in this related post.
Tips. If you want to get effective study tips read them and don’t forget applying them, too. If you’re a scholar and already know some German, here you’re with teaching tips online.
5. Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills in Computer Sciences, Mathematics, Management and Leadership
After this intro, let’s now check out some free online MOOC available.
| Online Free MOOC to Increase Skills (de & en) | About | How long | Parti-cipants* | Anything else? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebDaysMOOCfairnetzt – Online-Kurs für Jugendliche zu Fairness und Ethik im Netz | For Youth on Fairness and Ethics in the internet | 4 weeks | 75 | On algorithms and global AI trends, manipulation and truth issues, creating your own digital future and more |
| webdaysmoocKI – Online-Kurs für Jugendliche zu Künstlicher Intelligenz | For Youth on AI = Artificial Intelligence | N/A | 120 | On AI in daily life, differences of AI and humans, basics of IT-development and more |
| Mathematics – Relations and Functions I | For beginners | 5 w. | 43 | Fundamentals, Limits & Continuity |
| Mathematics – Relations and Functions II | N/A | Self-Study | 40 | Rational, Root, Exponential, Logarithmic Functions; Rules of Differentiations and more |
| Introduction to Mathematics 1 | For beginners | Self-study | 47 | All about Logic, binomial series & more. More on Math for formal education in this related post. |
| Introduction to Mathematics 2 | For beginners | Self-study / 5 w. | 37 | Matrices & Matrix Operations, Linear systems, Analytical Geometry and more |
| Living in a Digital World | For Beginners | Self-study / 6 w. | N/A | Identity and Connectivity – on doing effecitve internet search, evaluating resources, reflecting about information found and more |
| Leadership in a Digital Age | For Leadership Newbies | 10 hours | N/A | Leadership in business & theories, principles of Transformational Leadership, communication tools and more |
| Introduction to applied Computer Science 1 | For beginners | Self-study/ 5w. | 118 | Introduction, Modeling, Information & Telecommunication and more |
| Introduction to applied Computer Science 2 | N/A | Self-study | 61 | What is computer science – step by step, on algorithms, Computing systems and more |
| Environmental Management | For beginners | Self-study | 175 | Environmental aspects of company activities |
For more free online courses with Oncampus you may research the great variety with rating, pricing and additional information here. For a general list on lots of available MOOCs worldwide you’ll need some time to flip through.
Find and overview of Apps & online learning options for formal education in various languages. Or subscribe to the newsletter via the contact page to stay on top of future updates.
