Right now Open2Study is offering 10 subjects/courses which takes four weeks to complete. Enrolment is now open and classroom opens 22 April. Subjects being offered are:
They are handy for this, but it depends a lot on your job and the rest of your CV. If you have a number of qualifications it may look like you just like to study rather than learn for a job.
Usually it is a good thing.
Interesting
I dont think these are accredited? Just free learning tools. If they are, go do the Financial Planning if it gives you RG146 aswell.
They're not accredited - you get a Certificate of Achievement, rather than actual university credit.
If you're interested in one of the topics, by all means study it, but it's not going to count towards a job or a degree.
I dont see how it wouldnt count towards a job?
Just because its not accredited doesnt mean a manager wouldn't look upon your effort to undertake the learning positively. For someone without a degree, much experience or a rather drafty resume filling it out with some of these courses would be a brilliant plan.
There is no way you will get to do RG146 free anywhere, unless you can get your employer to finance your study.
I'd like to know more about becoming human.
Is that you pinnocio?
nah, bicentenial man.
That was pathetic, to be honest.
Only time will tell how pathetic it is on the OzBargain -200 downvote scale.
Poor guy… I suppose if you play with fire as hazardous as "Officeworks humor", you will get burned eventually.
Sassy
I love that less than a week ago, cdaddy made a very similar comment and got +15 votes and now cdaddy is currently on -42. Fickle bunch OzBargainers.
or maybe it's saying cdaddy needs some new material.
Maybe we should club cdaddy to death?
I think that would be a bit much FabMan.
Off topic… nice avatar!
Hmm
Financial Planning + User Experience for the Web = ozbargain
Thanks for posting. I'm going to recommend these to my sister, who has finished school and doesn't know what she wants to do career wise. Doing these courses might help her to decide whether she wants to study at uni or tafe and which degree to choose.
Thank you, taken up Writing on the web, may help with my blog.
awesome thanks Op… its backed by Open universities, which is good to know…
Pity it's not a formal 'competency' for a VET Qualification.
Excellente!! Thanks OP.
So many interesting free courses. Thanks for the link!
Excellent! Thanks for this. I just signed up :)
Love coursera.org … a true ongoing bargain!
There's edX as well. Courses are limited at the moment in comparison, but they are still interesting
Basically, it's a risk-free way to judge whether online learning is for you or not, which works better for most working professionals like myself thinking of taking up further studies while working.
Great for CPAs - enrol and claim CPD hours but cost nothing!
Thanks for this. I listed that I would do some short courses on my Performance & Development plan. A free one is about the right price for me!
are these always free?
thanks for this! even if they are not accredited towards diploma/degree its still useful and its free!
For the -brave- there's more to learn,
about a topic that can do more to boost AU
than most of the above-listed…
(Nursing is -excepted- because one can
save / extend Life as a nurse :-)
Here's the topic that's become a current
interest, around the world, at least for
folks, who grok Physics, Maths, etc. :
Actually, "Liquid Fueled THORIUM Reactors"
(LFTR's, for short) are 4th Gen reactors.
For a 10-min intro, I'd suggest Sorensen's
TED-talk (search for that name on TED.com)
For the full Monty (ie, details), YouTube
has "Thorium Remix" (eg, 2011, with 2012's
on the way).
If & when we can see past Fukushima, etc.,
we'll get a good return, if we can get a
few LFTR's up & running around AU.
Both China & India have their mind set on
building them, & tiny Taiwan (the island
where Ph D's per 1000 people is the high-
est in the world) plans to build one, eg,
for heat.
Safer, Clean, Green… fuel is everywhere
& cheap… see above sources for details.
While thorium reactors are one of the ways the world could become more "green", it's unlikely to happen, because of the risk of nuclear proliferation.
ALL thorium-based reactors MUST be breeder reactors - thorium is not "fertile" in the nuclear sense of the word. The thorium fuel cycle produces uranium-233, which is quite capable of being turned into a nuclear bomb (look up "operation teapot" in Wikipedia, one of those blasts used U-233). There is a LOT of opposition against breeder reactors around the world, because they make the production of nuclear weapons MUCH easier, and also much more difficult to detect.
So while a few countries will probably create thorium-based reactors, it will almost certainly be limited to those countries which already have the nuclear bomb, and they already have enough nuclear physicists to create thorium reactors if they want to.
Thorium reactors aren't hard to make, the first designs appeared in the 1960's or thereabouts. The reason they still aren't common is political, not a limitation in the number of nuclear physicists.
Safer, Clean, Green… fuel is everywhere
& cheap…
Safer - than what? A firing squad?
Clean - absolutely? Or relatively speaking? Cleaner than what? My skiddy undies?
Green - so there's no waste; storage, quarantine and disposal of same?
Cheap - there's the carrot. What a load of BS. You think investors aren't going to milk us no matter what? Take any finite or measurable commodity — $$$ there's always a justification.
Example? Hydrogen fuel cell cars. If we're filling a tank with anything, doesn't matter what, there will always be a reason to fleece us. Electricity — remember the ads from the 80s?
"Electricity, it's cheaper than you think."
Oil price rose, and electricity prices shadowed it. Early adopters of CFL, LED, hybrid and fully electric cars discovered the only cheap energy is either chip fat (homebrew bio diesel) or solar.
Sorry IVI, I'm not down-voting you, but I'm sick and tired of greedy snake oil salesmen presenting Problem-Solution scenarios when TRULY 100% SAFE energy sources already exist and are being successfully used globally.
Right now, that's tidal, thermal and solar.
Hopefully one day we can add true Nikola Tesla style harvesting of longitudinal electromagnetic energy.
People interested in these may also be interested in Udacity, it is awesome and I have taken a few courses.
The courses are alright, but I think khanacademy has more useful courses to select from.
Writing for the web is probably something all of us need.
Also don't forget iTunesU.
I would never think OB would help me to earn money rather then spending it, apparently I was wrong.
Clearly you didn't sign up for these:
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/86846
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/85185
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/93904
Hi everyone, thanks for your comments about our subjects!
A few of you asked about accreditation, so I just wanted confirm thatOpen2Study’s subjects are four-week intro subjects intended to let you try out a subject, or learn specific skills that are relevant to your work/study/life. So although the subjects don’t provide entry or credit towards formal courses, some of our students take them as a way of dipping a toe in the water before applying for an accredited course.
And to the person who asked if the subjects are always free, the answer is yes! This isn’t an introductory or limited offer - Open2Study only offers free subjects.
Our first subjects opened in April. Right now we have 14 subjects available for enrolment (with over 17,900 enrolments so far!) and this year we’ll introduce new subjects every five weeks.
We’ll have about 50 subjects by the end of the year – including subjects by high profile personalities. Some of the upcoming subjects will include:
If you’re keen, I could see what else we have coming up and give you a bit of a sneak peek of the videos! ;)
really? its well known? worth to put on our CV ?