Free Online Courses
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites offering free online courses
Email College 
• www.emailcollege.co.uk
Headers: Free Online Courses: Business, Personal Development, Jobs & Careers, Health, Information Skills, Creativity & Ideas, Consumer Issues, Writing Guides
A series of mini courses provided free - you get your materials via email. There is a certificate at the end of each course - to show you have done the work - although it is not a nationally recognised qualification. The website is operated by volunteers and is non profit making.
Open Learn Learning Space
• http://openlearn.open.ac.uk
Headers: Free Online Courses: Arts and History,
Business and Management,
Education,
Health and Lifestyle,
IT and Computing,
Law,
Mathematics and Statistics,
Modern Languages,
Science and Nature,
Society,
Study Skills,
Technology
Part of the Open University. All the courses are just a few hours long and you access the material direct from the website. There are also several learning clubs and forums you can join.
Alison
• http://alison.com/
Headers: Free Online Skills Training
Large number of multimedia online courses (all free by the way) in Digital Literacy & IT Skills,
Enterprise & Business Skills,
Financial & Economic Literacy,
Health & Safety & Compliance,
Health Literacy,
Leadership & Management Training,
Language Skills,
Personal Development & Soft Skills,
Teacher Training
GCF Learn Free
• www.gcflearnfree.org
Headers: Free Online Courses: Everyday Life, Math & Money, Computer Training
Course in:
Computer Basics,
Windows,
Internet Basics,
Email Basics,
Internet Safety,
Mozilla Firefox,
Using Office Software,
Word,
Excel,
PowerPoint,
Access,
Office,
OpenOffice.org,
Outlook 2003,
Publisher 2003,
Exploring Life,
Career Development, Workplace Development, Math basics, Money basics.
Funded by GCF Community Foundation.
The BBC
• www.bbc.co.uk
Headers: Free Online Mini Courses: Basic Skills,
Cookery,
Creative Writing,
Environmental Studies,
Gardening,
Health, History, Information Technology,
Languages,
Media Studies,
Science,
Sports and Fitness
Work through these completely free online courses at your own pace. Mostly video and audio tutorials.
BBC Training & Development 
• www.bbctraining.com
Headers: Free Online Courses: Television, Radio, Broadcast Technology, Journalism
Originally designed for BBC staff, these courses are now free for all to use.
Vision2learn
• www.creatingcareers.net
Headers: Free Online Courses
The courses available from this site are funded by the Learning and Skills Council and are therefore free. Courses are in IT, Entrpreneurship, Money Management, Healthy Living and Sports Coaching. All courses lead to nationally recognised qualificaitons and students receive support from qualified tutors. Accreditation is through your local college. Available for residents over 16 in England.
Virtual Business Partner
• www.skills-4-success.com
Headers: Bookkeeping Courses, Business and Finance, Business Practices, Human Understanding, Hospitality, Writing and Journalism
Vocational, Sales, Computers and IT
Accredited distance learning packages with full tutor support. As well as the paid for courses, Virtual Business Partner also offers a large number of free online courses that provide an introduction to a variety of business topics from negiotiation skills to using IT in your business.
Home and Learn
• www.homeandlearn.co.uk
Headers: Free Computer Tutorials
Choose from beginners computing, MS Word, Excel, Visual Basic, Powerpoint, PHP, web design and Visual C#.NET. Registerwith them and you can also get free exams! They even have course files for you to download. They make their money by selling Home and Learn books (you don't have to buy these, but you might want to).
Help with PCs
• www.helpwithpcs.com/courses/Course.htm
Headers: Free Computer Courses
This is the free section of Help with PCs where you can find free tutorials on software and hardware topics. Not a great layout but you might find just what you need here.
