Coursera: Free online courses from top unis

I recommend checking out Coursera.org if you have some time. They offer a large range of FREE online courses, many of which are from top universities.

The courses include video lecturers and online tests/assignments. Some will give you a certificate at the end, but not all. Of particular interest, there are quite a few IT courses. I've enrolled in one on cryptography, the quality of the lessons is very high (but also quite fast paced). If you are quick, I think they are still taking enrollments for this one.

Also some upcoming courses on electronic engineering and robotics, among other things. Seriously, try one out its quite impressive.

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Interesting site. I'll have to keep it in mind for next year. Our firstborn has just arrived, so I'll have some additional time constraints from now on.

Just completed the first week. I am very much impressed with the quality of the lessons, and the assessment is quite challenging. I think we are seeing the beginning of a major disruption to traditional education. They've created a monster :)

Just a reminder that the next run of the free Cryptography I course started a few days ago, you are still in time to sign up.

I did this course last year and it really was excellent. One of the best parts is that each week they give you a cryptography system to attack as (optional extra) homework (you need basic scripting skills to solve these). These often show how an apparently trivial weakness or oversight can be exploited to totally break an otherwise unbreakable system.

If you have any interest in computer security I thoroughly recommend this course to you. It is by no means a walk over and if you've forgotten most of your high school maths like I had you may struggle a bit!

There's a heap more courses kicking off in January, check out their site. I'm going to do some remedial maths courses before tackling calculus again - and then maybe some programming and physics, with the aim of getting into the Open Pilot (UAVs) and OpenROV project. Robots man, I am going to build flying and diving robots!!!

As soon as I saw Coursera I knew this was going to be a monster, and it is. They already have 2.3 million students, and more than 200 courses to choose from. Enjoy!

Stanford University's free online cryptography course will run again on 9 September. If you have an interest in security I highly recommend it (again!).

It will be followed by a second extension course afterwards.