In our century, distance learning is actively developing. On the Internet you can find a large number of courses and various schools in a variety of areas. The Open Education project decided to provide additional training for future specialists. Courses of different speci alties and industries are waiting for you. However, how effective can it be and is everything really free?
Reviews of the National Open Education Platform are only positive. People are engaged, get knowledge and a lot of pleasant impressions. So what is this miracle university?
About the project
From the first days of launch, reviews of the Open Education Institute filled various social networks and websites. The idea of getting advanced training in a particular issueattracted many potential students.
The platform was launched by 8 leading Russian universities. Here they provide free study material, lectures by famous scientists and professors. All this is processed and provided by the university as a free Internet resource. At the moment, 234 projects are available for different profiles. Any casual passer-by can register and choose the appropriate material for him to study.
First steps
Launched the platform on September 14, 2015. Initially, only 46 courses were presented. Already that year, about 8,000 people participated in the project. Reviews about Open Education were circulating on the Internet. The idea attracted attention and began to actively unwind. The courses themselves were in a public format and did not require any investment, but if a person wanted to confirm his knowledge with an official document, he had to pass the final exam, which was already paid. But these courses were considered official and could be credited at any university in the Russian Federation.
The budget that was spent only at the beginning of the university's work was 160 million rubles, 20 million from each educational institution. In total, it is planned to invest 400 million rubles. However, the organizers are confident that their idea will pay off and bring considerable profit through paid certificates.
Today, the scale of the organization is growing exponentially. Lessons become interesting not only to other cities, but also to countries. A review of the courses"Open Education" confirms the demand for both knowledge and obtaining a certificate. At this rate, investments will pay off much earlier than the creators suggest.
Working principle
Each project has its own start date and end date. On the main page, you can see three search strings: by university, by direction and by status. There are only three statuses:
- "Now going" - courses that have already started. Not all lessons are available here, as many have already closed the record.
- "Coming soon" - you can make it before the first class. Choose any, study the start page and sign up.
- "You can sign up" - this is access to those blocks of lectures that are already running, but the recording has not yet been removed. If you're ready to study the material you missed externally, you can join any of these groups.
You need to register before registering. Be sure to indicate your real data here, as it will be in your certificates.
All classes are conducted according to the same principle. You watch lectures, do your homework, take a test on the material, then move on to the next section. Some courses have creative assignments. At the end, you can simply complete the training or take a paid exam and receive a certificate of completion. Only students with a certain number of points are allowed to the final knowledge test.
The document gives you the opportunity to take a test at your university, since the certificatevalid and officially certified. It is provided to the teacher during or before the final knowledge tests.
You can pass several disciplines at the same time, if there is time for this.
Institutions
Each course is provided by a participating university. Now you can study at ten different universities in Russia:
- MSU them. Lomonosov;
- NUST MISIS;
- MIPT;
- NIU VSE;
- Polytech (St. Petersburg Polytechnic University);
- SPbGU;
- TSU (Tomsk);
- ITMO University;
- UrFU.
The lectures are conducted by their professors, respectively, all the information is verified and of high quality. You are actually present in the audience, only for this you do not have to get up at 7 o'clock in the morning and go to the other end of the city. The quality of information is in no way inferior to the university program.
Directions
As we have already understood from the ratings and reviews, Open Education openedu.ru has a wide range of different areas.
The good news is that you can find information not only on the speci alty you want, but also on self-development and self-improvement. For example, the lessons "Personal efficiency: time management" from NUST MISiS.
In total, the site presents 54 different directions, each has its own sections and subsections. These are mainly courses.self-development and basics of certain professions.
Main sections: mathematics, physics and astronomy, chemistry, biology, radio engineering, medicine, architecture and design, psychology, music, economics, philosophy and cultural studies.
In each course you choose, you can track your progress yourself, get updates, ask questions, and write reviews. The open education platform has taken care not only of the information provided, but also of the comfort of students.
The advantages of such training
Based on feedback from Open Education, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- Does not require any investment. Now education is quite expensive and not everyone can afford it. The platform has created an ideal place for self-development.
- Lectures by qualified specialists. The information that is given to students is no different from the data provided in the classroom of the university.
- Practical. No need to go anywhere, adjust the time, etc. Ideal for busy people and introverts.
- Progress tracking. You not only learn new useful information, but also check how much you have learned it.
- Possibility of advanced training. An official certificate of raising the level of knowledge in any case will play a role in entering a university or finding a job.
- Great choice. Different directions provide an opportunity to learn more and more people with different abilities. At the same time, the arsenaldistance education is constantly increasing.
- Any student can express their opinion in the "Discussion" section of the course itself. This means that you have the right to write not only about your impressions of the site, but also a specific review of the teacher's open lesson. Further education reserves this right for you.
Cons
According to the same reviews about Open Education, there were also disadvantages of this platform:
- The irresponsible approach of some universities. A person can take two completely different trainings from this site, but one will be of high quality, the information is presented correctly, and the second was created in haste. Why such a huge difference? The authors are from different universities.
- Possibility of re-setting is questionable. There is a theory that it is possible to provide a course certificate and receive credit at your institution. In practice, the teacher may not accept such a valuable paper, which is not an indicator for him. He has every right to do so.
- Reviews about "Open Education" some users talk about problems with the site itself. Courses didn't load and people couldn't watch lectures or complete homework and quizzes. However, these are rather special cases, since most students had full access to all materials.
Conclusion
The results of evaluations and reviews of the Open Education courses show that this is a rather promising project. There is a huge amount of useful and necessary information for a completely different circle of people. Sotime spent on lessons and tests will not be wasted. Who wouldn't want to attend lectures at Moscow State University or HSE for free?
