Free Online Courses

Learning online is very popular nowadays, and many e-courses are on offer to help family historians improve their knowledge and skills.  These are aimed at beginning and seasoned seekers, and can cover a breadth of topics or focus on just one.  Although most involve a significant financial outlay, I recently discovered one learning provider that runs free online short courses on a vast range of subjects (and not just historical ones, either). 

FutureLearn, in partnership with established universities and other organisations, allows you to sign up for the course of your choice and then have free access to the learning resources it contains for a limited number of weeks.  In my case, I chose to brush up my skills with their course on Early Modern Scottish Palaeography, and really enjoyed the "mini lectures" by one of Glasgow University’s professors, delivered via YouTube videos.  The fairly informal course website allowed me to interact with other students, ask tutors questions, and read material written specifically for the course, as well as journal articles.  After each tutorial came a simple quiz, designed to consolidate my understanding of what I'd learned. 

Of special interest here might be the six-week genealogy course FutureLearn offers in conjunction with the University of Strathclyde.  The sceptic in you is probably wondering why these courses are free.  The fact is that they operate as taster courses for the institutions who run them in the hope that students will be impressed enough to sign up (and pay) for longer, more in-depth courses.  However, there is absolutely no obligation to do so and no payment details are taken in advance, as is common with online "free trials" (you know who you are, Ancestry.com).

I really enjoyed refreshing my knowledge online like this; it suited my learning style, and gave me a chance to sharpen an important tool in my family history kit.  The only downside was the flurry of e-mail invitations to "Upgrade" so I could receive a certificate of completion and unlimited access to the course materials.  This, naturally, involved payment, and was easily overcome by use of the delete button.  And you can always unsubscribe from the e-mails if you no longer want any contact with the company.  

In future posts, I'll cover some offline ways to develop your research skills without shelling out.

Photo credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay