Coursera
The project was founded by professors from Stanford University. It offers users the opportunity to enroll in free online courses. These courses are taught by professors from 33 leading Western universities, including Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, the California Institute of Technology, and others. Unlike other projects that offer individual video lectures, here you can go through a full-fledged educational process and even receive a certificate. The range is vast – from cryptography and programming languages to poetry and cinema. The course includes video lectures, notes, homework, tests, and final exam questions. Procrastinators are kept on their toes: access to each course is time-limited.
Language(s) of instruction: English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, French. Subtitles are available in multiple languages.
Udacity
Another Stanford project – but more narrowly focused: it is designed for tech enthusiasts. Each course on the site has its own page where you can watch lectures, ask questions to the instructor, engage in discussions with other participants, and track your progress. Each video lecture includes an embedded test: options must be selected directly on the screen. After each question, the professor shows the correct answer along with an explanation. Another form of reporting is homework assignments. You can register for multiple classes at once – but only until the due date for the first homework assignment.
Language(s) of instruction: English
Khan Academy
The virtual academy, founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard graduate Salman Khan in 2006, now offers students more than 3,600 micro-lectures on a wide range of subjects: mathematics, history, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, macro- and microeconomics, and computer science. The greatest opportunities are available for enthusiasts of exact and natural sciences: for example, they can reinforce their learning achievements with the help of a special knowledge map, where exercises on various topics can be found.
Language(s) of instruction: English
MIT OpenCourseWare
A project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to publish course materials from all of its courses for free access. The published materials include course plans, lecture notes, homework assignments, and exam questions. For some courses, video recordings of the lectures are available.
Language(s) of instruction: English
Free online learning system edX
The educational platform offers video lessons, embedded surveys, instant feedback from instructors, student ratings of questions and answers, online laboratories, and learning at the pace chosen by the student.
Language(s) of instruction: English
Academic Earth
A website that hosts more than 1,500 video lectures from various universities, including MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University. Video lectures can not only be watched online but also downloaded to your computer or added to your favorites. Another useful option is thematic playlists of lectures, created by the site’s editors.
Language(s) of instruction: English
Open Yale Courses
On the website, you can find high-quality video lectures and other learning materials. You can also download lecture plans and order all the necessary textbooks from the online store. There is an option to communicate with the instructor – to do this, you need to join a virtual learning group. The only downside is that you will not receive any certificates for your efforts.
Language(s) of instruction: English
Electronic library BookFi.org
An electronic library created by the graduates of St. Petersburg State University in early 2010. The library contains more than 1.2 million books and is the largest electronic library in the Russian-speaking internet. It features online reading, catalog search, and file storage book search functions. One of the key features of the site is that any book from the search results can be downloaded for free without the need for prior registration on the site. Users can also add books themselves, and .fb2 format books can be viewed online.
A library of links to free eBooks
On this site, you can find and download free English-language books in almost any category. The site provides many links to over 100,000 free eBooks across more than 90 categories. You can find scientific and engineering books, literature on programming, science fiction, and much more. All books are available for download without registration. You can add new books and comments, but for that, you need to register. Registration is completely free and doesn’t take much time. After registering, you become a member of the community and can create your own list of favorite books (to download later), add new books, add comments, and send messages to other users.