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Stack OverflowBest free online Computer Science college courses
[+59] [16] Spiker
[2008-09-06 02:35:41]
[ education ]
[ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/47204/best-free-online-computer-science-college-courses ] [DELETED]

I have found the MIT Open Courseware [1] to be a great resource for free computer science college courses. Every software engineer should be required to take the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs class [2]. Berkeley [3] and Carnegie Mellon [4] also provide some great online courses. Are there any more colleges that offer quality computer science courses?

Great topic! It would also be useful to know a list of the best value online/distance courses too (and maybe the worst value. for instance courses people signed up for but due to poor content or whatever they wished they hadn't bothered with). - BenAlabaster
Thanks for posting this topic. This is a very useful subject for me. - JDelage
Nice, i love lectures. I have bad professors in some subjects, and it is really good to learn from masters scattered throug the world =) - Alessandro Stamatto
[+16] [2009-10-06 18:09:57] Even Mien

Academic Earth [1] has free academic video courses from leading universities.

The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Berkeley / Computer Science
Brian Harvey

Data Structures
Berkeley / Computer Science
Paul Hilfinger

Operating Systems and System Programming
Berkeley / Computer Science
John Kubiatowicz

Computer Science I: Programming Methodology
Stanford / Advanced Placement (AP) Test Prep
Mehran Sahami

Computer Science II: Programming Abstractions
Stanford / Advanced Placement (AP) Test Prep
Julie Zelenski

Computer Science III: Programming Paradigms
Stanford / Computer Science
Jerry Cain

Machine Learning
Stanford / Computer Science
Andrew Ng

Introduction to Computer Science I
Harvard / Computer Science
David J. Malan

Understanding Computers and the Internet
Harvard / Computer Science
David J. Malan

Introduction to Algorithms
MIT / Computer Science
Charles E. Leiserson

[1] http://www.academicearth.org/subjects/computerscience

+1 for mention of Academic Earth. Really like this site. (Basically, it's Hulu for academics.) - JasCav
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[+5] [2008-09-06 02:50:48] DGentry

Stanford offers some of their courses online, at http://scpd.stanford.edu/ A few of the seminars are free, but most are not.

Before Internet delivery became viable Stanford offered courses via closed circuit television to video conference rooms in a number of Silicon Valley companies. Most of the Computer Science faculty are quite comfortable presenting courses to students who are not physically present in the room.


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[+4] [2008-11-02 22:07:21] user265074

The Stanford Engineering Everywhere course called Programming Methodology is great. The professor is smart, teaches well, and has a sense of humor. The videos are available on iTunes or YouTube, and all of the handouts/tests are on the SEE site.

I did run into a problem with the iTunes videos, though. They would sync to my iPod (5.5G), but they wouldn't play. I had to reconvert all of them, a painstaking task for my little Celeron.


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[+3] [2008-09-06 03:34:28] Corey

ADUni.org [1] has a few good video courses.

[1] http://aduni.org/courses/

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[+2] [2008-09-07 06:50:12] Matt W

The MIT Open Courses are good, but the quality and completeness of courses are very uneven.

My favorite is 6.033 Computer System Engineering [1], which has videos of most lectures. (Something most don't have, unfortunately)

It's worth mentioning that the MIT math department has some excellent Open Courses for computer science folks with full video lectures. 18.06 Linear Algebra [2] is fantastic.

[1] http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-033Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
[2] http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-06Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm

(1) Your first link is broken. Use this one: ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/… - Zach L
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[+2] [2012-10-17 18:01:36] lifebalance

Udacity [1]'s offerings are extremely effective, and very learner-centric, and the best part is that some of them help you achieve multiple objectives. While CS101 [2] is the basic Introductory course to Computer Science, it also introduces you to the Python programming language and also help you "own" your own search engine by the end of the 7 week course.

CS253 and CS212 are foundational courses on which you can continue to build competencies through the other Udacity courses.

And most importantly, the discussion groups are very responsive and give you an opportunity to accelerate and extend your learning.

[1] http://www.udacity.com
[2] http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs101/CourseRev/apr2012

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[+1] [2008-09-06 06:22:37] JesDaw

To tack onto Denton's answer, Stanford offers a bunch of their courses in podcast form [1]. http://itunes.stanford.edu/

There are a number of CS podcasts in the "Science and Technology" section.

[1] http://itunes.stanford.edu/

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[+1] [2008-09-06 06:55:58] Matthew Schinckel

It's also worth looking on iTunesU, as there are several courses on there (including, but not limited to ones from UC Berkeley).


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[+1] [2009-07-18 00:31:51] user52804

I'd suggest ArsDigita [1], especially the Theory of Computation [2] courses, which as far as I'm concerned, can't be beat if you are interested in Compilers/FSM's/Turning Machines.

[1] http://www.archive.org/details/arsdigita
[2] http://www.archive.org/details/arsdigita%5F08%5Ftheory%5Fof%5Fcomputation

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[0] [2008-09-06 17:09:19] Spiker

I did not mean to imply that the courses should be taken for credit or certification, but only for my personal enrichment. For instance, I get more out of the MIT Artificial Intelligence online lectures and the book than simply just reading the book. Some of the supplemental materials offered with these courses further solidify the teachings.


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[0] [2008-10-21 07:41:25] Jason Sundram

See SEE ( Stanford Engineering Everywhere [1]). Programming courses are: Methodology, Abstractions, and Paradigms. There's also some AI and Applied Math.

[1] http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx

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[0] [2010-03-08 22:24:07] Mr. Brownstone

VideoLectures.Net [1]. Description:

VideoLectures.Net is a free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.

[1] http://videolectures.net/

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[0] [2010-05-06 16:14:21] JDelage

I just found a good resource:

Harvard CS-75 - Building Dynamic Websites

http://cs75.tv/

A previous version is also on iTunes.

On the site, they have full transcript of the lectures (!), slides, sample code in various formats, videos of the sessions with TA's, etc. It's the richest source I've found. There are a couple other classes too, including CS-50, intro to comp sci.


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[0] [2012-12-31 06:29:21] Judy Smith

There are many complete, free online education programs that you can use. Here are some resources.

• amblesideonline.

• oldfashionededucation.com

• connectionsacademy.com

• coreknowledge.org

• free-ed.net/free-ed

• lessonpathways.com

• k-12.com

• materamabilis.org/ma

Source: www. AskForEducation [1].com

[1] http://www.askforeducation.com

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[0] [2013-03-01 17:16:02] David Calver

There's a great list of all the available online courses (mainly free) here:

http://smartknowledge.hubpages.com/hub/The-Best-Websites-for-Free-Paid-Online-Degrees-and-Courses


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[-11] [2008-09-06 03:34:23] bmatthews68

I am of the opinion that if its free then the certificate/diploma/degree is not worth the paper it is written on. I would put this sort of thing in the same category as internet ordinations.

But that does not mean there are not good distance education programs out there that deliver content via the internet, I did a few courses with The Open University [1] and found them to be very well organized for delivery over the internet. These guys have been in the distance learning game since 1969.

[1] http://www.open.ac.uk/

I suppose people take these free course because they stand to learn a lot - even though they won't gain a recognised qualification. - codeinthehole
(3) I for one would rather have the knowledge than the qualification. If my valuable time is not spent learning anything useful (or cool at least), you can keep the qualification thanks. Sign me up for free courses. - BenAlabaster
(2) -1 : Education is not about qualifications. Education is about learning. It's a shame that a lot of people started to focus on wanting qualifications/certificates/diploma instead of wanting knwoledge. - Alessandro Stamatto
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