OpenLearn – The home of free learning from the OU

OpenLearn attracts around 16 million visits each year from around the world. Whether it’s a two-minute exploration or a 24-hour expedition into learning that you’re after, you’ll find it on OpenLearn for free.

OpenLearn is a trailblazer for the provision of high-quality open educational resources at scale and breadth, for free without barriers. It is designed to be accessible by all, and to date over 115 million ​visitors from around the world have discovered this treasure trove of learning materials.

Established in 2006, OpenLearn started as a two-year experiment to understand how The Open University can operate in a more open manner and what benefits it brings for learners, educators and the OU itself. It is now a business-as-usual activity that supports informal learners and OU students alike. Millions who have taken the free courses report that they now have the confidence to start formal study.

OpenLearn continuously responds to the world's need for free and relevant higher education and gives people opportunities to study that they would not otherwise have had. It currently hosts around 35,000 pages of high-quality resources, including nearly 900 courses totalling 10,000 study hours. Its mission is simple: reach everyone that needs free access to higher education.

A wide range of topics from across the OU curriculum are covered, including popular factual content related to current affairs. For example:

• MSE's Academy of Money - a constantly updating course, created in partnership with Money Saving Expert, to give users the skills to understand and manage their finances.
• Race and Ethnicity Hub – a 200-strong collection of content offering fresh perspectives on issues surrounding race and ethnicity.
• The Financial Five-A-Day podcast series - a series of 10 podcasts offering financial guidance, hints and tips from experts.
• Free online resources for Ukrainians settling in the UK and Ireland & the Open Sanctuary Hub for all refugees.
• Understanding autism - a popular badged course that looks at different experiences of autism.

Content can be filtered by format (course, interactive activity, article, video, collection), subject, skills for study, and skills for work, or browse our most popular content.

OpenLearn Data Highlights

In the academic year 2023-24, there were 11.8 million visits to OpenLearn, and 15.8 million across all OpenLearn products, including 3.8 million YouTube views and 133,000 Amazon Kindle eBook downloads. 5.2% of visits were from OU students and 11.8% of visitors clicked through to the OU website. 2023-24 saw an increase in course enrolments, exceeding one million in the year for the first time in four years across the range of c.900 courses (now including more than 80 badged courses), with 51,000 digital badges being awarded. Visitors represented more than 120 countries worldwide, with 52% from the UK, 10% from the US and 6% from India.

The OpenLearn 2024 Annual Review is now also available for download.

Contact

Visit our About Us page or contact openlearn@open.ac.uk to find out more.