E-learning Platforms Offering Affordable Politics Courses

I don’t know about you, but the COVID-19 situation has been one of the most fruitful periods of my life. Don’t get me wrong, of course I am concerned and of course the virus has knocked my door too. But having fought with health problems since the age of six, I have learned to see the positive side of things.

I might live in a developed country of this world, but, like billions of other people worldwide, I live in an isolated place which is not famous for its richness in educational and professional opportunities… As an inhabitant of an isolated town of a Greek island, I feel I am in the middle of nowhere in terms of professional and intellectual development when it comes to my field of study.

But technology has come to end my suffering, and thanks to God and COVID-19, more and more established organisations rely on e-learning platforms. Here I present you some e-learning platforms that I have used or plan to use to expand my knowledge on Politics.

1. FutureLearn (https://www.futurelearn.com)

I have been registered with FutureLearn since the year it went online and I can guarantee for its top quality. On FutureLearn, you will find courses that are offered by established universities and leading scholarly organisations from all around the world. There are courses that deliver academic concepts or teach you professional skills and one could benefit from them as if they were studying in person. It started as a platform offering short courses, but now it also includes premium, longer courses that lead to the acquisition of academic credits and degrees.

The method is the following: you enroll on a course, which evolves on a weekly basis and includes study material (so it feels like studying an university course). The courses include videos, html text, downloadable documents, graphs and other rich material that one would use to pursue an academic course in today’s technologically advanced physical world. It also includes quizzes and short tests. You can sign up to as many modules as you like and learn at your own pace.

Regarding the costs, all courses are free to access, but for most courses you need to pay a small fee to get a certificate of completion. The only setback is that, even if you pay for the course, you can access its material only for a limited time; but you can enroll to the course anew if you wish.

To show you the diversity of the courses offered, here is a small sample of my long wishlist:

• “What Makes an Effective Presentation?“, Coventry University
• “Improving Your Study Techniques“, University of Groningen
• “Religion and Conflict“, University of Groningen
• “Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life“, The University of Nottingham and British Library
• “Introduction to Humanitarian Aid“, Deakin University
• “Tipping Points: Climate Change and Society“, University of Exeter
• “Environmental Challenges: Scarcity and Conflict in the Natural Environment“, University of Leeds
• “Global Ethics: An Introduction“, The Open University

2. Kaya (https://kayaconnect.org)

Are you a humanitarian professional or volunteer? Then Kaya is for you! Kaya is the global leading platform of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy and here you will find learning material which is absolutely free to access!

Some of the features of Kaya are the following:

• Online self-directed courses and pathways
• MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
• Webinars (streamed film of events that you can access from your phone or computer)
• Information and registration for face-to-face workshops and events
• Videos, documents and resources
• Games, quizzes and assessments

The platform is available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic, but there are courses available in may other languages as well.

Apart from the diversity in language, there is also diversity in topics. The following courses have caught my eye so far:

• “Becoming an Effective Leader”
• “Conflict Resolution”
• “Influencing, Assertiveness and Negotiation”
• “Presentation Skills”
• “Volunteer Essentials Pathway”
• “Diaspora Humanitarian Training”
• “Humanitarian Learning Webinar Series”
• “Grant Management”
• “Strengthening Effective Humanitarian Partnerships – South Sudan”
• “Collecting Data for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action”
• “Environment in Humanitarian Action”
• “Introduction to Humanitarian Logistics”
• ‘Project Management”
• “Remote Working”
• “Information Security”
• “Cyber Security”

3. MIT OpenCourseWare (https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/political-science)

MIT OpenCourseWare  is owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This rich online platform was created for the staff to share their class material with students and the wider public worldwide. It includes a particularly extensive list of Political Science courses, all of them free of charge.

I love every single title on the platform, though I have set my eyes particularly on the following:

• Causes and Prevention of War
• Political Science Scope and Methods
• Methods of Policy Analysis
• Introduction to International Relations 
• Advances in International Relations Theory
• Territorial Conflict
• Defense Politics
• International Relations Theory in the Cyber Age
• International Relations of East Asia

The message of this blog is this: stop being depressed about the lockdown and use it to expand your knowledge and develop your skills. Locked inside or not, the world has not stopped moving and evolving -especially in our field- and you shouldn’t stay behind!