Looking for ways to develop your research skills from home?
Here is a useful list of resources offering online research courses. There are many courses offered at low cost and some are completely free. You can learn about research methods, data analysis, data visualization, evaluation and monitoring, and much more!
For each of the resources we have picked out some introductory courses that look interesting to us. We have in the past taken at least one course from each of these resources, but we don’t endorse any education providers. You might need to set up a free account to view course details.
Six resources offering online research courses
All the courses on Coursera are taught by instructors from universities and companies. There are hundreds of free courses as well as paid courses if you want to earn a Course Certificate upon completion. We like:
Udemy has tons of low-cost courses to offer. There are quite a few research-related courses on the platform, as well as a large number of computer application classes – including data analytics, Excel and Access. These might be worth a look:
EvalPartners offers a free e-learning program
in development evaluation. You can take a few units or an entire course. We particularly like:
Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX offers university
classes and certificate programs in a wide range of areas. There are a number of research courses, such as:
The Global Health eLearning Center offers courses aimed at increasing knowledge in a variety of global health technical areas. You can take individual courses or certificate programs. There are several
monitoring and evaluation courses, as well as courses in data use and quality. Here’s a few that caught our eye:
Alison is a for-profit social enterprise providing free learning platforms for education and skills training. There are a few courses on social sciences research, evaluation and data analysis. These might be useful:
Low cost or free online research courses
We have picked out a selection of low cost or free online research courses from resources we have used. Hope you find it helpful!