The Finnish Easy and Free MOOC phenomenon

Utilizing MOOCs in studying has become somewhat popular in Finland.  Given that they are free, easy to access and quick to complete is no great surprise. MOOC courses also deal with contemporary issues. While allowing bit a different vibe to regular, more hefty studies. You might also learn something new.

On the other hand knowledge of especially easy MOOC courses is easily lost. If students ever knew of them in the first place, that is. Given how difficult it is to get helpful information across other students even if we live among huge social networks. So the chances are you might never even know how other students made their studies a little bit easier with easy MOOC courses.

Free Moocs.com hopefully popularizes these easy MOOC courses further on. As has happened already with the original Finnish website Nopat.me. Which provided the same inside knowledge collected from students all over Finland of easy MOOC courses.

Easy Dice

The original phenomenon of interest in MOOC courses can be summed up in two words. Easy Dice. To also understand those words it might be necessary to explain that easy dice in Finnish means easy,  ECTS-eligible study credits. So the hype for these particular MOOC courses did not spring out of pure excitement for the content and structure of studies only. Although it helped greatly.

So all the easy MOOC courses known to mankind have now been discovered. Or at least in great quantities. As yet some easy MOOC courses still remain elusive, undiscovered. They even make new ones, given the popularity of the old.

The golden age of easy and free MOOC courses has begun. You can join on the greatest journey pre-Mars. Free, without any paywalls. Towards ECTS credits and certificates. Easily.

The original website

I played my humble part in this rather pleasant phenomenon by collecting all the information of easy MOOC courses from hundreds of sources. Turning them into the original Finnish MOOC website Nopat.me .

As always in web design or maybe in anything you do not really know how anything turns out to be. So it is better to be experimental and try not to assume anything. Since who knows what happens with anything really.

Luckily the website was welcomed among students as helpful. This allows for the creation of similar beneficial web sites. Such as this. It is exciting to see how international learners react to the whole easy MOOC phenomenon.

Global MOOCs 

Since Finnish universities have this culture of creating truly free MOOCs I was excited to try and find if other countries or universities had similar formats available. You have of course some MOOC courses if you want to deal with attempts toward paywalls. But I do not think there is anything similar to the Finnish MOOC format.

It is even a bit unfortunate given that it might have been an interesting change of scenery with other global but truly free MOOCs for students. But then again it is quite easy now to determine what are for example the best easy, truly free MOOC courses.

Meanwhile in Finland, people are quickly completing their freely chosen studies with these easy credits. Some MOOC courses have even been used as entrance exam-type gateway to universities.

Free education is valued here. Almost as much as easy ECTS credits.