It happens at least a few times a day. Students look through our list of 400 Free Online Courses, and ask us whether they can get a certificate for taking a class. And, unfortunately, our answer has been no — no, you can’t. But that may be about to change.

Two weeks ago, we mentioned that Stanford will be rolling out seven new courses in its experiment with online learning. Fast forward to today, and yet another seven courses have been added to the winter lineup, bringing the total to 14.
Immediately below, you’ll find the latest additions.

David Harvey, an important social theorist and geographer, has got the right idea. Take what you know. Teach it in the classroom. Capture it on video. Then distribute it to the world. Keep it simple, but just do it.
Harvey is now making available 26 hours of lectures, during which he gives a close reading of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (1867).

This fall, Stanford launched a highly-publicized experiment in online learning. The university took three of its most popular computer science courses and made them freely available to the world.

You have got to hand it to The Great Courses (sometimes also called The Teaching Company). Based in Chantilly, VA, the company has traveled across America, recording professors lecturing on great topics.

With Labor Day behind us, it’s officially time to head back to school. That applies not just to kids, but to you. No matter what your age, no matter where you live, no matter what your prior level of education, you can continue deepening your knowledge in areas old and new. And it has never been easier.

Stephen B. Smith, a political science professor at Yale University since 1984, has made available a 24-lecture course, Introduction to Political Philosophy, which covers Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Tocqueville.
His approach is highly literary.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the University of Wisconsin-Madison put together one of the finest history programs in the United States, and it was anchored by George Mosse, a German-born cultural historian who authored 25 books covering the English Reformation, Lutheran theology, Jewish history, and fascist ideology.

In 1949, Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish emigré, landed at The University of Chicago, where he spent decades teaching and writing on political philosophy, especially the political thought of the Ancients. Strauss’ thinking skewed conservative, and if he was sometimes controversial while alive, he has become only more so in death (1973).

Worth a quick mention. Today our constantly-growing list, 350 Free Online Courses from Top Universities, was featured by Netted, a daily newsletter written by the Webbys, the same people who give awards for excellence on the web. I don’t know if we’re achieving excellence on the web.