What is a liberal education? And how can it help you live a more authentic and purposeful life? They are timely and timeless questions that get answered by The Art of Living, a team-taught course presented to Stanford freshmen. The first lecture (above) addresses these questions head on. And the remainder of the course (17 videos) puts the initial thinking into practice, using great works of literature and philosophy to explore what it means to live a well-lived life. Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Toni Morrison all guide the way. Taught by Lanier Anderson, Kenneth Taylor and Joshua Landy, the Stanford course puts you in a position to address “fundamental and enduring questions about what it means to be human.” Whether you work in business, science or the arts, you will get something big out of the class.

You can find The Art of Living in its entirety here. Or find the course listed in the Philosophy Section of our collection of 400 Free Courses Online.

The Art of Living: A Free Stanford Course Explores Timeless Questions is a post from: Open Culture

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.

Earlier this fall, Stanford launched a highly-publicized series of free courses that offer students something novel: the ability to take tests and receive a “statement of accomplishment” from the instructor — though not the school itself — if they pass the class. (Stanford will launch 14 more courses starting in January and February. Click link for details.)

Now, MIT wants to up the ante on the certification of free courses. Starting next spring, the university, already famous for its OpenCourseWare project, will launch MITx, an e-learning initiative that will offer certificates to students demonstrating mastery of free MIT courses. According to a new set of FAQs, the certificates won’t bear MIT’s name. Rather, “MIT plans to create a not-for-profit body within [MITx] that will offer certification for online learners of MIT coursework. That body will carry a distinct name to avoid confusion.” The courses will be free; the certificates will cost just a “modest” sum. It’s all a big step in the right direction.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has more on MITx. Expect a formal announcement from MIT on Monday.

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MIT to Offer Certificates to Students Taking Free Courses on the Web is a post from: Open Culture

Immediately below, you’ll find the latest additions. All of these courses feature interactive video clips; short quizzes that provide instant feedback; the ability to pose high value questions to Stanford instructors; and feedback on your overall performance in the class.

Courses start in January and February. Enroll today for free. And, if something doesn’t pique your interest below, don’t miss our big list of 400 Free Online Courses.

Newly added:

Technology Entrepreneurship
Making Green Buildings
Anatomy
Information Theory
Design and Analysis of Algorithms I
The Lean Launchpad
Cryptography

Originally mentioned:

Computer Science 101
Software Engineering for SaaS
Human Computer Intereaction
Natural Language Processing
Game Theory
Probabilistic Graphical Models
Machine Learning

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Stanford Launching 14 Free Online Courses in January/February: Enroll Today is a post from: Open Culture

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. Each course features interactive video clips; short quizzes that provide instant feedback; and the ability to pose high value questions to Stanford instructors. The response? It has been nothing short of amazing. One course alone (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) pulled in more than 58,000 enrollments.

Starting in January and February 2012, Stanford will offer seven new courses, and they’re all open for enrollment today. Here’s the new list (and don’t forget to browse through our collection of 400 Free Online Courses):

Computer Science 101
Software Engineering for SaaS
Human Computer Interfaces
Natural Language Processing
Game Theory
Probabilistic Graphical Models
Machine Learning

Another seven courses have recently been added. Find the updated list here.

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Stanford Opens Seven New Online Courses for Enrollment (Free) is a post from: Open Culture

Back in 2009, Stanford University started recording lectures given in its iPhone Application Development course and then placing them on iTunes, making them free for anyone to view. The course hit a million downloads in a matter of weeks, and now, two years later, here’s where we stand. The course remains the most popular item on Stanford’s iTunesU site, having clocked in 10 million downloads. And the school has released a new version of the course that focuses on iOS 5, the latest version of the iPhone/iPad operating system. You can download the course on iTunes (in HD video or standard-definition video) and start creating apps on your own.

The iPhone Application Development course is now listed in the Computer Science section of our big collection of Free Online Courses. There you will find 40+ free courses that will teach you to code….

via Stanford News

Create iPhone/iPad Apps in iOS 5 with Free Stanford Course is a post from: Open Culture

As the French like to say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Before there was Twitter, Facebook and Google+ (click to follow us), Europeans living in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had to deal with their own version of information overload. Emerging postal systems, the proliferation of short letters called billets, and the birth of newspapers and pamphlets all pumped unprecedented amounts of information — valuable information, gossip, chatter and the rest — through newly-emerging social networks, which eventually played a critical role in the French Revolution, much like Twitter and Facebook proved instrumental in organizing the Arab Spring.

These historical social networks are being carefully mapped out by scholars at Stanford. Above, we have Anaïs Saint-Jude painting the historical picture for us. Below Dan Edelstein gives you a closer look at Stanford’s Mapping the Republic of Letters project.

via Stanford University News

Social Media in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution is a post from: Open Culture

This fall, professors from Stanford’s prestigious School of Engineering will offer online three of its most popular computer science courses: Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases. (You can sign up by clicking on these links.) The courses will feature short, interactive video clips that students can watch whenever and wherever they want; short quizzes that provide instant feedback; and the ability to rank questions to be answered by Stanford instructors. According to the Stanford Report, “Already more than 58,000 people have expressed interest in the artificial intelligence course taught by Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford research professor of computer science and a Google Fellow, and Google Director of Research Peter Norvig.”

This isn’t the first time Stanford has offered free computer science courses to the world. Back in 2008, Stanford Engineering Everywhere presented lectures from 10 complete online computer science and electrical engineering courses. This includes the three-course “Introduction to Computer Science” sequence taken by the majority of Stanford undergraduates. These courses are all listed in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering sections of our big collection of Free Online Courses. H/T @eugenephoto

via Stanford News

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Take Stanford Computer Science Courses This Fall: Free Worldwide is a post from: Open Culture

First thing you need to know: Before doing anything else, you should simply click “play” and start watching the video above. It doesn’t take long for Robert Sapolsky, one of Stanford’s finest teachers, to pull you right into his course. Better to watch him than listen to me.

Second thing to know: Sapolsky is a MacArthur Fellow, a world renowned neurobiologist, and an adept science writer best known for his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Much of his research focuses on the interplay between the mind and body (how biology affects the mind, and the mind, the body), and that relationship lies at the heart of this course called “Human Behavioral Biology.”

Now the third: Human Behavioral Biology is available on YouTube and iTunes for free. The course, consisting of 25 videos spanning 36 hours, is otherwise listed in the Biology section of our big list of Free Online courses (now 340 courses in total).

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Biology That Makes Us Tick: Free Stanford Course by Robert Sapolsky is a post from: Open Culture

Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biology at Stanford University, famously focuses his research on stress above all else. (Don’t miss his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.) The video above features Sapolsky presenting the Pritzker Lecture at the California Academy of Sciences on February 15, 2011. The full lecture can be seen on Fora TV. In this excerpt, Sapolsky amusingly tells the audience how monkeys and humans commonly generate the highest levels of dopamine when pleasure is anticipated, not when pleasure is actually experienced. But humans, as opposed to monkeys, can ”keep those dopamine levels up for decades and decades waiting for the reward.” And for some, Sapolsky adds, that perceived reward lies beyond this life – in the afterlife. (Sapolsky was raised in an orthodox Jewish family, but is an atheist now.) The Stanford professor talks about similar issues (what separates us from primates) in another captivating talk, “What makes us human?”

By profession, Matthias Rascher teaches English and History at a High School in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twitter.

Dopamine Jackpot! Robert Sapolsky on the Science of Pleasure is a post from: Open Culture

So massive and wide-reaching is the cult of Holmes that Stanford dedicated an entire project to the study of Sherlock Holmes. Discovering Sherlock Holmes features 12 of the greatest stories of the Sherlock Holmes canon from The Strand Magazine, where Sherlock first made his appearance, downloadable as free annotated, illustrated PDF’s. A historical essay on Holmes’ epoch contextualizes the stories and features rare vintage artwork by Sidney Paget, the original Sherlock illustrator.

Note: You can also find The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Open Culture’s collections of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks. Plus, the Free Movies collection houses three vintage Sherlock Holmes films – Dressed to Kill (1941), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943) and Terror by Night (1946).

Maria Popova is the founder and editor in chief of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine and DesignObserver, and spends a great deal of time on Twitter.

Discovering Sherlock Holmes is a post from: Open Culture