By Leo Bialis-White Classes and formal learning used to be confined to brick and mortar institutions. In the past decade, many courses have moved online, yet courses were still controlled by admissions boards and the ability to pay tuition. However, that too is changing. Increasingly, there are multiple outlets for free, online learning. That is, there are now online courses that are taught by professors at top universities and are open to anyone with internet access! The most prominent providers are Coursera, Udacity, OpenCulture, and EdX. For example, EdX, of which UC Berkeley is now a contributing partner, aims “to reach out to students of all ages, means, and nations, and to deliver these teachings from a faculty who reflect the diversity of its audience.” One facet of D-Lab is facilitating open online courses for a community of UC Berkeley students. This fall, D-Lab contributor, Chris Church, facilitated a Coursera course on Social Network Analysis. Students from multiple departments and with various skill levels participated. Chris enjoyed facilitating and noted the level of mastery that many students achieved without the normal confines of typical college courses. With the ongoing goal of creating cross-departmental communities with focused interests on specific social science techniques and practices, D-Lab is looking to expand its number of facilitated online courses. Stay tuned for course offerings, and please contact us if there is a specific course in which you would like to participate! Credits: Image from EdXii