MOOC Platform Saylor Academy

Saylor Academy provides free, open, university-like classes in partnership with colleges, universities, and businesses. The Academy offer nearly 100 full-length courses at the college and professional levels available on your schedule, and free of cost. All courses are self-paced and are designed to mimic actual college courses, offering free-to-share and free-to-reuse materials whenever possible. The courses are made up of curated collections of materials openly available on the web – webpages, videos, downloadable documents, assignments & quizzes, culminating in a final exam. Students are not required to sign up to access the general course materials, although use of the ePortfolio and final exam center does require a login. Learners can earn free digital certificates of completion to use individually or toward one of the Academy's diploma programs. Saylor Academy also allows students to gain tuition-free college credit through the network of partner schools; or start a low-cost, convenient degree program.

Saylor.org is a non-profit organization.

Tools & Features

• 100+ free college and professional level courses
• Featured learning pathways (including college credit pathways)
• 22 credit-aligned courses
• “How to” demo videos
• Webpages, videos, downloadable documents, assignments, quizzes & a final exam
• ePortfolio: a launchpad for your courses and place to keep track of what you are up to
• Testing Center- where you take some quizzes and all of your final exams
• Discussion forums
• Courseware available on iTunes U

Certification
Certificate of Completion (Free): A 70% or better on a final exam will earn you a downloadable (pdf) certificate that you can also share online.

College credit: The Saylor Foundation does now offer a number of courses which can prepare a student to earn tangible, transferable, college credit. These courses are aligned to exams that have either been created by The Saylor Foundation, or recommended for college credit by The National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS); or credit bearing exams that have been developed and are administered by third-party institutions. While the courses themselves are free, certain fees may apply for a student to attempt one of the associated exams. Successful transfer of credit will depend on the institution and degree program that a student enrolls in.