Free Online MBA Courses, Course Materials & Lectures

Overview of Free Online MBA Courses

Courses that make up the foundation of a solid MBA are readily available for free online at various outlets. Many are lecture-based courses with reading materials and assessments, much like a traditional college course, while a few are text-based courses that go over case studies or other readings in depth. Courses are sometimes available as part of a larger study path that results in a certificate of completion, usually for a fee.

MIT Open Courseware

MIT's free courseware website contains an Introduction to Operations Management course. Offered at the graduate level, the course discusses how to improve operations within a business by covering topics such as quality management, risk pooling, process design, and financial management. The course is completely self-directed and based on case studies, readings, and exercises. While some of the materials are uploaded to the course website, there are two books that are recommended for purchase.

Northwestern University on Coursera

The course Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution by Northwestern University explores how operation strategy can influence businesses. Goals include giving students the knowledge needed to design a strategy with solid operational support and helping students understand how to maximize their business' value. It takes roughly fifteen hours to complete, with the suggested workload being two to four hours per week. Through video lectures, students look at case studies with data and can participate in discussions.

New York University on iTunes U

On iTunes' platform for course materials, New York University offers a course in Corporate Finance. The entire course is accessible via a handy playlist, which includes webcasts, tests, and test solutions. The program originally rolled out over a span of fifteen weeks, but now it can be completed at a student's own pace. Principles of finance, as they relate to businesses, are the main focus of this course.

Open Learn

The Open University provides free online, self-directed courses and hosts one titled Communication, Management, and Your Own Context. Users can access the course without an account, but the free account is needed in order to track progress, receive a statement of participation, and to access the full range of course materials. Open University rates the course as a level three advanced subject and notes that it should take around eight hours to complete. The main focus of this course is to train students how to communicate well in the context of business management, and it provides exercises in writing, speaking, listening, and reading.

ESSEC Business School on Coursera

The ESSEC Business School offers an advanced course titled Foundations of Strategic Business Analytics designed for those already familiar with statistics, data analysis, and programming languages. Students in this course will learn how to work with statistics to form analyses, how to anticipate business changes, and how to present their analyses. Instructors use real case studies and show how to glean useful information from statistical analyses and package it into a business plan that communicates valuable knowledge to stakeholders. This course takes about fifteen hours to complete and is part of a larger series for students who want even more specialization.