The MIT Open Learning Library is home to selected educational content from MIT OpenCourseWare and MITx courses, available to anyone in the world at any time. All material is free to use. Some resources, particularly those from MIT OpenCourseWare, are free to download, remix, and reuse for non-commercial purposes.
MIT is committed to sharing learning materials with the world. The Open Learning Library provides additional opportunities to learn from MIT at your own pace, as on MIT OpenCourseWare, while engaging with problems and receiving instant feedback.
You will be able to keep track of your own progress in the course. The Open Learning Library does not include discussion forums, certificates, or the ability to transfer your progress to edX.org. For those hoping to participate in a discussion or seeking a credential for completing a course, we will do our best to highlight when a credential-bearing offering is available on edX.org.
You’ve discovered us during our prototype phase. We hope you’ll come along for this journey. Over time, we will add new courses, develop site features, and enhance the user experience. We welcome your feedback on the site, including your thoughts on areas for improvement. Please email mitoll-support@mit.edu with your feedback or any requests for support.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please check your SPAM and/or Junk folders to see if the activation email has been flagged as junk. If the email is not there, please visit the login page and use the 'forgot password' link to resend the activation email. If you still do not receive the email, please contact our support team at mitoll-support@mit.edu.
No. There are no fees associated with the Open Learning Library. All content is freely accessible.
No. If you’re interested in earning a certificate in an MITx course, please visit edX.org and sign up for the next available certificate run of the course. We will strive to provide direct links to courses with a certificate option on edX.org whenever they are available.
On each course About Page, you will see a banner with updated edX information on it, and a link through to the course there. Additionally, you can sign up for the MITx mailing list to receive information about all of our courses and programs.
No. The Open Learning Library provides only self-guided course materials. If you have a technical issue with the site, you can contact mitoll-support@mit.edu, but we will not have support staff available for topic-based questions. If you wish to join a discussion forum as you learn, please wait for the next run of the course you are interested in on edX.org.
It depends. We are using the Open edX platform for running course content on the Open Learning Library. Creating an account will allow you to access all courses, keep track of your progress, and see the answers you have submitted within the course. If you do not wish to create an account, we do offer several courses that do not require an account/registration but your course progress will not be tracked.
No. This is a separate site.
You can check at OCW or MITx on edX.
You can think of the three different resources as a spectrum of offerings utilizing MIT content for different types of learning experiences. On one end is edX.org — MITx courses on edX are end-to-end course experiences with certificates available for you to earn, live teaching support in a discussion forum, and start and end dates. On the other end is MIT OCW, which is a completely self-guided experience containing published content from MIT courses that is open all of the time and licensed for reuse, but that does not include any interactive content. Open Learning Library sits in between. As in many MITx courses, Open Learning Library provides interactive course experiences that include auto-graded assessments that give you instant feedback and allow you to track your progress as you work your way through learning the subject matter. Like OCW, this content is always open and self-guided and includes no live support, discussion forum, or certificates.
No. We are not offering any MicroMasters program content on the Open Learning Library. Please visit micromasters.mit.edu for more information on our programs.
Only if the material is Creative Commons-licensed, as is the case for all material from MIT OpenCourseWare.
Send an email to mitoll-support@mit.edu and someone will get back to you within 1–2 business days.
The courses here will have varying licenses, and you will see the license type indicated on the About Pages. Some courses will be All Rights Reserved, others Creative Commons, and some have mixed licenses.
The MIT faculty member responsible for the course makes this decision on a case-by-case basis. This is why you may see different formats for each different course you access in the Open Learning Library. Most often, though, what you will see is the content and assessments that you need to work through in order to learn, while other assessments whose principal purpose is testing whether you have earned a certificate are only available on edX.org, where you can have the opportunity to earn a certificate.
Each course in the Open Learning Library is a collaborative effort by a team of MIT faculty, educational technologists, media specialists, intellectual property coordinators, digital learning fellows, and others. Gifts to MIT Open Learning directly support the sustainability and production of these courses.
At MIT Open Learning, we are committed to advancing best practices in education, conducting groundbreaking research, and engineering new platforms, like Open Learning Library, for the future of teaching and learning. With you and your support, we can prepare learners of all ages and future generations to meet tomorrow’s challenges and improve education at MIT and around the globe.
Please support Open Learning with a gift today. If a gift isn’t possible at this time, you can also contribute by sharing your experience with Open Learning resources and what impact they have had in your life.
Read more about our work in the annual impact report.
I cannot overstate the impact that MIT Open Learning has had on my education. I have been a student of MOOCs for several years now, and the courses offered by MIT Open Learning have been some of the most impactful and useful that I have taken. I have been able to take courses on a wide variety of topics, and the quality of the content and the instructors has been consistently excellent. I have also been able to use the courses I have taken to further my career, as many of the topics covered are directly relevant to the work I do. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to take advantage of MIT Open Learning, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a high-quality, affordable education.-Hikmat, Student - College/University, Nepal