Generally, you will watch 1-2 hours of videos each week, and often within the video there will be some practice quizzes. Videos can be watched at any time, so this is helpful for busy professionals who don't have time to take out of their day to go to a class at a specific time. You also typically have an assignment to complete each week. In many cases, these are peer graded, meaning other students will grade your work and provide feedback, while you do the same for their work. This actually turns out to be pretty effective and you get multiple perspectives on how you are learning.
Usually just taking a class is free or you can pay a small fee ($50 - $100) to earn a verified certificate. At this time, these classes still don't carry the same weight as a standard university program, but attitudes on this may be starting to change. I also would say that the primary reason you should be doing this is for personal enrichment. The fact that you are learning is the most important thing, and in the end, if you are learning and improving yourself, that always shines through regardless of whether or not you earned a certificate.
What Types of Courses Are Available
Just about everything. This includes computer science courses, math courses, engineering courses and business courses.What many of these courses do is provide you a good introduction to the subject. Think of it like attending a 3 day seminar in the topic. That isn't going to be a full semester's worth of depth, but it will get you familiar with the fundamentals of the topic. Often times, I have seen similar such seminars advertised and these cost $1500-$2000. So it is really a good deal to be able to take courses like this for low or no cost. Once you take a course and know you are interested in the topic, you can always pursue additional studies as well.
That doesn't mean that there aren't courses that get to depth. A friend of mine took the Algorithms course taught by Princeton on Coursera. He showed me the homework and I can say it was a very in-depth, difficult course. There are also Calculus courses that look like the equivalent to taking the same course on campus. So these are great if for some reason you need to go back to school and brush up on some of these topics.
Some Specific Recommendations
I want to recommend two courses that I have taken that I found to be very good. Both of these courses are in the business/management area, and I found them useful from a sense that they have helped me on gaining new perspectives about how decisions are made from a business perspective.Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies
This course is aimed at people who are interested in starting their own business. By this I mean starting any business, not just a technology business. It is an introductory level course, but it does give you some exposure to some things you need to consider when thinking about starting a new business and putting together a business plan.
I think what I found most useful was that this course introduced me to something called the Business Model Canvas. The business model canvas is a visual way to answer nine key questions about a new business you intend to start. These include areas like what is your value proposition, who are your customers, who are your partners and what is your cost structure. These are all factors that would go into a business plan, but by organizing this information visually, you can get a better idea of how it fits together and what areas really might need more thought.
One thing to understand though is that a tool like the business model canvas is not just for someone who is starting a business. These are really questions that any business or non-profit should be able to answer at any time and clearly communicate to everyone involved. So using this tool, you can better understand how your company or your department fits into the larger business ecosystem and what are the real drivers behind the decisions that are made. To be honest, I wish every company would fill out and regularly update a business model canvas of their own, and then hang an extra large version up on a wall somewhere where everyone could see it and contribute to it. I think this would really help to bring a lot of clarity to what the mission was and how everything fits together.
Foundations of Business Strategy
My degree is in engineering, so I took relatively few business courses while in college. As we progress as professionals, we understand that technology is rarely the sole driver of any decision. There are marketplace dynamics and an overall strategy of our organization to be considers. This course provides an introduction to different strategies that a firm can choose and why a firm might choose to adopt them.
One of my takeaways from the course was that even though two firms are in the same market, they may not be competitors because they are targeting different segments of that market. What this course does is give you some of the tools to answer those questions about competitive dynamics and how markets are structured. What is useful here is to understand what segment of the market your firm competes in and the competitive forces that surround that segment, and this course gives you the tools to answer those questions.
Summary
Don't overlook these online courses for your personal learning. These courses are especially useful for helping you to learn about a topic that you have minimal familiarity with, and you can do so on your own time at very low cost.
If you have a particular course that you have taken and found useful, feel free to leave a comment. I'd be interested to hear what other's experiences has been with an MOOCs they have taken.
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