Distance learning courses in astronomy

Thanks for all the responses. I’ve been thinking about for some time as a long-term project when I’m not cutting the lawn or painting the house.
I’ve just been looking at the OU web site again there’s a savage price difference between what they charge for U.K people to Ireland almost double.

I was thinking of doing this course, maybe this year.


www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C01SXR208

There are a few colleges in the UK which provide distanace learning courses. I did one "Introduction to Astronomy" a couple of years ago. Went into alot more detail than the title would suggest. This was with the University of Central Lancashire. A good place to start:
www.astronomy.ac.uk/

Regards,

I have just completed the Open U course The planets, an introduction and will finish another shortly, An introduction to astronomy. Both of these are worth 10 points towards a degree and are level 1 courses.

For a degree you need 300 points. I have also just begun the S283 course Planetary Science and the search for life, a level 2 course that will take 9 months. Next year I hope to do the Astronomy course S282 another level 2, 9 month course. Both of these together are worth an award of a Diploma.

I find all the courses very interesting. I would suggest that you do one of the above level 1 courses and if you like it, take it further. You could finish one of the level 1 courses in less than 2 months.

Cheers

Tommy

Folks,

For quite a while now, MIT have made all/most of its course material available for free. Obviously, there's no qualifications involved - but it might be an idea if you're a self-starter who simply wants to learn more about something.

The address is ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

The opening blurb is .....

Welcome to MIT's OpenCourseWare:

a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.

MIT OCW:
Is a publication of MIT course materials
Does not require any registration
Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting activity
Does not provide access to MIT faculty

I'm afraid that I haven't tried any of the courses yet ( :oops: ), but the list of what's available is pretty exhaustive. (Hopefully not a case of never mind the quality ...)

Regards,
Brian

I'm afraid that I haven't tried any of the courses yet ( :oops: ), but the list of what's available is pretty exhaustive. (Hopefully not a case of never mind the quality ...)

They are ok. What you get are the lecture notes mainly, which are of limited use I find. Perhaps thats more of a college flashback of trying to read other peoples photocopied lecture notes!

Though if you look around online you'll frind that several places are producing video podcasts of their lectures. I've been following one chemistry course www.carleton.ca/cutv/vod/vodcast.htm Stanford also have video podcasting up and running for a wide variety of content itunes.stanford.edu/ Other colleges are doing similar things.