Best Technology MOOCs for Summer and Fall

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are increasing in their popularity. We’ve seen first hand how much people want to be able to access and learn new information on their own schedule. For example, our Introduction to Linux MOOC, hosted by edX, has received more than 150,000 registrations, and it doesn’t even start until August 1.

With summer up on us, we’ve done some research for you to surface additional MOOCs that could be useful to the Linux and Linux.com community this summer and early fall.

1) Enterprise computing strategies
School of Information Studies, iSchool at Syracuse University (with IBM)
http://ischool.syr.edu/contact/forms/ecsmooc.aspx
Sept. 1, 2014

2) Computer Architecture
Princeton University
https://www.coursera.org/course/comparch
Sept. 2014 (not for beginners)

3) The Hardware/Software Interface
University of Washington
https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface
June 30

4) In-Memory Data Management
Hasso Plattner Institute, IT Systems Engineering, Universitat Potsdam
http://openeducationeuropa.eu/en/mooc/memory-data-management-2014
Sept. 1 – Oct. 20

The online course focuses on the management of enterprise data in column-oriented in-memory databases. Latest hardware and software trends led to the development of a new revolutionary technology that enables flexible and lightning-fast analysis of massive amounts of enterprise data.

5) IT Security
Technische Universität Darmstadt
http://openeducationeuropa.eu/en/node/140711
July 1

In this course you learn the most important aspects of IT security. Sensitize your workflow for potential risks and threats that may arise due to omitted safety precautions. IT security experts in terms of practical IT security solutions are presented.

6) Programming Cloud Services for Android Handheld Systems
Vanderbilt University
https://www.coursera.org/course/mobilecloud
July 21 – Sept. 29

This MOOC describes by example how to connect Android mobile devices to clouds via the use of object-oriented design techniques, Java programming language features, Jetty middleware, Java Servlets, the Java Spring Framework, and cloud computing platforms, such as Google App Engine.

7) Intro to Parallel Programming
Udacity, with Nvidia
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs344
Anytime

Learn the fundamentals of parallel computing with the GPU and the CUDA programming environment! In this class, you’ll learn about parallel programming by coding a series of image processing algorithms, such as you might find in Photoshop or Instagram. You’ll be able to program and run your assignments on high-end GPUs, even if you don’t own one yourself.

8) Artificial Intelligence for Robotics
Georgia Tech (via Udacity)
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs373
Anytime

Learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car from the leader of Google and Stanford’s autonomous driving teams. This class will teach you basic methods in Artificial Intelligence, including: probabilistic inference, planning and search, localization, tracking and control, all with a focus on robotics. Extensive programming examples and assignments will apply these methods in the context of building self-driving cars.

9) Learning from Data
CalTech
https://www.edx.org/course/caltechx/caltechx-cs1156x-learning-data-2516#.U6MMEo1dXUE
Sept. 25, 2014

This is an introductory course in machine learning (ML) that covers the basic theory, algorithms, and applications. ML is a key technology in Big Data, and in many financial, medical, commercial, and scientific applications. It enables computational systems to automatically learn how to perform a desired task based on information extracted from the data.

10) Responsible Innovation
https://www.edx.org/course/delftx/delftx-ri101x-responsible-innovation-2156#.U6MKeI1dXUE
November 2014

Innovation may bring a lot of good to society, but innovation is not a good in itself. History provides many examples of new technologies that have had serious negative consequences or that simply just failed to address significant societal challenges.

You can learn more on Reddit, where they are hosting a list of more than 70 free MOOCs in programming and computer science.In addition, you can browse the Linux Foundation Linux Training courses for when you’re ready to take the next step in your learning.