20 Free Sources of Learning Content for Your Curation

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Chris Dunne, Digital Marketing Manager

One of the biggest fears people have when first starting out with Massive Open Online Courses (OLXs) is just where to find all the relevant content needed for your course to be a success.

Utilising existing content – whether it be owned by your organisation, or looking externally to governing bodies or thought leaders in given topic areas – is crucial to ensuring that you’re not trying to recreate the perfect piece of learning content over and over.

The learning process takes us far beyond the realms of what content alone can do; we need learners to experience, practice, reflect and repeat real-world actions if they are to truly change behaviour. Content can be the start; it can be the trigger for a new experience, a new insight, a new conversation.

But it is just that, the start of a learning journey. So we believe we should spend more time tapping into content that is freely available and putting this to use within our organisations. Our time, money and effort should be spent elsewhere – on the experiences and implementations that allow learners to put ideas into practice.

Find Free Content To Curate For Your Next OLX

With that in mind we’ve curated some sources of information for you to tap. These websites host huge amounts of content on a wide-range of subjects though we’ve mainly looked at sites which can help trigger learning experiences in the the business world, so cover topics such as leadership and management.

Video & Audio Resources

• Stanford Business School – Stanford Business School videos
• MIT OpenCourseWare – Incredible resource of lecture notes and videos
• MIT YouTube – Videos of lectures – not all areas covered but those that are are covered in great depth
• Harvard YouTube – Great range of videos from some of the world’s experts
• The Ken Blanchard Companies YouTube – Great selection of leadership videos
• Learn Out Loud – Portal to a range of management podcasts
• Emerald Research – Podcasts drawn from the latest research published by Emerald
• Ted ED – TED videos with a focus on business and economics and quiz questions

Tips, Checklists & Other Resources

1. Wikiversity – Growing site with some business and management courses
2. OER Commons – Links to thousands of free open educational resources and learning content objects
3. HBS Working Knowledge –  Great papers across the range of management topics from some of the key experts in the field
4. Leaders Direct – Over 150 pages of tips and checklists on leadership and self management
5. Team Technology – Introduction to issues around leadership and management (great for psychometric tests)
6. Free Management Library – A huge range of curated links on management topics
7. CIO – White papers, webcasts, everything for the Chief Information Officer
8. Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute – Leadership videos, interviews, and articles for quick inspiration or deeper discussion
9. Project Management Institute – Resources to inform and improve the practice of project management
10. Biz/ed – Whole range of different sorts of materials such as worksheets, case studies
11. Business Insider Document Centre – A selection of simple (US) templates for business and legal documents
12. The Times 100: Business Studies Theory – Topic overviews with pay-for case studies available

Curate your own Content Resources

With over 1 billion websites currently live on the Web, there is truly no end to the possibilities for sourcing content for your next course and this list is by no means exhaustive. Why not start your own list of curated resources that you can dip into for inspiration and to use in your next course?  If you think there’s something we’ve missed – let us know!

Ready to start your first OLX? Find out more about our award-winning Learning Pool Platform (formerly Curatr).