Online courses
There are lots of virtual, distance-learning, webinars and other online courses available. We’ve rounded up some that may be of interest either professionally or for your own personal development or interest. They range from full degree courses to short free sessions. If you have any other suggestions, please contact joan.lyle@publishingscotland.org
FREE BUSINESS SESSIONS AND TRAINING
Business Gateway. A range of live and recorded webinars and online tutorials and individual advice including Digital Boost where businesses can access free digital consultants, online training and a wide range of support to help their business adapt and change. Business Gateway is a publicly funded service providing access to free business support services.
Scottish Enterprise. Live and recorded webinars. Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. Its resources include support and training for Direct to Consumer E-commerce.
Bank of Scotland Academy. Launched in June 2021, this offers free lessons and webinars on a wide range of topics – all designed to help you get more out of life and work. The Academy is open to everyone, easy to follow and completely free.
PUBLISHING TRAINING CONTENT (PAID UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED)
ALPSP. In addition to webinars and online training, several workshops will run as virtual classrooms so delegates can access remotely.
BIC. Training courses on supply chain and production.
BookMachine. Training courses are initially delivered live but if you need more flexibility, you can watch the recordings in your own time.
CIEP. Skills training for editorial and in-house staff.
GET INTO BOOK PUBLISHING. A comprehensive, industry supported, accessible introduction to publishing.
PTC. the PTC offers two styles of self-study: tutor-guided courses and e-learning modules.
Publishing Scotland. Virtual versions of our most popular courses with our regular tutors. We also run online events for members.
CREATIVE TRAINING PAID CONTENT
Central St Martins. Online art, fashion, design and business courses from the famous arts and design college.
Faber Academy. Writing courses tutored by award-winning, working writers hand-picked from publisher Faber and beyond.
Goldsmiths. This creative powerhouse is part of the University of London and now offering many of its short courses online.
Open College of the Arts. Degree and foundation level courses in creative writing, painting, visual communications, textiles and more.
SOME FREE CONTENT/FREE TRIALS/LOW COST
Many subscription services offer free trials for a limited period. The sites listed below mainly gather courses from a variety of providers.
Alison. Founded in Galway in Ireland and now one of the world’s largest free learning platforms for education and skills training.
Canvas network. Aimed at educators but open to all.
Coursera. One of the leaders in the field with courses from over 200 universities and companies.
Craft Courses. Practical crafts courses on the UK’s largest creative experience site.
Creative Scotland Opportunities. Lots of workshops and other online events are listed on the opportunities area of Creative Scotland’s website.
edX. edX is home to more than 20 million learners, the majority of top-ranked universities in the world (including Harvard and MIT) and industry-leading companies.
FutureLearn. Access to high quality learning with online courses, programs and degrees created by leading universities, business schools and specialist organisations including many from the UK.
Google Digital Garage. Up-to-date, real-world, skills approved by industry experts, top entrepreneurs and some of the world’s leading employers.
Guardian Master Classes Online. Exciting new range of immersive online workshops.
IPA Academy. Established by the International Publishers Association (IPA), the IPA Academy offers unique learning modules covering topics relevant to the entire publishing ecosystem. The courses are free to IPA members and the IPA Talks series is open to all visitors of the site.
Linkedin Learning. Linkedin acquired Lynda.com and has continued to add to the huge range of digital and business-focused courses.
My World of Work. Scotland’s career information and advice website is aimed at school pupils but has a good round up of information including distance learning courses in Scotland.
NUJ Training Scotland. Many of these courses for journalists are also open to non-members.
Open Learn. Over 900 free courses from the Open University.
Scottish Digital Academy. Digital skills learning programmes to develop and grow capability, aligned across the Scottish public and third sectors.
Skillshare. Thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.
Udemy. The world’s largest seletction of online courses (over 100,000) and mlllions of students.
West College Scotland. A range of distance learning courses from one of Scotland’s pioneers in this area.