Empowering Students
The Open Learning Initiative’s goal is to improve learning—whether you are a student at a college or university or learning on your own. Our courses provide you with targeted feedback and self-assessment tools so you’ll know where you’re excelling and where you need more work.
Key Benefits of OLI Courses
Student-centered design maximizes learning.
Designing courses and their delivery platform to enhance the student experience is how OLI uses student-centered design to make learning as effective and as fast possible.
Student-centered Learning Objectives. Learning objectives are listed atop every page so students know exactly what they can expect to learn and do. They’re written with language that makes student expectations clear and demonstrable, and so you can complete practice exercises that tell your teacher where you’re struggling.
Immediate targeted feedback. Every time you answer a question in a learning exercise, OLI provides feedback about your choice. When you answer incorrectly, the feedback addresses the misconception behind your selection; when you answer correctly, the positive feedback is designed to reinforce what you’ve just learned. It’s like having a private tutor keeping you on track.
Deep engagement. OLI takes its cues from research findings that show students are more likely to succeed with more interactive, instructive practice exercises; rich media that deepens learning instead of being superfluous, or worse, distracting; breaking up content into digestible portions and reasonable page lengths to avoid losing students’ interest.
Put new concepts into practice.
OLI courses are designed with learning activities dispersed throughout the content. After a new idea or concept is introduced, you will have opportunities to apply what you have learned, receive immediate feedback, and test your understanding.
You can read more about how OLI courses are designed and what types of activities they include on our Course Features page.
Recognize your strengths and weaknesses.
The activities and self-assessments, in combination with clear learning objectives, can increase your awareness of your learning progress. Once you are aware of which concepts or skills you have mastered and which you have not, you can adjust your study plan. You may want to do additional exercises or ask someone (such as an instructor or tutor) for more explanation.
Search and review topics with ease.
When reviewing a topic or preparing for an exam, you can use our search feature (which covers the entire course) to find a specific topic or you can browse the course syllabus to get an overview of the course and to see what practice activities are available for each topic.
Benefits for academic (course key) and independent students
The OLI approach to course design benefits any type of student, whether enrolled in a traditional class or taking courses for self-enrichment. Academic students are those who are taking a class with an instructor (typically for credit at a college or university) and independent learners are those who are using an OLI course on their own. Learn more about the difference between academic (course key) students and independent students.
Many of our courses are free to everyone, but some charge a small fee to academic students, which contributes to on-going improvement of the course. Course fees are generally much lower than a traditional textbook.
Our courses do not offer any credit or certificate. There is also no instructor to speak with, but if you run into a technical problem you can always email OLI Support.
Benefits for academic (course key) and independent students
The OLI approach to course design benefits any type of student, whether enrolled in a traditional class or taking courses for self-enrichment. Academic students are those who are taking a class with an instructor (typically for credit at a college or university) and independent learners are those who are using an OLI course on their own. Learn more about the difference between academic (course key) students and independent students.
Many of our courses are free to everyone, but some charge a small fee to academic students, which contributes to on-going improvement of the course. Course fees are generally much lower than a traditional textbook.
Our courses do not offer any credit or certificate. There is also no instructor to speak with, but if you run into a technical problem you can always email OLI Support.
