Ever wanted to study cellular neurobiology but don’t have the time or the money? What about art history, or Greek and Roman mythology?Thanks to an emerging online trend you no longer have to leave home to learn a little more about your favourite topic. You don’t have to shell out a dime, and you don’t have to apply or take a standardised test. You don’t even have to do any homework, if that’s what you prefer.Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) began gaining in popularity last year. Now universities, including top universities such as Stanford in Stanford, California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts are putting some of their courses and lectures online, for free.Some are practical like Get Ready for College English from Montgomery College, and some are rather unusual such as one you can take through the The University of California, Irvine about the walking dead (zombies). You can even take a course at Wesleyan University on how to arrange a successful MOOC.MOOC providers have emerged the most popular being Coursera and Udacity and Edx, among many others. There are apps you can download on your iPod or iPhone such as iTunesU which lead you to MOOC offerings.A recent article in The Economist reported that while many universities are jumping on the bandwagon, many of them still aren’t quite sure whether MOOCs are really a good thing, and whether there is any money in it.In the July 20 edition, The Economist reported: “Besides providing online courses to their own (generally fee-paying) students, universities have felt obliged to join the MOOC revolution to avoid being guillotined by it.”The idea behind MOOC is to make knowledge available to the masses, regardless of the person’s economic status. MOOCs and other long distance learning options might become the norm in the near future.However, before sounding the death knell for traditional colleges and universities, consider that there usually aren’t any educational credits for taking a MOOC. Also, some of courses are pretty terrible and can consist of a man standing in one place droning on in a very basic way about the ancient Romans or an artist taking an hour to tell the viewer how to draw a circle. You have to really poke around to find the good stuff (zombies). MOOCs tend to be purely for the students’ own self-improvement or interest. However, some businesses are now encouraging their employees to take certain MOOCs to advance in the workplace, or gain needed knowledge.Only ten percent of people who start taking a MOOC ever actually finish the entire course. Most people fall asleep ten minutes into the lecture on dinosaur paleobiology and then forget all about it.MOOCs are a great option for people who want to learn a new skill quickly without any of the hassle of an actual classroom. It is also good for cocktail party bluffers, dabblers, the non-committed and people who aren’t sure yet what they want to study in a real college setting.For more information about MOOCs see www.mooc-list.com , www.coursera.org or www.udemy.com.