Does MIT OpenCourseWare Give Certificates?

No. MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) shares the lecture videos, notes, problem sets and exams from MIT classes free of charge, under a Creative Commons licence, with no account, no deadlines and no grading, so it never issues a certificate. If you want a credential, the graded MITx courses on MITx Online are free to audit and sell a verified certificate, priced per course.

What is MIT OpenCourseWare?

OpenCourseWare is MIT's publication of the materials from its own on-campus classes. MIT's about page describes it as a commitment to sharing course materials openly and free of charge, and says you can browse and use them at your own pace, with no start or end dates and no requirement to create an account. Each course page carries a "Download Course" option, so the whole thing can be kept offline.

What you get varies by course, because OCW publishes what the class produced. The course pages in our records list lecture videos, lecture notes, problem sets and their solutions, exams and exam solutions, problem-solving videos, instructor insights and, in some cases, open textbooks. The "SC" or Scholar editions, such as Linear Algebra and Single Variable Calculus, are arranged so that an independent learner can work through them in order without a classroom.

Everything on OCW is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence, as MIT's terms of use state: you may download, share and adapt the material for non-commercial use with attribution, under the same terms. All OCW courses listed here appear on the MIT hub.

Does MIT OpenCourseWare give certificates? No

OCW does not issue certificates, grades or any record of completion. None of the OCW course pages in our records mentions a certificate, and MIT's own course catalogue lists every OCW course as "No Certificate". Nobody marks your work: the problem sets come with solutions so you can check yourself, and the exams are published with their answers.

The same is true of MIT's Open Learning Library, which mirrors some OCW and MITx courses on an interactive platform. Its about page states that certificates cannot be earned there and that it has no discussion forums and no way to transfer progress to edX. So the answer to "can I get a free certificate from MIT?" is no: MIT's free channels carry no credential, and the only MIT certificate in our records is the paid one sold by MITx.

Is MIT OpenCourseWare free?

Yes, entirely. There is no fee for any OCW material, no paid tier, no upgrade and no account, and every OCW record on this site is marked free with no certificate. The Open Learning Library is also free across the site; a free account there is optional and lets you keep your progress and get instant feedback on exercises. One difference is the licence: OCW content is Creative Commons, whereas Open Learning Library courses such as Introduction to Machine Learning are marked all rights reserved by the instructors, so they are for personal study rather than reuse.

OCW vs MITx: what the records show

MITx courses are built for online learners rather than recorded from a lecture hall, and they are graded. The MITx courses in our records are on MIT's own MITx Online platform at learn.mit.edu, and each course page offers two tracks. "Learn for Free" is the audit track: access to the course and its materials at no cost. The "Certificate Track" is priced per course and adds graded assignments and exams and an MIT verified certificate of completion. Many MITx runs are instructor-paced with scheduled start and end dates; the course page states which.

OCW: recorded on-campus materials, self-paced, no account, no grading, no certificate, Creative Commons licence.
MITx Online audit track: full course access for free, no graded work, no certificate.
MITx Online certificate track: graded assignments and exams plus an MIT certificate, at the price printed on the course page.
Open Learning Library: free interactive exercises with instant feedback, optional free account, no certificate, mostly all rights reserved.

What an MITx certificate costs

Prices in our records run from $49 for short courses such as Science of Learning and Memory to $549 for Financial Accounting. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python is $149. The module Calculus 1A: Differentiation is $100, and Calculus 1B: Integration is $100.

The MicroMasters-level courses Machine Learning with Python and Fundamentals of Statistics are $300 and $300 respectively. Two economics courses, including Microeconomics, show a range of prices with financial aid rather than a single figure, because MIT says the fee varies by ability to pay.

OCW vs edX

People often search for MIT courses on edX. The MIT records on this site are all on MIT's own platforms: OCW, MITx Online and the Open Learning Library. The edX hub covers the edX model separately; in short, edX courses are free to audit for a limited time with a paid verified certificate, the same shape as MITx Online's two tracks. OCW has no tracks at all: the materials are simply published.

The same subject on OCW and MITx

Several subjects exist in both forms, so you can choose between free materials and a paid credential. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python on OCW has the graded MITx counterpart 6.00.1x at $149; Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science pairs with 6.00.2x, at $149.

Single Variable Calculus on OCW covers the ground of the MITx calculus modules, Calculus 1A at $100 and Calculus 1B at $100. Principles of Microeconomics pairs with 14.100x, and Statistics for Applications with Fundamentals of Statistics.

How to use MIT OpenCourseWare

There is nothing to sign up for. Going by how the OCW course pages in our records are laid out, this routine works.

Open the course page on ocw.mit.edu and read the syllabus. It states the prerequisites; for example, Mathematics for Computer Science names single variable calculus as the only one.
Prefer an SC (Scholar) edition where one exists. These pair each lecture video with notes, a problem-solving video, and problem sets with solutions, in a set order.
Watch the lecture, then attempt the problem set before opening the solutions. The exams with solutions are there for a self-test at the end of each unit.
Use "Download Course" if you want the videos and PDFs offline; the licence allows it.
If you want instant feedback on answers, check whether the course is mirrored in the Open Learning Library. Linear Algebra and Mathematics for Computer Science both are, and a free account there tracks your progress.
If you decide you need a certificate after all, switch to the MITx version of the subject rather than expecting one from OCW.

Which OCW courses match the common searches

Every course named below is in our records; where a searched subject has no listed course, we say so.

Linear algebra on OCW

Linear Algebra is the Scholar edition of Gilbert Strang's 18.06, with full lecture videos, problem-solving videos, problem sets and solutions, and three exams plus a final with solutions. Strang's follow-on, Matrix Methods in Data Analysis, Signal Processing, and Machine Learning, applies that linear algebra to data and deep learning and assumes you already know the basics. Both are free, with no certificate; see the mathematics hub for other providers.

Calculus, multivariable calculus and physics

Single Variable Calculus covers differentiation, integration and a short treatment of infinite series in five units, each with lecture and recitation videos, worked examples, problem sets with solutions, and exams. No multivariable calculus course is listed here. For physics, Classical Mechanics is MIT's first physics course in Scholar format: short lecture videos with worked examples and a problem set per week, backed by an online textbook. It assumes basic calculus.

AI and machine learning on OCW

Artificial Intelligence is Patrick Henry Winston's undergraduate course on search, constraints, symbolic learning and neural nets; it predates modern deep learning, so treat it as foundations. Introduction to Deep Learning is a short intensive lecture series on deep learning for vision, language and biology, published as videos rather than a full set of notes and problem sets.

For graded practice without a certificate, Introduction to Machine Learning in the Open Learning Library runs 13 weeks at 12 hours a week and expects Python, calculus and linear algebra. The paid-certificate route is MITx's Machine Learning with Python at $300. More on the data science hub.

Python and computer science on OCW

Start with Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python, twelve lectures for people with little or no experience, then continue to Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science for simulation, statistics and a first look at machine learning. For algorithms, Introduction to Algorithms has twenty lecture videos with notes, problem sets and exams, and Design and Analysis of Algorithms follows it. Mathematics for Computer Science supplies the proofs and probability that the algorithms courses rely on. The Python hub and computer science hub list alternatives.

Statistics and economics

Statistics for Applications is MIT's mathematical statistics course, with lecture videos, slides and assignments covering parametric inference, hypothesis testing, regression, Bayesian statistics and principal component analysis. Principles of Microeconomics is a Scholar edition with lecture videos, self-check quizzes, problem sets with solutions and exams, and a free online textbook option; it is listed under business.

Sources

Published 16 Sep 2026; last updated 16 Sep 2026. Facts were read on the pages listed above on the update date; see the editorial policy.