How our short courses work

Join us online or in Oxford
Ways to study with Oxford Continuing Education
Explore a new topic or revisit a favourite subject over a few days, a few weeks or a term. Our short courses run in person or online, with some offered in both formats – so you can choose the study option best for you.
- ‘Online – live’ courses are taught completely online and have scheduled, live-time meetings to attend. Live-time discussions and Q&A take place via an online platform. Additionally, some ‘online – live’ weekly courses have prerecorded lectures to enjoy. Courses include day events, weekend schools, lecture series and weekly classes.
- ‘Online – flexible’ courses are taught fully online but have no live-time meetings – so you can study when it suits you at any time of the day or night. Teaching takes place in a virtual learning environment, with students and tutors interacting in online text-based forums. The forums are not live and students can add their comments at any time.
- In-person events require attendance in Oxford and have no online components. These include weekly classes, day events and weekend schools.
- Hybrid teaching events are livestreamed from Oxford and include lecture series, day events and weekend schools. You can choose to join either in person or online.
Upcoming courses
Online - live • Short courses
A comprehensive introduction and historical framework to the rich, diverse, artistic and architectural legacy of Andalucía, Spain's most southerly region, produced between about 750 and 1550 CE, but with reference to its more ancient history.
- Wed 28 May 2025 – 25 Jun 2025
- 5 meetings
- 2:00 – 3:00pm
Online - live • Short courses
Who am I? Why am I this way? Why do I make certain choices? Can I change? This online day school presents the main psychological theories of personality and explains how psychologists measure it.
- Thu 29 May 2025
- 10:00am – 5:00pm
In-person day/weekend • Short courses
An exploration of the themes, styles and challenges of public and private British gardens over the course of the 20th century. A study weekend in Oxford in partnership with the Gardens Trust and the 20th Century Society.
- Fri 30 May 2025 – 01 Jun 2025
- 6.00pm Friday - 12.45pm Sunday
Online - live • Short courses • Hybrid - in person or online
Explore how people and societies, from the ancient world to the 20th century, have understood and coped with crises caused by climatic events or climate change, using evidence from archaeology and economic, social and oral history.
- Sat 31 May 2025
- 9:45am – 5:00pm
Online - live • Short courses
Learn how to perform several highly useful statistical significance and hypothesis tests in R at this online day school. This includes, but is not limited to, t-tests, A/B, permutation, ANOVA, chi-squared, Fisher's Exact and Shapiro-Wilk tests.
- Sat 31 May 2025
- 10:00am – 5:00pm
Short intensive • Short courses • Professional development
Enhance your knowledge of some of the most important and often counter-intuitive aspects of signal integrity that are a must for all engineers, whether they work at relatively low-speed or on cutting-edge signalling.
- Wed 04 Jun 2025 – 06 Jun 2025
- 09:00-17:00