Carnegie Mellon University

Open & Free Course Overview

If you are not a CMU undergraduate student who needs to take C@CM for academic credit, you can access the educational materials via the Open & Free course. The Open & Free course is a non-credit option that is available to all campus affiliates and users worldwide.

Please complete this C@CM Course Version Form.  After completing the form, if eligible, you will be returned to this site with instructions to access the Open & Free version of the course.

Important: You will not receive academic credit for the C@CM Open & Free Course. If you are an undergraduate student, contact your academic advisor for instructions on how to officially enroll in the course via SIO.

The course is comprised of five primary units. A description of what's included in each unit is below. While you may have been exposed to some of these topics in the past, the curriculum is specific to the CMU environment making it highly unlikely that you have sufficient prior knowledge, particularly to the depth and complexity that is required for collegiate-level work.

About C@CM

Develop critical skills for evaluating your own learning and how to create appropriate study strategies, not only for C@CM, but for your other courses as well.

Responsible Computing

Identify the computing privileges and responsibilities that apply to you as a member of the CMU community, including specific issues involved with protecting information and resources and the associated penalties/impact if you fail to do so.

Effective Computing

Learn about the most commonly used electronic tools and services that the university offers. Regardless of major, every student will need to complete work that requires specialized software and hardware, printing services and online file storage/sharing/collaboration.

Information Literacy

Whether it's writing a paper, preparing for a role or conducting an experiment, you'll do some sort of research while at the university. In this unit, you'll learn how to define the information that you need, how to locate the best sources and how to appropriately use the information in your work. The unit also presents critical information on academic integrity issues related to finding and using information.

Safe Computing

Recognize online threats that can compromise your own and the broader community's information and resources, along with protective measures you can take to prevent such attacks and what you need to do should a compromise occur.

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While you may have been exposed to some of the C@CM topics in the past, the curriculum is specific to the CMU environment making it highly unlikely that you have sufficient prior knowledge of the concepts covered throughout the course, particularly to the depth and complexity that is required for collegiate-level coursework.

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The C@CM curriculum is determined by an advisory committee comprised of deans, department heads, and faculty from every academic department.

The concepts taught in the course represent the requisite skills you must learn in order to be successful in your academic career at CMU, regardless of major.

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