I made a list of 500 computer science online courses from the world’s 50 highest-ranked universities for studying computer science. It includes courses from universities such as MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and many more.

You can find the course list at the bottom. Here's how I built it.

Approach

I started with the three leading global university rankings and looked at the latest editions of their computer science rankings:

• QS: World University Rankings 2020 — Computer Science & Information Systems
• Times Higher Education: World University Rankings 2020 — Computer Science
• Shanghai Ranking Consultancy: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2019 — Computer Science & Engineering

My approach was simple. First, I combined the three rankings into one by averaging each university’s position across the three rankings. Second, I limited the list to the top-fifty institutions that offer computer science courses online. Third, I leveraged Class Central’s database to build a list of those courses.

Combining rankings in Jupyter Notebook

As you can see above, the three institutions that topped the combined ranking were #1 MIT, #2 Stanford, and #3 Carnegie Mellon. If you’d like to see the data and the process I followed to get to that result, check out my GitHub repo.

After compiling each university’s offering, the end result is a list of 500 online courses offered by the 2020 world 50 best universities for studying computer science.

Notable Courses

Unsurprisingly, some of the courses in the list are also part of Class Central’s best online courses of all time. You can find these below. They’re all great options, especially for novice e-learners, since they exemplify the best that online education has to offer.

• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) from University of Michigan ★★★★★(9662)
• Machine Learning from Stanford University ★★★★★(358)
• Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ★★★★☆(122)
• Learn to Program: The Fundamentals from University of Toronto ★★★★★(105)
• CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science from Harvard University ★★★★★(84)
• The Analytics Edge from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ★★★★★(79)
• Python and Statistics for Financial Analysis from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology ★★★★☆(71)
• Computing in Python I: Fundamentals and Procedural Programming from Georgia Institute of Technology ★★★★★(69)
• Divide and Conquer, Sorting and Searching, and Randomized Algorithms from Stanford University ★★★★★(68)
• Functional Programming Principles in Scala from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne ★★★★★(66)
• Cryptography I from Stanford University ★★★★★(51)
• Python for Data Science from University of California, San Diego ★★★★☆(43)
• Introduction to HTML5 from University of Michigan ★★★★☆(42)
• Internet History, Technology, and Security from University of Michigan ★★★★★(39)

Full Course List

The full list is split into subjects. For brevity, I only included three courses in each. But a link at the end of each section will take you to the other courses. Courses that are also in Class Central’s all-time top-100 ranking are denoted with a star (⭐).

• AI & Machine Learning (65 courses)
• Algorithms & Data Structures (60 courses)
• Bioinformatics & Healthcare (30 courses)
• Computer Science (90 courses)
• Cybersecurity (22 courses)
• Data Science (109 courses)
• Programming Languages (60 courses)
• Software Development (57 courses)
• Quantum Computing (7 courses)

With 500 courses to choose from, I hope you find something you like. But if those aren’t enough, check out Class Central’s catalog of over 15K online courses.

AI & Machine Learning (65 Courses)

• Machine Learning from Stanford University ★★★★★(358) ⭐
• Machine Learning Foundations: A Case Study Approach from University of Washington ★★★★☆(38)
• CS188.1x: Artificial Intelligence from University of California, Berkeley ★★★★★(31)
• See all AI & Machine Learning courses ➡️

Algorithms & Data Structures (60 courses)

• Divide and Conquer, Sorting and Searching, and Randomized Algorithms from Stanford University ★★★★★(68) ⭐
• Algorithms, Part I from Princeton University ★★★★★(60)
• Algorithmic Toolbox from University of California, San Diego ★★★★☆(23)
• See all Algorithms & Data Structures courses ➡️

Bioinformatics & Healthcare (30 Courses)

• Finding Hidden Messages in DNA (Bioinformatics I) from University of California, San Diego ★★★★★(17)
• DCO042 – Python For Informatics from University of Michigan ★★★★★(14)
• Python for Genomic Data Science from Johns Hopkins University ★★☆☆☆(12)
• See all Bioinformatics & Healthcare courses ➡️

Computer Science (90 Courses)

• Using Databases with Python from University of Michigan ★★★★★(1570)
• Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ★★★★☆(122) ⭐
• CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science from Harvard University ★★★★★(84) ⭐
• See all Computer Science courses ➡️

Cybersecurity (22 Courses)

• Cryptography I from Stanford University ★★★★★(51) ⭐
• Software Security from University of Maryland, College Park ★★★★☆(27)
• Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies from Princeton University ★★★★☆(18)
• See all Cybersecurity courses ➡️

Data Science (109 Courses)

• R Programming from Johns Hopkins University ★★★☆☆(241)
• The Data Scientist’s Toolbox from Johns Hopkins University ★★★☆☆(162)
• The Analytics Edge from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ★★★★★(79) ⭐
• See all Data Science courses ➡️

Programming Languages (60 Courses)

• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) from University of Michigan ★★★★★(9662) ⭐
• Python Data Structures from University of Michigan ★★★★★(4369)
• Using Python to Access Web Data from University of Michigan ★★★★★(1903)
• See all Programming Languages courses ➡️

Software Development (57 Courses)

• Ruby on Rails: An Introduction from Johns Hopkins University ★★★☆☆(56)
• Introduction to HTML5 from University of Michigan ★★★★☆(42) ⭐
• Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems: Part 1 from University of Maryland, College Park ★★★★☆(38)
• See all Software Development courses ➡️

Quantum Computing (7 Courses)

• Quantum Information Science I, Part 1 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ★★☆☆☆(2)
• Quantum Machine Learning from University of Toronto ★★★★★(1)
• Quantum Information Science I, Part 2 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• See all Quantum Computing courses ➡️