Free Dentistry MOOCs: The Wider-Reading Directory

Yes, every one of them. Courses from Alison, OpenLearn (The Open University) and Khan Academy are completely free with no paywall, and those on FutureLearn, Coursera and edX are free to enrol on and study, with only the optional certificate costing money. There are no paid courses in this directory at all. We removed the paid ones, because a page called free dentistry MOOCs should not be asking you for money, and because the free list is more than good enough to build an application on.

FutureLearn retires and reruns its courses on a cycle, so at any given moment a handful of the best ones are between runs. When that is true the course page lets you register interest but not start, so we tag those courses ‘Not running’ and you can hide them with one click using the filter. We have left them listed rather than deleted them because they do come back, and they are worth knowing about. Everything without that tag you can start today. This is also an independent list: we are not affiliated with any course, platform or university, we receive no payment, commission or affiliate income if you enrol, and listing a course is not an endorsement.

The University of Pennsylvania's Introduction to Dental Medicine is the strongest course you can actually start today, and its companion The Oral Cavity: Portal to Health and Disease is the natural follow-up. Glasgow's Becoming a Dentist is a good two-week look at the profession itself, Michigan's Dentistry 101 covers similar ground, and HKU's Fundamentals of Cariology gets properly into the science of tooth decay. The University of Sheffield's Discover Dentistry has long been the standout introduction and is still listed here, but FutureLearn is not currently running it, so you can only register interest and wait for the next run. Choose one or two, reflect on them, and be ready to discuss them at interview.

A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course: a free online course, usually made by a university or a respected organisation, that anyone can take. They are typically self-paced or run over a few weeks, use short videos, readings and quizzes, and cover a specific topic such as oral health, cariology or dental materials. For applicants they are one of the most accessible forms of super-curricular learning, because you can do them from home for free.

Both, and this directory includes 17 genuinely dentistry-specific courses. These cover the profession itself (Introduction to Dental Medicine, Dentistry 101, Becoming a Dentist), core clinical topics (cariology, dental materials, oral cancer, paediatric dentistry, the oral microbiome) and oral health more broadly. Around these sit dentistry-relevant biomedical courses on head and neck anatomy, microbiology, the sugar and diet link to decay, ethics and the NHS, which a dental applicant can reflect on just as credibly. What you will not find here is postgraduate clinical training: implantology, aesthetic dentistry and dental nursing qualifications are written for people who already have a degree, and listing them would only waste your time. Use the theme filters above to jump straight to the dental ones.

They can, but only if you reflect on them rather than just list them. Admissions tutors are not impressed by the number of courses you have completed. They are looking for evidence of genuine curiosity and the ability to think about dentistry beyond the syllabus. A single MOOC that you can discuss thoughtfully, linking an idea from it to your motivation or to what you saw in work experience, is far more valuable than a long list of course names.

It is a complement, not a replacement. Courses like Mouth Care Matters and Introduction to Dental Medicine are widely used as virtual insight into dentistry, and they are especially useful when hands-on placements are hard to arrange. But dental schools still want to see that you have observed real practice or spent time in a caring setting and reflected on it. Treat online courses as a way to deepen and evidence your interest alongside genuine experience, and use our free work experience finder to arrange a placement.

No. On Coursera, edX and FutureLearn the course content is free and the certificate is an optional paid extra. UK dental schools do not ask to see certificates and gain nothing from them. What matters is what you learned and how you reflect on it, so there is no reason to pay. Save your money and put your energy into taking notes and thinking about the ideas.

Focus on one specific idea rather than the course as a whole. Name the concept that stayed with you, for example how a biofilm of bacteria on the tooth surface drives both decay and gum disease, explain what it made you realise about prevention or patient care, and link it back to why you want to study dentistry. Avoid simply stating that you completed a course: that tells the tutor nothing. One reflective sentence about an idea is worth more than three describing the syllabus.

Around two is plenty. Quality beats quantity every time: two courses you have thought about carefully are more useful than ten you rushed through. A good pairing is one dentistry-specific course and one on a topic you find genuinely interesting, such as the science of sugar and decay or dental materials, so your courses add range rather than repeating yourself. Whichever two you pick, see them through to the end and take notes as you go: you never need to pay for the certificate, but you do need your own written reflections, an idea or two that struck you and what they made you think about dentistry, prevention or patient care, because those reflections are exactly what you will use in your personal statement and at interview.

Super-curricular activities extend your academic interest beyond the school syllabus. They include MOOCs and online courses, wider reading of books and journals such as the British Dental Journal, an EPQ on a dental or scientific topic, science lectures and podcasts, and science competitions. They are different from extracurricular activities such as sport or music, which show broader skills. MOOCs are a popular and accessible form of super-curricular learning for dentistry because they are free and can be done from home.

Yes, to study. FutureLearn lets you join a course such as Mouth Care Matters or The Foundation of Modern Dentistry and access the material for free, usually for the length of the course plus a couple of weeks. Unlimited long-term access and a certificate require payment, but you do not need either for an application. The one thing to watch is that FutureLearn runs its courses in cycles, so a course can be between runs and closed to new joiners: we tag those ‘Not running’ in the directory above so you are not sent to a dead end.

Yes, if you choose the free option. On Coursera look for the 'Audit' link when you enrol, which gives you free access to the videos and readings for courses like Introduction to Dental Medicine or Dentistry 101. On edX, courses such as Fundamentals of Cariology and Dentistry & Human Life have a free track alongside the paid verified certificate. In both cases the learning is free and only the certificate and some graded assignments are paid, none of which you need for a dentistry application.

Alison hosts several fully free courses that suit an applicant, including Oral Health Care, Dental Health and Hygiene, and Oral Infections and Oral Mucosal Lesions. The learning is completely free with no paywall; only an optional certificate or diploma document costs money, which you never need. They are short, accessible introductions to the dental setting for a sixth-form student exploring the profession. Alison also hosts dental nursing and dental assisting qualifications, which we have deliberately left out: they train you for a different job, and a dental school will not read them as evidence for a BDS application.

It varies a lot. Some are short, focused courses of only a few hours, such as the Alison oral health courses or Tackling Antibiotic Resistance, while others are university-level courses of thirty hours or more. You can filter by length above to find quick reads under ten hours, medium courses of ten to twenty-four hours, or in-depth courses of twenty-five hours and up. You do not need to finish a long course to benefit: even a few well-chosen sections can give you something worth reflecting on.

Yes. MOOCs are open to anyone, anywhere in the world, and they are a particularly good option for international applicants who may find UK dental work experience harder to arrange. They are also useful for showing UK dental schools that you have engaged seriously with the subject in English. The same rule applies wherever you are: reflect on what you learn rather than simply listing courses.

No. Hands-on experience and reflection on real dental or caring settings remain the most important part of a dentistry application, and MOOCs do not replace them. Manual dexterity, teamwork and communication are also central to dentistry and are best evidenced through real activities. Think of online courses as a complement: they show academic curiosity and give you extra material to draw on, but they sit alongside work experience, wider reading and your grades. If you are short on time, prioritise arranging experience first.

Not directly. The UCAT tests aptitude and situational judgement rather than dental knowledge, so a MOOC will not raise your score. What MOOCs help with is the rest of the application: your personal statement and interviews, where showing genuine interest in dentistry matters. For UCAT preparation specifically, structured practice and tutoring are what move your score.

Any time before you write your personal statement, but Year 12 is ideal, and the key is to keep them well away from your UCAT preparation. Doing a course in the year before you apply means the ideas are fresh, and the summer before Year 13, or the period after you have sat the UCAT, is perfect because neither your revision nor your reflection gets rushed. There is nothing wrong with starting earlier in Year 11 if you are curious, as long as you can still remember and discuss what you learned.

Most are accessible to a motivated sixth-form student, and some, such as the Alison, Khan Academy and OpenLearn courses, are gentle introductions that GCSE students can follow too. A few, like Duke's Introductory Human Physiology or the university anatomy courses, are genuinely demanding. Start with a shorter, introductory course such as Becoming a Dentist or Oral Health Care, and do not worry if you do not understand everything: engaging with challenging ideas is itself worth reflecting on.

Every link in this directory was opened and checked in September 2026 to confirm the course still exists, is still free to access, and is still open to join. They come from universities and organisations such as the University of Sheffield, Penn Dental Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, the King's Fund and the NHS, hosted on FutureLearn, Coursera, edX, Alison, OpenLearn and Khan Academy. At that review we removed everything that had gone dead or moved behind an invitation, along with the postgraduate clinical courses and dental nursing qualifications that were never right for an applicant. Online courses do still move or close between reviews, so if a link has changed, a quick search for the course title will usually find its new home.