Sign up for an open online course
Join more than 40,000 people from 188 countries and territories who have enrolled in our Open online courses.
Learn together with eye health professionals from different cadres, countries and contexts on our courses.
The following courses are available on-demand, and can be accessed anytime. This means you can take the course at your own pace. Engage with other learners using the comments and discussion section.
NEW ONLINE SHORT COURSE:
Research Skills for Global Eye Health
Please Register your interest here.
This course will be available from October 2025.
The course will run for 16 weeks from October 2025 and comprises of 4 modules:
Module 1 – An Introduction to Global challenges in Ophthalmology & essential Epidemiology
Module 2 – Epidemiology and statistics – Applied to Eye Care
Module 3 – Research methods & skills for Eye Care – Application to Eye Disease
Module 4 – Global Challenges in Ophthalmology, Planning & Implementing Eye Care Services
During the course we will:
- Explore & explain the global challenges in ophthalmology
- Understand & apply epidemiological principles to ophthalmology
- Critically appraise evidence (quantitative & qualitative)
- Formulate research questions
- Understand and apply research ethics
- Create & analyse data recordings forms
- Gain an overview of health economics
- Develop research skills for resource mobilisation, management and evaluation of local eye care services
Throughout the course you will learn using: videos, articles, quizzes to help consolidate your learning, short answer questions for critical reading of published articles, discussion forums to share your experiences and views with fellow learners and focused synchronous sessions with experts in the field; in order to meet these objectives.
Your learning will be assessed through end-of-module MCQ tests and two assignments – a short video presentation and a written report.
This course will be free to take.
Please Register your interest here.
Ophthalmic Epidemiology Courses
***Please note that these courses are currently under redevelopment. They will be available again later in 2025. Thank you for your patience***
Ophthalmic Epidemiology 1. Basic Principles
Learn the key features and examine the uses of the main epidemiology study types for eye care. Understand the key concepts of prevalence and incidence, explore the causes and distribution of visual impairment in populations, learn about key epidemiological study designs and assess their strengths and limitations for studying eye disease.
Ophthalmic Epidemiology 2. Application to Eye Disease
Learn the key features, and examine the uses, of epidemiology for eye care. Critically analyse the different features of the main epidemiological study designs and discover how they are used to address different research questions in eye health.
Topic-Specific Courses
***Please note that these courses are currently under redevelopment. They will be available again later in 2025. Thank you for your patience***
Glaucoma: A Public Health Approach to Preventing Blindness
Retinopathy of Prematurity: Practical Approaches to Prevent Blindness
Diabetic Eye Disease: Building Capacity To Prevent Blindness
Global Blindness: Planning and Managing Eye Care Services
Eliminating Trachoma
Open education webinars
2018 ICEH Open Education webinar series on “Technology enhanced teaching and learning for health professionals”
View 3 webinars with ICEH and co-hosted with the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT), explores how health professionals around the world are increasingly using digital technologies to prepare for practice, keep their knowledge and skills updated and train others.
2017 ICEH Open Education webinar series
View 5 webinars with ICEH staff and Open Education experts from around the world exploring how eye health educators can use digital communication technologies to innovate and improve teaching practice and address some of big challenges facing human resources development and global eye care training.
2018 ICEH Open Education webinar series
2017 ICEH Open Education webinar series
Student Map
See below a map of the countries where students who have taken our courses are from.
Open education resources
- LEARN: Improve your eye health practice by participating in one of our Open courses and applying the learning.
- SHARE: Support eye health teaching and learning beyond the course by downloading the OER materials and sharing them with colleagues or the team.
- TEACH: Include the course content in local residency training or as part lifelong learning for professionals, or support our courses as a facilitator*
- IMPROVE: Advocate for life-long learning in your setting, create and contribute to the OER materials, send us feedback or adapt and re-use the OER in local training.
* requires public health and ophthalmic training
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of partners, collaborators, course participants and funders: