In 2025, METU gave people who are not METU students free access to educational resources: free online courses with certificates, free online course materials and research outputs, and free use of campus facilities.

Free online resources

Free courses leading to a certificate: Bilge-İş

Bilge-İş (bilgeis.net) is METU's self-paced online learning platform, run by the METU Distance Education Centre. Anyone can register free of charge, and learners who complete a course download their METU certificate from their profile at no cost. In 2025, Bilge-İş offered 210 courses on topics such as programming, information security, digital marketing, occupational health and safety, communication and stress management. It reached 927,979 registered users in total, gained 34,633 new users in 2025 and issued 29,432 certificates in 2025.

Bilge-İş is part of a Strategic Plan target: the number of certificates issued by the Continuing Education Centre, Bilge-İş and the School of Foreign Languages was 30,055 in 2025, against a target of 1,000.

https://kgpo.metu.edu.tr/en/metu-glance

Other resources

• METU OpenCourseWare (ocw.metu.edu.tr) publishes METU course materials under a Creative Commons license, free and open to everyone. On 31 December 2025, it held 251 courses and had 65,982 registered users; its YouTube channel had 991 videos and 35,981 subscribers.

• OpenMETU, METU's open-access repository, gives free access to METU theses, articles and research data. Since search statistics began to be recorded in July 2025, OpenMETU items appeared 27.8 million times in Google search results and were clicked 304,828 times by the end of 2025. Monthly clicks grew from about 44,000 in July to between 55,000 and 60,000 a month in October–December 2025:

• Sustainable Development Talks podcast: since 31 January 2025, METU CLIMATE has published a free podcast series on YouTube in which METU academics explain each Sustainable Development Goal and METU's work on it. In the tenth episode (15 May 2025), on SDG 4, Prof. Dr. Gaye Teksöz of the Department of Mathematics and Science Education explains how education for sustainable development differs from traditional education, the structural challenges of that change and METU's work on sustainability education.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_KnORUmx8&t=463s

• Cyber-safety stories for children: in September 2025, the METU team of the TÜBİTAK-funded project 'Click, Learn, Stay Safe' published six free, anime-style short stories that teach cyber safety in language children understand. Anyone can read or download them as PDFs from the project page, without registration:

https://ak.metu.edu.tr/tr/224b471

Free access to campus facilities

• The exhibition area of the METU Society and Science Centre – a History of Science and Technology Exhibition, a Classic Automobile Exhibition, a science center, science workshops and an open-air exhibition – is free to visit and hosted 19,047 visitors in 2025.

• The METU Archaeology Museum, the first university archaeology museum in Türkiye, is open to all visitors free of charge.

Access to the METU Library by external users, including students and researchers from other universities, requires an application to the Rectorate through the Electronic Document Management System (EBYS). This procedure is necessary to gain access to the campus, not only to use the library's services. Following the Rectorate's response, external users may visit the library and consult its resources on site. They are not permitted to borrow materials but may photocopy up to 10% of a resource, depending on the type of material. The Reference Services Unit also provides external users with passwords to access the METU campus Wi-Fi network (METUROAM).

• In 2025, 28 external users applied for access through EBYS. In 2026, 18 external users submitted applications through the system.