Online courses directory (10358)

This course explores the brain bases of bilingualism by discussing literature relevant to differences in age of initial learning, proficiency, and control in the nonverbal, single language and dual-language literature. Participants will learn about the latest research related to how humans learn one or two languages and other cognitive skills.

This water sustainability course (PH242x) from Tufts University focuses on the engineering and public health components needed to achieve the conservation of safe water locally and globally. Together, we will explore how to create sustainable interventions geared towards improving population health.

This course provides an interdisciplinary framework for understanding the place of water in health policy and engineering by delving into the complex social, economic, political and scientific factors that influence how we approach these critical health and water related challenges. 

We identify threats to our water supply, including climate change, urbanization, agriculture and emerging contaminants. We lead a water sampling field trip and analyze the results in order to understand how water quality is assessed and regulated. We learn how to conduct a “Risk Assessment” as it relates to human and environmental health. The class will debate about issues such as water privatization, social and environmental justice and hydrofracturing. We’ll learn about point of use interventions for local interventions and take a field trip to the massive Massachusetts Water Resources Authority to see firsthand how large scale interventions are built and managed. Lastly, we will learn about various anthological determinants that drive the sustainability of interventions, review strategies for water management in developing and developed countries, and discuss the opportunities and challenges with implementing these solutions.

In addition to lectures hosted by Tufts Professors Dr. David M. Gute and Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths, the course features field trips, and guest lecturers comprised of renowned water professionals, entrepreneurs and scientists from the fields of public health, engineering, environmental science and health policy.

We hope that your ability to conceptualize and address water-related issues will advance as a result of the lecture content, in class demonstrations and global dialogues. To achieve this goal, we strongly encourage active participation and discussion with the professors, students and water professionals from across the globe. 

Lastly, check out the content from The Biology of Water and Health – Fundamentals (PH241x), an archived course that provides a provocative introduction to topics such as the vital role of sanitation and hygiene, waterborne diseases, environmental epidemiology, and water contaminants.

Tufts University is proud to offer the two Biology of Water and Health courses (PH241x & PH242x) in partnership with the Open Education Consortium (OECx). All course content is openly licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.

The Biology of Water and Health from Tufts University is a water sustainability course (PH241x) that examines increasingly critical water-related issues through a distinctly global and interdisciplinary lens.

This course focuses on Fundamentals of water and its relationship to human health. You will explore the multi-faceted ways in which water and human health are interrelated, including the influence of waterborne pathogens on public health and the central role of water quantity and quality in preserving health through adequate sanitation and hygiene. You will be introduced to a brief history of U.S. water distribution, waterborne disease cases, epidemiological approaches to public health engineering, and historical evidence of lead (Pb) as a water contaminant.

We hope that the unique interdisciplinary approach of this course gives the general public, as well as health professionals in a variety of fields, a provocative introduction to the public health and human engineering components involved in the provision of safe water and sanitation.

Sign up for The Biology of Water and Health – Sustainable Interventions (PH242x) to further expand your knowledge and professional network related to water sustainability. Starts on September 29, 2015. 

Tufts University is proud to offer the two Biology of Water and Health courses (PH241x & PH242x) in partnership with the Open Education Consortium (OECx). All course content is openly licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. After the course ends, materials will be available through edX as well as on the Tufts University Open Courseware website (ocw.tufts.edu).

This health course will show you why exercise is a fundamental component of a healthy lifestyle.

Exercise is more than just an “art of converting big meals and fattening snacks into back strains and pulled muscles by lifting heavy things that don’t need to be moved, or running when no one is chasing you.” (Anonymous quote) Our bodies evolved to move over several millennia.

Did you know that physically active obese individuals live longer than inactive thin individuals? Are you interested in seeing the evidence on the benefits and risks of stretching? What is the best way to treat your ankle, knee, and/or shoulder injury? How does injury affect mood and what are the consequences?

Whether you are a competitive athlete, an aspiring musician or dancer, whether you play for fun or just want to lead an active lifestyle, this course will entertain and challenge you. You will learn the basic and advanced principles of body movement and biological, psychological and social issues related to activity, sport, injury and rehabilitation. The course will include content from leading global experts in multiple fields related to the science of exercise.

Do you love printed paper and wonder how much longer it will survive in the age of ebooks? Are you curious about how the mass-produced modern book emerged in the first place?  Come behind the scenes in Harvard’s libraries to explore the look, feel and even smell of nineteenth-century British and American books in this module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space.

In 19th-century Britain and America, schooling expanded, paper cheapened, and new technologies allowed print to reach wider audiences than ever before.  After the rare and beautiful manuscripts and books showcased by earlier modules, the mass-produced, disposable objects that survive from the nineteenth century bear witness to the rise of the reading public.

This module investigates what scholars know about nineteenth-century reading, as well as how they know it.

This module’s six sections guide you through underlined, inscribed, defaced and repaired books in Harvard’s collections:

1. Name That Book
Find out what you can tell about a book when you’re blindfolded.

2. Handheld Books and Mobile Readers
What book did one soldier carry to Civil War battlefields in his pocket? (Hint: it’s not what you think.)

3. The Pen and the Needle
Did 19^th-century girls have to choose between sewing and reading?  The holes pricked in one book suggest they did both at once.

4. Leaving your Mark
Luckily for future historians, these children didn’t listen when people told them not to write in their books.

5. Detective Work
Try out some tools that build on what you’ve learned about books at Harvard to discover the stories hidden in your local library.

6. Over to You
Your chance to share what you have found in the books around you.

Join us, and discover how people in the first information age read, underlined, and repaired the pages that they treasured. 

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

When we think of liturgy today, we imagine short, formal, congregational events happening periodically within the confines of churches. Medieval liturgy, however, took up many hours of every day, filled the city's largest meeting halls, and even spilled onto the streets. At the center of the medieval liturgy were the books we will study in this course.

In this module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space, we’ll explore and explain the beautiful service books of the medieval church. No prior knowledge of liturgy or Latin is required, but there will be a lot of both, along with music.

The medieval services consisted of a complex system of cycles, and the liturgical books correspond to the various functions of the people who used them: Laypersons, nuns and monks, readers, singers, priests, and bishops.

We will explore and examine these precious objects using materials from Harvard’s collections. Close examination of various types of books will help to explain the complex and collaborative nature of medieval worship. Ultimately, we will learn how these beautifully adorned books  represent the importance of liturgy as an essential function of society in the Middle Ages.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

As books “go digital,” we can appreciate what is gained in terms of convenience, accessibility and interconnectedness. However, we should also consider what is lost as texts transition to a digital sphere.

This module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space seeks to re-introduce learners to the codex – a handwritten and hand-constructed book - as a three-dimensional object whose characteristics produce meaning in the experience of the reader.

This module is designed to walk you through the process of making a medieval manuscript. Using a wide variety of examples from the collections of Harvard’s Houghton Library, it will familiarize you with basic terms and concepts and give you a “feel” for the shapes, sizes, formats, materials and considerations of craft that went into the making of the book as we know it.

Throughout the Middle Ages there existed an intimate relationship between making and meaning. Codices were tactile as well as visual objects designed to engage multiple senses. In the illuminated manuscript, it is often impossible to distinguish neatly between text and image; rather, letters assume imagistic forms and images take the form of letters.

Bookmakers were sensitive to the interplay of materials, from the parchment of the pages to the wooden boards, designed to protect the contents. Each of these elements conditioned a reader’s interaction with the book. Bookmaking required a significant material investment. The production process was laborious and lengthy, involving many separate stages and craftsmen.

Books participated in a wide range of ritual, liturgical, devotional, educational and practical contexts, each of which in turn conditioned the presentation and reception of both their form and content.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

Medieval Europe has preserved enormous quantities of books and documents—many millions of pages, in fact—written in Latin and other languages. However, only a tiny percentage of these texts have been edited and published. To gain access to the rest, you need to learn the art and science of reading medieval handwriting,

This module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space introduces students to the world of medieval paleography, the science of reading old handwriting. This particular module focuses on notarial handwriting from the city of Marseille in the 14th and 15th centuries. The module features household inventories, which identify some of the fascinating objects found in people’s houses. Assessments and quizzes will allow you to track your progress as you move from letter-group to letter-group. In addition to learning the handwriting, we will take special care to explore some of the many abbreviations and other elements of the secular registers of the later Middle Ages.

Some knowledge of Latin or another Romance Language will be very helpful for understanding the texts you will read, but students without these language skills will still enjoy this chance to explore medieval handiwork.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

Thousands upon thousands of manuscripts written in Latin and other languages remain from the 12th century, when Western Europe saw an unprecedented increase in manuscript production. Of these manuscripts from the middle ages, only a small percentage have been identified, much less edited and published. To explore these fascinating texts, you need to learn the art and science of reading medieval handwriting.

This module of The Book: Histories Across Space and Time introduces students to medieval paleography, the science of reading old handwriting, with a focus on the era of the 12th century. By studying a representative hand in depth, you will learn to read 12th century Transitional Gothic script and decipher the abbreviations that set the pattern of writing for the following centuries before print. We will work with selected manuscripts from Harvard’s Houghton library and enter into the cultural world of the 12th century monasteries and schools. Assessments and quizzes will allow you to track your progress as you move through letter forms and abbreviations to read whole blocks of text.

Some knowledge of Latin will be very helpful for understanding the texts you will read, but students without the necessary language skills will still enjoy this chance to explore 12th century hands.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

Printing, or the capacity to reproduce text and image mechanically, has rightly been hailed as a technology with far-reaching impact. But the technology takes more than one form and originated in more than one historical context.

In this module of The Book: Histories Across Space and Time, you will learn how early printed books in mid-fifteenth century Europe were first modeled on medieval manuscripts, but soon developed new conventions that remain familiar to us today. This module also explores printing in East Asia, by wood block and movable type, and the late dominance of manuscript production in the Islamic world. 

In the first units of this module we compare and contrast manuscripts and printed books produced mainly in Europe from 1470-1700, looking at continuities and differences in layout, format, and the methods, materials, and economics of production. We also discuss examples of illustrated books and of handwritten annotations in books, including marginal annotations by readers and the marks of censors.

Two shorter units in this module focus on printing in East Asia, especially China, to highlight the features of woodblock printing which was common there, and on the Middle East, especially the Ottoman context, where a vibrant manuscript culture remained dominant until 1800. Taken together, this module gives an overview of three different contexts and technologies of book production before 1800.

Each unit features rare manuscripts and printed books in the Harvard Libraries, which viewers can investigate in more depth within the courseware and on their own.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

This course is an introduction to the making and use of scrolls in the European Middle Ages. The codex, with its portability and instant access to any place in the text, became the dominant container for writing after the 4th century BCE, but scrolls continued to be made. Why and how did the scroll format remain popular and relevant in the age of the codex? This course proposes four main reasons, which 

account for essentially every kind of scroll that still exists today. We will see and examine in detail a number of beautiful objects, and come to understand the thinking of those who chose the scroll format for their texts.

This module features four main units, each of which is based on one of the reasons for scroll-making:

1. Scrolls of indeterminate length
2. Scrolls in long format
3. Ceremonial and archaizing scrolls
4. Portable scrolls

Scrolls in the Age of the Book also features a guided tour of an exhibition on Harvard University’s collection of medieval scrolls, held at Houghton Library, Harvard’s special collections library, in Spring 2014. Each scroll featured in the exhibit has been fully digitized by Harvard’s Preservation Services division, and participants will have the opportunity to interact with them in unprecedented fashion using Mirador, a state-of-the-art web application developed by Harvard and Stanford Universities.

This is a module in the series The Book: Histories Across Time and Space.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

This module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space focuses on the physical qualities of books, the role of books in 17th and 18th century France, and the emergence of literature as a modern form of culture.

We will focus on the importance of books as physical objects and the raw material of literature--namely, paper.  By considering the nature of paper and how it was made during the early modern period--from Gutenberg's time to the early nineteenth century--we can begin to understand the character of books and the way they worked.

This module also examines how books fit into the legal and political system of France under the Old Regime during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the French set standards imitated throughout Europe.  Before modern copyright, legal books had privileges, granted by the king, which provided a guarantee of quality as well as certification of   orthodoxy.  To qualify for a privilege, books had to be approved by censors.  Uncensored books, including most of the works of the Enlightenment, were usually produced outside France and circulated in the kingdom through a vast underground distribution system. 

In addition, this module addresses the emergence of literature as a modern form of culture, which can be studied best in eighteenth-century England.  The first copyright law (1710), a high rate of literacy, a booming consumer market, a precocious periodical industry, and entrepreneurial publishing concentrated in London led to the development of a new kind of author--the independent writer. Samuel Johnson epitomized this new phenomenon. This module will allow you to get a close look at him and everything he represented by providing access to the Hyde Collection of Johnson's books and papers in Houghton Library at Harvard.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

In Medieval Europe the Book of Hours, so called because its core component consists of the Hours of the Virgin, became the prayer book of choice for worshippers prosperous enough to commission or purchase such a book.

Although its contents were of monastic origin, literate lay readers were the most likely to use books of hours, as served not only as a prayer book, but also as a way of keeping track of the calendar, often doubling as a family chronicle.

Books of hours provide insight into broad patterns of piety marking the High and later Middle Ages, and through their choice of texts, images and added materials, inform us about the interior life and aspirations of everyone from kings and queens and lords and ladies to monks and nuns and, ordinary members of the patrician class, merchants and others.

In this course, we will explore how books of hours provide the closest thing we have to a comprehensive and continuous record of the development of painting across most of western Europe from the later thirteenth through the early sixteenth century.

“The Book of Hours” is one module of a series of courses called “The Book: Histories Across Time and Space.” You may take this course on its own, or with the other courses of the series.

HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

HarvardX pursues the science of learning. By registering as an online learner in an HX course, you will also participate in research about learning. Read our research statement to learn more.

Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

The mobile web is here. Right now! Learn how to market your business on the mobile web. Stay ahead of your competitors!

Survey of principles underlying the structure and function of the nervous system, integrating molecular, cellular, and systems approaches. Topics: development of the nervous system and its connections, cell biology or neurons, neurotransmitters and synaptic transmission, sensory systems of the brain, the neuro-endocrine system, the motor system, higher cortical functions, behavioral and cellular analyses of learning and memory. First half of an intensive two-term survey of brain and behavioral studies for first-year graduate students.

This class is the second half of an intensive survey of cognitive science for first-year graduate students. Topics include visual perception, language, memory, cognitive architecture, learning, reasoning, decision-making, and cognitive development. Topics covered are from behavioral, computational, and neural perspectives.

This course is about how the brain creates our sense of spatial location from a variety of sensory and motor sources, and how this spatial sense in turn shapes our cognitive abilities. ***April 2016 Update: The course materials can be accessed by selecting the "September 1 2015" session from the "Sessions" menu.***

Improve the outcomes in your classroom through practical applications of neuro- and cognitive science research.

Mining underpins much of our technology and industries as well as modern society in general. A successful mine should be run efficiently and responsibly from exploration through to closure, with sound economic management every step of the way. In this course you’ll examine the business aspect of mining, focusing on the life cycle of a gold mine and discovering the technical and economic issues that affect the exploration, planning, operation and closure of a large-scale mining project.

The Business of Mining has recently won the Best in Class in the University category of the Interactive Media Awards in the USA. The judging criteria included design, content, feature functionality, usability, standards compliance and cross-browser compatibility.

Set aside 5 minutes a week to watch 1 video on a great strategy formulation tool. Easy for you & good for your career!