Online courses directory (19947)

This course will introduce you to the art and architecture of the African continent from the prehistoric to the present. The objects, images, and sites featured in this course represent a small cross-section of the diverse ethnic and artistic heritage in Africa. This course emphasizes the role of art as manifested in the lifestyles, spiritualities, and philosophies of particular African societies, while also breaching aesthetic principles and the study and display of African art. Many works produced in Africa are used for spiritual purposes that include ritual and performance. The study of masks and ceremonies will enable you to become more familiar with the significant role art plays in the everyday lives of the citizens of African nations. For example, most traditional African art was not meant to be displayed, but rather viewed in use and in motion, especially in mixed-media masquerades. Body adornment and textiles have long been important forms of visual communication and expression in Africa, whereas pai…

Immunology is the study of our immune system, a highly sophisticated system that defends us against all disease-causing invaders by identifying and neutralizing such threats. Even though we might get sick every now and then, the immune system does an incredible job of warding off infection given how many infectious agents (thousands!) we come into contact with every day. This becomes most apparent when a healthy individual compares himself or herself to an individual with little or no immune response who cannot survive in a normal environment and must rely on specialized rooms much cleaner than even a surgery room. Before the discovery of immunity, we used to associate sickness and disease with various superstitions and beliefs. Only with the discovery of bacteria, viruses, and our own cells did scientists slowly piece together the modern theory of our immune system. Our overall system can be broken down into two sub-systems, each with its own unique cells, molecules, and functions. Our cells are in turn capa…

Modern computer technology requires an understanding of both hardware and software, as the interaction between the two offers a framework for mastering the fundamentals of computing. The purpose of this course is to cultivate an understanding of modern computing technology through an in-depth study of the interface between hardware and software. In this course, you will study the history of modern computing technology before learning about modern computer architecture and a number of its important features, including instruction sets, processor arithmetic and control, the Von Neumann architecture, pipelining, memory management, storage, and other input/output topics. The course will conclude with a look at the recent switch from sequential processing to parallel processing by looking at the parallel computing models and their programming implications.

Because we have compiler programs, software developers often take the process of compilation for granted.  However, as a software developer, you should cultivate a solid understanding of how compilers work in order to develop the strongest code possible and fully understand its underlying language.  In addition, the compilation process comprises techniques that are applicable to the development of many software applications.  As such, this course will introduce you to the compilation process, present foundational topics on formal languages and outline each of the essential compiler steps: scanning, parsing, translation and semantic analysis, code generation, and optimization.  By the end of the class, you will have a strong understanding of what it means to compile a program, what happens in the process of translating a higher-level language into a lower-level language, and the applicability of the steps of the compilation process to other applications.

Economics is traditionally divided into two parts: microeconomics and macroeconomics.  The purpose of this course is to provide you with a fundamental understanding of the principles of macroeconomics.  Macroeconomists study how a country’s economy works and try to determine the best choices to improve the overall wellbeing of a nation.  Typical topics include inflation (the overall level of prices), employment, fiscal policy (government taxing and spending), and money and banking (interest rates and lending policies).  Individuals and firms need to consider how macroeconomic events will affect their own prosperity.  To better define macroeconomics, consider its distinction from microeconomics.  Imagine you are attempting to figure out how the price of a certain good has been determined.  Microeconomics would focus on how supply and demand determine prices, while macroeconomics would study the determination of prices at all levels.  To test particular policies and ideas, or to find out the causes of…

Scholars tend to label the period between the Renaissance and the modern era as the long 18th and 19th centuries, meaning that they span from around 1680 - 1830 and 1775 - 1910, respectively, and that so many literary movements and cultural changes took place during these interim years that a narrower title is difficult to come by. In this course, we will examine these formative cultural and literary developments chronologically, dividing the course into four roughly sequential periods: The Enlightenment and Restoration Literature; The Rise of the Novel; Romanticism; and the Victorian Period. We will identify and contextualize the principal characteristics of each of these movements/periods, reading representative texts and examining their relationship to those texts that preceded or were contemporaneous with them. As such, this course foregrounds the movement, the changes, and the continuities from the neoclassicism of authors such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope through the emergence of the novel in th…

This course is the second installment of Single-Variable Calculus.  In Part I (MA101) [1], we studied limits, derivatives, and basic integrals as a means to understand the behavior of functions.  In this course (Part II), we will extend our differentiation and integration abilities and apply the techniques we have learned. Additional integration techniques, in particular, are a major part of the course.  In Part I, we learned how to integrate by various formulas and by reversing the chain rule through the technique of substitution.  In Part II, we will learn some clever uses of substitution, how to reverse the product rule for differentiation through a technique called integration by parts, and how to rewrite trigonometric and rational integrands that look impossible into simpler forms.  Series, while a major topic in their own right, also serve to extend our integration reach: they culminate in an application that lets you integrate almost any function you’d like. Integration allows us to calculat…

The study of public policy is intended to offer every citizen an understanding of the various and vast roles played by the different branches of the U.S. federal government as well as by state, county, and local governments in various areas of contemporary American life.  It is also a field that focuses on the priorities of American society as portrayed in the public policy choices that elected representatives make on the part of citizens and the size of different interest groups that advocate on behalf of particular policy goals.  This course looks at the process of making public policy from beginning to end and in a wide array of particular policy areas that are of importance to contemporary American society.  Moreover, because the process of public policymaking is best explored by examining particular instances of public debate over a wide array of specific policy areas, this course will adopt a case study approach to explore particular topics. Unit 1 will introduce this case study approach as well va…

With the expansion of law and the legal process into so many areas of everyday life, the responsibilities of the legal profession have expanded to meet new challenges.  For example, the advent of the Internet since the early 1990s has raised a multitude of new legal issues related to various areas of intellectual property, including copyright, patent law, and trademark law.  In recognition of the fact that many law-related responsibilities can be handled by well-educated and trained non-lawyers, the legal profession has increasingly come to depend on the assistance of paralegals.  Paralegals perform key functions within a law office from drafting legal documents to investigating cases and interviewing witnesses.  While they are no replacement for lawyers, paralegals have become recognized as key components of a well-functioning legal office. This course will introduce you to the basic knowledge and skills required of paralegals.  You will familiarize yourself with basics of the American legal system, a…