Online courses directory (19947)

The experience of war has changed fundamentally – not only for those fighting and reporting, but also for those on the home front. High-tech nations wage wars from a distance using satellite-guided weaponry while non-state military actors, terrorist organizations, and citizen journalists have increasingly added new voices and visual perspectives to the conversation about conflict.

The ubiquity of smartphones, internet access, and social media transports the experience and complexity of war directly into our lives. Cyberspace offers greater freedoms and access to information at the same time as we discover a dramatic global rise of cyber espionage, internet censorship, and surveillance.

In this course, we map this emerging new terrain where violent conflict, information technology, and global media intersect and where the old distinctions between battlefront and home front, between soldier and civilian, between war and entertainment, and between public and private are being redrawn. 

Considering these changes, this course engages with questions surrounding:

• The relationship between media, information technology, and war
• How violent conflict is presented in the media and the responsibilities of journalists during wartime
• The effect of instantaneous, worldwide reporting on battle and the politics of conflict
• How we can understand and critically engage with media and information technology

In order to engage with these questions, this course is taught through a number of conventional and unconventional forms of learning methods and activities. These include lecture videos, questionnaires, and discussion fora. But it also includes practical, experiential elements taught through crowdsourcing, individual research, critical viewing, media and image analysis, and surveys. Combined, these activities allow you to gain fresh and timely insights into what happens beneath the surface of the screen in front of you. They enable you to gain a deeper understanding of how the politics of today's wars play out on and behind the digital screens in our hypermediatized age.

Using examples of investigative and crusading journalism from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, this course will help you understand how raising public awareness can create political and social change.

This course is a fast-paced introduction to global muckraking, past and present, and includes penetrating interviews with historians and investigative journalists.

Join us to discover the vital role that journalism has played in fighting injustice and wrongdoing over the last 100 years and delve into the current trends reshaping investigative reporting in the digital age.

Questions related to sexuality and reproduction are intimately linked to health, well-being and human rights. In this course, you will gain a unique opportunity to explore the field of SRHR together with participants from around the world, and to reflect upon themes and issues that are of global relevance.

This course provides an overview of the issue of postharvest loss of grains by exploring essential physical, technical, and social dimensions of postharvest supply chains and loss prevention methods globally.

This survey course introduces students to the important and basic material on human fertility, population growth, the demographic transition and population policy. Topics include: the human and environmental dimensions of population pressure, demographic history, economic and cultural causes of demographic change, environmental carrying capacity and sustainability. Political, religious and ethical issues surrounding fertility are also addressed. The lectures and readings attempt to balance theoretical and demographic scale analyzes with studies of individual humans and communities. The perspective is global with both developed and developing countries included.

What possibilities exist for a fairer world? Can one person truly make a difference? In this social sciences course, we sample the possibilities and limits of social change in an interconnected, inequitable global landscape.

This course features in-depth examinations of the rise of garment work for Bangladeshi women, a labor strike in a Mexican suit factory, anti-sweatshop activism in China, and a chat with the president of one of the oldest textile manufacturers in the U.S.

Global Sociology is recommended but not required. Let’s start to understand how social change really works.

Image: Ganesh Ramachandran | www.purpleganesh.com

Ever wondered why some countries are rich and others poor? Or why some people believe hard work results in upward mobility and others don’t? To answer these questions, you need to “see” the world sociologically.

In this introductory sociology course, we will explore the concerns of an interconnected global world through classic sociological concepts. Through short lectures, interviews with prominent sociologists and everyday people around the world, you will learn to see your role in the scope of global history.

No previous experience needed.

Image: Ganesh Ramachandran | www.purpleganesh.com

This subject focuses on the specifics of strategy and organization of the multinational company, and provides a framework for formulating successful and adaptive strategies in an increasingly complex world economy. Topics include the globalization of industries, the continuing role of country factors in competition, organization of multinational enterprises, and building global networks. This particular version of the subject is taught and tailored specifically to those enrolled in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.

Students will explore energy consumption patterns including individuals, countries and the entire globe. These patterns will include all sectors of the global economy from fully developed countries to developing nations. New energy sources will be investigated and international solutions to future needs will be analyzed.

Health Care Workers and Health Professions Students can prepare to plan and deliver TB care in their communities by applying the latest clinical and research data presented in this nine-week course focusing on TB/HIV Co-Infection.

Global Warming Science teaches you about the risks and uncertainties of future climate change by examining the science behind the earth’s climate. You will be able to answer such questions as, “What is the Greenhouse Effect?” and “How and why has earth’s climate changed through geologic history?”

This science course is designed for college sophomores and juniors with some preparation in college-level calculus and physics. 

This course provides students with a scientific foundation of anthropogenic climate change and an introduction to climate models. It focuses on fundamental physical processes that shape climate (e.g. solar variability, orbital mechanics, greenhouse gases, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and volcanic and soil aerosols) and on evidence for past and present climate change. During the course they discuss material consequences of climate change, including sea level change, variations in precipitation, vegetation, storminess, and the incidence of disease. This course also examines the science behind mitigation and adaptation proposals.

This class describes the science of global warming and the forecast for humans’ impact on Earth’s climate. Intended for an audience without much scientific background but a healthy sense of curiosity, the class brings together insights and perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, earth and atmospheric sciences, and even some economics—all based on a foundation of simple mathematics (algebra).

This course pairs faculty-mentored student teams with enterprises on the front lines of health care delivery in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. To tackle specific barriers identified by each partnering organization, the course is built around custom-designed projects in strategy, business model innovation, operations, marketing, and technology. Class sessions include interactive cases, practical exercises, and lively conversations with experts, all designed to support project work before, during, and after the intensive two-week onsite collaboration with entrepreneurs, leaders, staff, and stakeholders in the setting. Course assignments include a portfolio of host deliverable, a foundational toolkit designed to support each project, and a distillation of learning from the field.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks is given to Imperial Health Sciences, Unjani Clinic and L V Prasad Eye Institute for allowing their organizations to be featured in the sample student projects on this course site.

GlobalHELP Fourth Annual Health Disparities Conference, Teachers College, Columbia University.

This seminar explores changes in the international economy and their effects on domestic politics, economy, and society. Is globalization really a new phenomenon? Is it irreversible? What are effects on wages and inequality, on social safety nets, on production, and innovation? How does it affect relations between developed countries and developing countries? How globalization affects democracy? These are some of the key issues that will be examined.

This seminar explores changes in the international economy and their effects on domestic politics, economy, and society. Is globalization really a new phenomenon? Is it irreversible? What are effects on wages and inequality, on social safety nets, on production, and innovation? How does it affect relations between developed countries and developing countries? How globalization affects democracy? These are some of the key issues that will be examined.

This course offers an evidence-based analysis of globalization that addresses what is happening to us personally as well as economically amidst the market-led processes of global integration.

The majority of businesses say they want to become more global. And business leaders say that the lack of people with global intelligence is the key constraint holding them back. This course will address both gaps — at the business and the personal level, it will focus on practical strategies for dealing with the real consequences of globalization.

Who are the winners and losers of globalization? What should be done to improve outcomes for all?

This course will examine how the spread of trade, investment, and technology across borders affects firms, workers, and communities in developed and developing countries. It investigates who gains from globalization and who is hurt or disadvantaged by globalization. Global experts from public and private sectors share insights on current trends and challenges. Course participants will develop their global acumen and will learn about issues faced by leaders in today’s international business and public policy environment.