Online courses directory (1728)

Did you know that you can track some sharks’ movements on Twitter? Or that the scales on their skin have influenced the way humans design boats, planes, and even swim suits? Or that sharks have more senses than humans?

In this biology course, you will learn how scientists study sharks. You will join researchers on location in labs, aquariums, and oceans across the globe to learn about the biodiversity, biology, and conservation of sharks, rays, and chimaeras.

In this activity‑rich course, you’ll track movements of a wild shark, observe shark habitats and behavior, and dig deep into the fossil record. You will also examine topics in the functional anatomy, sensory biology, reproduction, behavior, and ecology of many of the 1,200 living species.

This is an exciting time to be a shark biologist. An explosion of new research methods and technologies are leading to a surprising world of discovery. We’ll introduce new, as well as traditional techniques, for classifying sharks, understanding behavior, and unraveling the mysteries of shark evolution. You’ll be invited to explore global shark populations and consider shark-human interactions and their impacts on history and culture.

You’ll be rewarded by your ability to see virtually any animal with new eyes. Practice thinking like a biologist while honing critical skills that can lead to broader observations about the ongoing history of life on Earth.

If you’re a front-end developer using Angular, you’re already creating dynamic webpages for mobile and desktop web apps. Broaden your programming experience with a deeper dive into this open source framework.

In this course for developers using Angular versions 2 and greater, you’ll work through a series of sequential modules that cover increasingly complex topics. See why tried-and-true Angular does just what you need it to do, as you create sophisticated, enterprise-grade web apps that render, HTML components based on the client.

Get a history of Angular, and explore basic Angular concepts and Node Package Manager. Create components and HTML templates, and look at template syntax and binding.

Learn about the lifecycle of an Angular component or directive, the dependency injection framework, and even how to design modular applications. Work with advanced TypeScript features, like declarations, modules, and namespaces, and see their usage within Angular.

Finally, review the TypeScript compiler and learn how it is used with Visual Studio Code. Make the most of the videos, hands-on labs, and multiple-choice assessments, as you build on your Angular experience.

算法设计与分析是计算机科学的核心课程之一。在了解了分治策略、动态规划、贪心法、回溯和分支限界等基本的算法设计技术的基础上，通过线性规划和网络流算法的学习，可以进一步掌握两类重要问题的建模和算法设计方法。此外，面对实际问题，只有对问题的性质有着清晰的分析，才能提出有效的解决方案。需要进一步考虑的是：怎么估计这个问题的难度？最好的算法的效率有多高？这些都涉及到问题复杂度的分析与计算复杂性理论。通过本课程的学习，可以了解有关计算复杂性理论的基础知识、方法和应用，学习近似算法、随机算法等更多的算法设计技术和分析方法，进一步提高处理复杂问题的能力。

Soil is the earth’s fragile skin that anchors all life. We depend on soil to build our homes and cities, to grow crops for food and raise livestock, to support transportation and enable recreation. Yet we disregard this crucial and precious resource that lies right under our feet.

This introductory environmental studies course will explore the importance of soil to life on earth, the issues, processes and societal challenges underlying soil degradation – and what can be done to ensure sustainable soil management for the future. The threats to our soil span deforestation, erosion, overgrazing, use of agrochemicals, pollution and climate change. Learn what you can do to make a difference in protecting this vital natural resource.

In ordinary life we barely notice the operations of our own minds. In The Conscious Mind - A Philosophical Road Trip, we will illuminate what we take for granted in perception, action, and interaction with others. We’ll explore this mindful awareness through demonstrations, illusions, brainteasers, thought experiments, riddles and jokes, all designed to shake you loose from your ordinary assumptions about the way consciousness works. 

You will explore your own mind and the minds of others in a new way, using a philosophical approach known as phenomenology. You’ll encounter some of the main ideas of the phenomenological tradition, through short readings by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Their ideas are provocative and will animate the online and offline conversation as we proceed. But the main approach of the course will be experiential and experimental. You’ll learn phenomenology by doing it and journeying among the structures and elements of your own conscious experience.  

Are you fascinated by Geosciences and willing to take the challenge of predicting the nature and behavior of the Earth subsurface? This is your course!

In a voyage through the Earth, Geoscience: the Earth and its Resources will explore the Earth interior and the processes forming mountains and sedimentary basins. You will understand how the sediments are formed, transported, deposited and deformed.

You will develop knowledge on the behavior of petroleum and water resources.

The course has an innovative approach focusing on key fundamental processes, exploring their nature and quantitative interactions. It will be shown how this acquired knowledge is used to predict the nature and behavior of the Earth subsurface.

This is your ideal first step as a future Geoscientists or professional to upgrade your knowledge in the domain of Earth Sciences.

Benvenuti e Benvenute! (Welcome!)

In this language course, you will enhance your Italian language skills, enrich your vocabulary and expand your conversational skills. You will learn how to have exchanges on a variety of topics, and continue your immersion in the Italian culture through unique videos and interviews. You will also become more confident as you continue practicing your reading and writing skills.

This course offers a variety of tools that will help you learn in different ways:

• Situational videos (called Ciak!, which means “clapperboard” in Italian): you will follow eight Italian students in their daily lives and interactions on our campus. What a great way to learn authentic conversational Italian!
• Downloadable Podcasts: become a participant in each Ciak! video and practice Italian when and where you want on your portable device!
• Grammar charts, with or without audio files: study and review grammar through concise, clear and downloadable pdf files, and practice pronunciation with our embedded audio files.
• Short video lessons: as if in a real classroom, learn each new topic with the instructor’s direct guidance.
• Video interviews: learn from various native speakers as they talk about different aspects of Italian culture.
• Short “Letture” (readings): practice reading comprehension while learning about Italian culture.
• Discussion board: your chance to communicate (in Italian!) with other students on a variety of suggested topics.
• Ready to test your skills? Practice and review with a variety of self-correcting activities.

Italian culture is an integral part of this course. Through our interviews and readings you will learn about:

• the origins of the “made in Italy” in fashion;
• Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and poetry;
• the Italian health care system;
• shopping for clothes and food in Italy.

Whether you are a traditional, visual or auditory learner, you will find the tools that best fit your unique way to learn a foreign language.

This course has been successfully taught in different settings to more than 1,000 students: entirely online to Wellesley College alumnae and students, and as a mix of face-to-face and online instruction at Wellesley College and MIT. We are now proud to open it on edX, confident that your learning experience with this unique online course will be as enriching as it was for the many students who have already taken it.

After completing this course, continue learning Italian with Italian Language and Culture: Advanced.

Finally … buon lavoro e buon divertimento! 

“This course is really excellent, beautifully thought out. The grammar and the opportunity to repeat the contents of a lesson using different modalities really helps solidify the learning.” – Previous Student

Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824, and continues to be one of the most popular symphonies in the repertoire. The monumental symphony’s size and complexity stretches traditional instrumental forms to the breaking point, and its famous choral finale changed our view of orchestral music forever.

Harvard’s Thomas Forrest Kelly (Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music) guides learners through all four movements of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, highlighting aspects of symphonic form, describing Beethoven’s composition process, the rehearsals and premiere performance, and the work’s continued relevance today.

You will learn the basics of musical form and analysis, the genres and styles used and the circumstances of this symphony’s first performance and subsequent history. Learners in this course need not have any prior musical experience.

Additional First Nights Modules:
First Nights: Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio

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.

Are you a student, professional, educator, home-maker or someone who dreams of someday starting your own venture?

This hands-on, action oriented business and management course will introduce you to a systematic, scientific and an easy process of testing your ideas and opportunities you envision.

You will learn the “DO your Venture” ideology, which will teach you common paths entrepreneurs take when launching their own venture. You will also learn the tools and techniques for generating ideas and then test your ideas in the field and gather feedback.

The course will end with a focus on the Lean Canvas business model and effectuation, which is a set of decision-making principles expert entrepreneurs use in situations of uncertainty.

We can read a city in a number of ways: in its plan, in the buildings that make its streets and public spaces, in the skyline. We can ask, what are the buildings or spaces saying? How do they say it? How does it all stitch together?

In this architecture course you will learn how to “read” Rome, an ancient city, reborn in the fifteenth century and reshaped substantially in the following three centuries. You will discover how Renaissance and Baroque Rome’s urban form, art, and architecture projected the city’s image of itself to its citizens (urbi) and the world (orbi).

Popes, architects, scholars and sculptors invested in Rome a variety of narratives that strove to explain the city’s history, convince its citizens and visitors of its harmony, and exhort society at large to share in and shape its destiny. The city that resulted became a destination for pilgrims and Grand Tourists, and still is today.

The Meaning of Rome: The Renaissance and Baroque City is organized around three themes—the city and memory, the city as reliquary, and the city as theater. In uncovering some of the meaning of Rome, you will be equipped with the skills necessary to consider how our own cities and communities are, or could be, meaningful. You will come away from this course not only better informed about the cities of the past, but also better equipped to think about the cities of the present and the future.

Students who successfully complete all of the required course assignments will have the opportunity to compile a Digication ePortfolio and earn a digital badge. 

In this quantum physics course you will acquire concrete knowledge of quantum mechanics by learning to solve the Schrodinger equation for important classes of one-dimensional potentials. We study the associated energy eigenstates and bound states. The harmonic oscillator is solved using the differential equation as well as algebraically, using creation and annihilation operators. We discuss barrier penetration and the Ramsauer-Townsend effect.

This is the second course in a series which includes:

• Quantum Mechanics: Wavefunctions, Operators, and Expectation Values
• Quantum Mechanics: Quantum Physics in 1D Potentials
• Quantum Mechanics: 1D Scattering and Central Potentials

The series is based on the MIT 8.04: Quantum Mechanics I. At MIT, 8.04 is the first of a three-course sequence in Quantum Mechanics, a cornerstone in the education of physics majors that prepares them for advanced and specialized studies in any field related to quantum physics.

After completing the 8.04x series, you will be ready to tackle the Mastering Quantum Mechanics course series on edX, which will be available in Spring 2018.

In this education course, you will learn what family engagement is and why it matters to the success of students and schools. We will explore the research linking family engagement to better educational outcomes and speak directly with researchers, educators, students, and families about promising practices in the field.

Family engagement describes what families do at home and in the community to support their children’s learning and development. It also encompasses the shared partnership and responsibility between home and school.

Such engagement is essential for school improvement. It is also increasingly recognized as an integral element for proficient practice as an educator.

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 the first of a two-course sequence: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python, and Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science. Together, they are designed to help people with no prior exposure to computer science or programming learn to think computationally and write programs to tackle useful problems. Some of the people taking the two courses will use them as a stepping stone to more advanced computer science courses, but for many it will be their first and last computer science courses. This run features updated lecture videos, lecture exercises, and problem sets to use the new version of Python 3.5. Even if you took the course with Python 2.7, you will be able to easily transition to Python 3.5 in future courses, or enroll now to refresh your learning.

Since these courses may be the only formal computer science courses many of the students take, we have chosen to focus on breadth rather than depth. The goal is to provide students with a brief introduction to many topics so they will have an idea of what is possible when they need to think about how to use computation to accomplish some goal later in their career. That said, they are not "computation appreciation" courses. They are challenging and rigorous courses in which the students spend a lot of time and effort learning to bend the computer to their will.

In this introductory course, you’ll learn some engineering principles that can be applied to structural systems everywhere: in nature, in furniture, in mechanical and aerospace systems, and in any solid object that resists a load.

Together we’ll explore how structures work, why they were designed the way they were designed, how they support loads, and where forces flow through them.

More specifically we’ll:

• Learn about funicular forms and how ropes and cables resist tension.
• Discuss how columns, arches, and anti-funicular forms resist compression.
• Discover how trusses, beams and walls resist loads. • Sketch the flow of forces through structures.
• Compare and contrast different structural forms and systems to answer a range of questions such as: Why might an engineer choose a beam over a truss? How do the dimensions of a structure affect its response? How do engineers choose forms and systems to create structures that are both elegant and functional?

Join us in exploring the engineering of structures around us.

The main course image, Kurilpa Bridge credited to: Alastair Smith, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Biochemical technology in water and wastewater treatment engineering is essential in the field of water treatment. In this environmental studies course you will learn the basic principles and characteristics of biochemical technology.

This knowledge is necessary for those in the environmental field. In this course we will use real world cases and vivid explanations to help you better understand the biological treatment process.

《水处理工程》是环境工程、环境科学、市政工程等相关专业的主干专业课。本课程旨在向学生全面讲授水和废水处理中主要的生物处理技术单元的基本原理和特点、工艺的基本计算方法和应用范围、主要构筑物的构成和运行特点、典型的水与废水处理工艺以及相关技术的国内外最新研究进展。主要讲述废水的好氧和厌氧生物处理工艺、生物脱氮除磷工艺、废水的天然处理工艺以及污泥的处理与处置。    

Le théâtre classique du 17e siècle passe pour le sommet de l’art du théâtre en France. Ses trois représentants les plus connus, Corneille et Racine pour la tragédie et Molière pour la comédie comptent parmi les plus grands dramaturges européens de tous les temps, et Molière reste l’un des auteurs les plus joués dans le monde.

Pour vous les faire découvrir, nous vous emmènerons dans l’environnement historique, sociologique, culturel et littéraire qui les a vu naître. Nous retracerons ainsi l’histoire du « théâtre moderne » depuis sa naissance au milieu du 16e siècle jusqu’aux plus brillantes années du «siècle de Louis XIV» (2e moitié du 17e siècle).

Nous examinerons ainsi les fondements de l’expression «théâtre classique», les fondements du système qui a vu naître les « règles classiques », les fondements d’un dialogue théâtral qui repose entièrement sur « l’alexandrin classique ». Et nous ferons apparaître les tensions créatrices (entre la théorie et la pratique, entre les règles et le refus des règles, entre le texte et le spectacle, entre le classicisme et le baroque, entre la tragédie et l’opéra) qui ont façonné le théâtre de cette période.

Enfin, en vous accompagnant dans la lecture des quelques chefs-d’œuvre qui ont créé une rupture esthétique et marqué les esprits, nous vous ferons pénétrer avec nous dans l’atelier créateur des plus grands dramaturges de l’âge d’or du théâtre français.

Pièces de théâtre à lire: Le Cid et Cinna de Corneille / Les Précieuses ridicules, L’École des femmes et Tartuffe de Molière / Andromaque et Phèdre de Racine.

Ces textes sont tous disponibles en éditions de poche (choisir de préférence «Folio classique” et «Folio Théâtre» ou «Le Livre de poche Classique». On peut les lire aussi en ligne sur le site: http://www.theatre-classique.fr/pages/programmes/PageEdition.php

Nous vous invitons à découvrir avec nous d’où viennent ces trois auteurs, comment ils se sont construits, comment ils se sont distingués des plus brillants dramaturges de leur temps. Et nous vous montrerons quels sont les ingrédients qui ont permis à leurs œuvres d’avoir été sans cesse lues et jouées jusqu’à aujourd’hui — et cela, alors même que de nombreux éléments-clés (l’obéissance à des «règles» et l’usage du vers dit «alexandrin», en particulier) ont disparu depuis longtemps.

This literature and theater course will delve into two wonderful plays of young love, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and try to bring alive what makes them so compelling and popular -- as both literature and drama.

As we explore the genius of the plays on the page, we will also study the lives of the plays in performance, from Shakespeare's own theatre to the stages and screens across the globe today. To help us further, actors will occasionally join our effort to demonstrate ways of bringing the text alive as living theatre.

This physics course offers a sophisticated view of quantum mechanics and its proper mathematical foundation. In this first module of three you will review the basics of wave mechanics and be introduced to the variational principle. You will learn about the technology of spin one-half states and spin operators and get an in-depth look into linear algebra to establish the mathematical foundation necessary to do quantum mechanics. This course concludes by developing the bra-ket notation of Dirac.

To follow this course you will need some basic familiarity with quantum mechanics. You must have seen the Schrödinger equation and studied its solutions for the square well potential, the harmonic oscillator, and the hydrogen atom. You must be proficient in calculus and have some knowledge of linear algebra.

Completing the 3-part Mastering Quantum Mechanics series will give you the necessary foundation to pursue advanced study or research at the graduate level in areas related to quantum mechanics.

Part 1: Wave Mechanics,

Part 2: Quantum Dynamics

Part 3: Entanglement, and Angular Momentum.

The series will follow MIT’s on campus 8.05, the second semester of the three-course sequence on undergraduate quantum mechanics, and will be equally rigorous. 8.05 is a signature course in MIT's physics program and a keystone in the education of physics majors. 

Learner Testimonial

“I’ve thought long and hard to come up with a better MOOC than this one (I’ve completed 25 of these things over the past 2 years) and can’t do it. 8.05x is #1 and I suspect will stay that way for some time to come.”

 “Being an engineering student from India trying to shift to Physics, I am often faced with the requirement to study topics on my own. Very often this has led me to feel inadequate. 8.05x was the perfect opportunity for me to both gain knowledge and evaluate my understanding on a high quality international platform. It has really exceeded my expectations. Now, at the end of fifteen weeks, I feel more confident and hopefully I am more knowledgeable.”

Computing is a science. It’s an art, at least for those who practice it well, and it still retains much of its magic.

Part 1 of this course introduced the fundamental concepts, preparing you for the more advanced topics covered in this course!

Throughout this course, you will learn programming concepts and techniques, and practice them immediately through advanced browser-based tools that let you write programs, compile, run  and test them against predefined test sets. You will see your results right away in your browser!

In this Part 2, we will discuss:

• A major programming technique, inheritance, including Multiple inheritance: combining complementary abstractions
• Selective exports for solid modular design of large systems
• Functional programming with agents: going one level of abstraction higher or more
• Concurrency: how to build applications that, so to speak, walk and chew gum at the same time
• Design patterns: how you can benefit from the best architectural practices of the industry, ironed out over many decades
• What makes a loop do its job right, with the notion of loop invariant
• Important practical examples: how to write an interactive application with undo-redo, and the example of topological sort
• Software engineering-- the construction not just of individual programs but also of complex, ambitious software systems

Join us in this computing and programming course to better understand the power and beauty of modern computer programming.

This course, produced with The Great Courses, will look at four key themes in the History of America as presented by Dr. Richard Kurin, Undersecretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian.

• American Icons – from the Star Spangled Banner to the Statue of Liberty – how have these become iconic symbols for Americans?  What do these icons represent in a global context?
• Rights and Liberties – from the Declaration of Independence to the Greensboro Lunch Counter, how have Americans defined, and continue to define, their rights and governance?
• America the Beautiful – From evidence of the continent’s first inhabitants to the conservation efforts of the Smithsonian’s scientists, how have the American people – both native and settler – envisioned, explored, worked and protected the land and its resources?
• Spirit of Invention – from the Model T to the space program, how have America’s pioneering inventions changed the world?

In this course you will gain a unique perspective on American history and culture by learning the stories behind objects that were, and continue to be, an essential part of U.S. history. Most importantly, you will reflect on what objects have personal meaning to you, and the role that symbolic objects play in your own histories.

This course is adapted from the video lecture series produced by Smithsonian and The Great Courses, Experiencing America: A Smithsonian Tour Through History.