Online courses directory (1728)

The course commences through exploring the development of the conventional understanding of universal human rights and then moves to critiquing this concept from cultural relativist, postmodern, postcolonial and feminist perspectives. It also examines understandings of human rights from a range of cultural and religious perspectives as well as other contemporary rights issues.

Developing an awareness of contemporary issues in human rights is important in professions such as education, health, law, social work and development work, both in the public and private sector. You can also benefit from human rights knowledge in a voluntary capacity, advocating social justice, peace or building a sustainable future.

This course is part of the CurtinX Human Rights MicroMasters program.

If you take the verified certificate pathway for the three human rights courses you will qualify for the MicroMasters credential.

The MicroMasters credential is an achievement in itself, but if you want to study further, you can use it towards studying a Master of Human Rights at Curtin.

Freedom of expression is a human right. Learn from the experts at Amnesty International how to claim and defend your rights in this human rights course.

This short course will equip you with the knowledge to understand and claim your right to freedom of expression, and the skills and confidence to take action to defend it.

You will be challenged to think critically and devise effective actions to defend the human rights of others. You will be able to adapt the human rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly to real life situations and come face-to-face with human rights activists on the front line of human rights defense.

This is Amnesty International’s first human rights MOOC. Be prepared for active, fast-paced learning, connecting with course participants across the world to bridge the gap between theory and practice and turn yourself into an agent of change.

You will explore human rights through case studies, including real cases of individuals at risk. You will discover how actions are developed to defend people against human rights violations.

Course facilitators and moderators from across the human rights movement will listen, guide and interact with participants.

Consider signing up with a friend or group to take part in optional group activities together. Join the conversation on the Amnesty International Human Rights Education Facebook page.

No previous knowledge is needed. Register today to take part in a global human rights experience.

Across the world, barriers are growing. Every day people fleeing war and persecution find the door slammed in their face.

Refugees have human rights. What are these rights? Who is responsible for upholding and protecting them? How can we hold them to account?

This short course will enable you to find the answers and empower yourself to defend and promote the rights of refugees and discover how you can be part of the solution.

Learn from the experts, campaigners and activists at Amnesty International how to identify human rights violations and to claim, defend and promote the human rights of refugees.

You will be challenged to think critically and interact with participants. Together you will learn how to empower yourselves to create change.

This is Amnesty International's second human rights MOOC. Be prepared for active learning, connecting with course participants from across the world and to become part of a global community campaigning for the rights of refugees to be upheld everywhere.

The course is also available in French and Spanish.

This applied science course introduces aspects of human spaceflight, including the various environmental, medical and technical challenges of space travel.

Join Christer Fuglesang, Director of KTH Space Center, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, during this 5-week course in which Christer makes human spaceflight both accessible and engaging. Christer often draws on his own experiences as an astronaut which include two Space Shuttle missions and five spacewalks.

Special thank you to Sciss for the use of the Uniview™ real-time virtual planetarium software.

From the Syrian refugee crisis to the West Africa Ebola outbreak, humanitarian emergencies have reached unprecedented dimensions and proportions. As need for humanitarian aid grows, how can efforts to alleviate human suffering evolve with it?

This course from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and HarvardX seeks to prepare learners to recognize and analyze emerging challenges in the humanitarian field. The course explores the ethical and professional principles that guide humanitarian response to conflict and disaster. Participants will learn the legal and historical frameworks that shaped these principles, test their applicability to the challenges faced by humanitarian actors today.

Through four case studies covering the responses to crises in Goma (Zaire), Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Pakistan, participants will engage with Harvard faculty, current practitioners, and one another. These cases introduce major trends affecting the current landscape of humanitarian response – including rapid population displacement, violence against aid workers, and civil-military engagement. Thoughtfully engaging with this course will prepare participants to be informed and aware humanitarian practitioners, scholars, policy-makers, and global citizens.

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.

We make ethical or behaviour guiding right / wrong judgments all the time but have you ever wondered where Ethics comes from, what it is about and why it is important? This course provides an introduction to traditional Chinese ethical thought and focuses on the pervasive contrast in the way Chinese and Westerners think about ethical guidance or guidance concerning what is right and what is wrong, good or bad.  Traditional Western orthodoxy uses the metaphor of a law – in its most familiar popular form, the command of a supernatural being backed by a threat of eternal punishment or reward – to explain ethical guidance. The Classical Chinese philosophers by contrast were all naturalists. They talked about ethical guidance using a path metaphor – a natural dào.

We will look at two rival directions this natural dào model took in ancient China. The first direction views ethical paths as generated from human sources such as human history and past social practices. The other Confucian version views guidance as arising from a distinctly human guiding organ, something like a combination of our faculties of heart and mind. This organ issues the right/wrong or this/not-that judgements naturally. This internal map to moral choices branches, like a plant, as we mature. The alternative to human-based naturalism in China treated normative guidance as natural in a broader sense, such as the dào of water or one guided by what is beneficial vs harmful. Finally, we will take a brief look at a development after the classical period that resulted from the invasion of the more super-naturalist, Indo-European way of thinking about guidance – Medieval Chinese Buddhism.

Although Chinese concepts will be the focus of our discussion, all the content of this course is intended to be accessible to beginner students. For those who are beginners in Philosophy, we will include a brief introduction to the ideas of logic that further shape the Western metaphor of a law and help us understand its role in Western ethics, science and psychology so you can better understand the different ways these two philosophical metaphors explain where norms of behaviour come from, what they are about and why they are important.

我们常常判断事物的正误，但你是否思考过什么是道德/行为准则，它来自哪里，为什么重要？本课程介绍中国传统道德思想，关注中西哲学关于道德准则、正误、好坏的不同理解。传统西方观念以“法”（即超自然个体的指令以及遵循或违背该指令所意味的奖惩后果）来解释道德准则。与此截然不同，中国古代哲学家们则均为自然主义者，他们以“道”为喻体来讨论道德标准。

本课程重点关注“道”在中国古代沿着两个不同方向竞相演变的过程。一种方向认为道德准则来自于人类历史以及以往社会的实践。另一个方向则认为道德标准源自人本身的一种类似于心脑结合的感官，该感官自然的发出正误、此彼等判断。有如我们内心的一幅导图，像植物一样，随着我们的成长日渐丰茂强大。中国的这种不以人本身为基础的自然主义对待道德准则的方式，从广义角度看待自然，比如水之道，善与恶之道。课程结尾部分我们会简单探讨古代中国之后随着超自然、印欧哲学被引入中国而出现的一个新事物，即中世纪中国佛教。

尽管课程重点讨论的是中国传统哲学思想，不熟悉中国哲学的学生也会发现课程内容浅显易懂。针对哲学初学者，课程包含了关于逻辑这一概念的简单介绍，以及它如何加强西方“法”的概念，以便帮助我们了解“法”在西方道德、科学以及心理学领域的作用，以利于学生更好地了解中西哲学思想间对于行为准则的来源、内容、及其重要性的不同理解。
课程目标：
•    学习描述中国古代哲学思想中的人类与自然观；
•    学习辩证思考中国哲学思想中的人类与自然观，明辨其优缺；
•    反思人类与自然的关系；
•    培养解释说明及分析辩证技巧。

Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer, said that no one should deny themselves the pleasure of reading Dante's Divine Comedy. In this course, you will discover precisely what Borges meant.

Comment décrire l’écoulement d’une rivière ou d’un fleuve ? Quelle influence un rétrécissement local ou une pile de pont dans la rivière peuvent-ils avoir sur le niveau d’eau ? Quels aménagements vont permettre de limiter les impacts d’événements naturels tels qu’une crue ou une inondation sur la population et les villes avoisinantes ? Autant de questions qui reflètent l’importance de la compréhension du fonctionnement des cours d’eau.

Face aux enjeux majeurs liés à la problématique de l’eau, ce MOOC en hydraulique à surface libre va vous donner des clés pour comprendre les écoulements et leurs interactions avec l’environnement. Cette compréhension joue un rôle primordial pour assurer une gestion responsable et concevoir des aménagements qui permettent de tirer profit des cours d’eau tout en préservant l’environnement des impacts négatifs.

Ce cours résulte d’une collaboration entre experts de plusieurs universités. Durant les quatre semaines de cours, vous serez confrontés à la modélisation des écoulements à surface libre, en allant de l’écoulement uniforme aux écoulements graduellement et brusquement variés avec les ressauts hydrauliques. Vous apprendrez à déterminer l’influence que peuvent avoir des singularités locales sur le niveau d’eau, comme des rétrécissements ou la présence de piles de pont.

Au fil des séquences, notions théoriques s’alterneront avec applications concrètes sur des sites haïtiens, français et suisses. Afin de consolider vos connaissances, vous serez encouragés à répondre à différents questionnaires ou à interagir concrètement avec les autres participants.

Ce cours peut ensuite être complété par le cours « Hydraulique fluviale 2 –Sédiments et morphologie fluviale ».

En collaboration avec le réseau Rescif.      
 
       

Pourquoi le lit de la rivière présente-t-il des zones d’érosion et de dépôts ? Comment la rivière évolue-t-elle au fil du temps, parfois de manière très rapide et catastrophique ? L’Homme est-il capable, et a-t-il intérêt à maîtriser les rivières ? Autant de questions qui reflètent l’importance de la compréhension du fonctionnement des rivières.

Face aux enjeux majeurs liés à la problématique de l’eau et plus particulièrement à la gestion durable des rivières, ce MOOC en hydraulique fluviale va vous donner des clés pour comprendre l’équilibre et l’évolution des rivières et leurs interactions avec l’environnement. Cette compréhension joue un rôle primordial pour assurer une gestion responsable de la rivière qui permette d’en tirer profit tout en préservant l’environnement de ses impacts négatifs.

Ce cours résulte d’une collaboration entre experts de plusieurs universités. Durant les quatre semaines de cours, vous serez confrontés successivement à l’étude des sédiments et du transport solide, à la caractérisation morphologique des rivières et aux conséquences – parfois inattendues – des travaux fluviaux.

Au fil des séquences, notions théoriques s’alterneront avec applications concrètes, notamment sur des sites haïtiens et suisses. Afin de consolider vos connaissances, vous serez encouragés à répondre à différents questionnaires ou à interagir concrètement avec les autres participants.

En fonction de votre degré de connaissances dans ce domaine, ce cours peut être précédé de « Hydraulique fluviale 1 – Écoulements à surface libre », qui lui est prérequis.

En collaboration avec le réseau Rescif.      
 
       

A flow is called hypersonic if the Mach number is greater than 5. This means that the flow speed is more than five times the speed of sound. In air at room temperature, the speed of sound is around 340 m/s, so a Mach 5 flow would have a flow speed of 1.7 km/s or just over 6,000 km/h. When a rocket launches a satellite into earth orbit, when a probe enters the atmosphere of another planet or when an aircraft is propelled by a supersonic combustion ramjet engine (a scramjet), hypersonic flows are encountered. Hypersonics – from Shock Waves to Scramjets introduces the basic concepts associated with flight at speeds greater than Mach 5 and takes students to the stage where they can analyse the performance of a scramjet engine that might be used in a future access-to-space system.

When you meet a new person, it is hard to know what to expect.  You may not be able to read the person or understand what they mean. Even if you want to have a good relationship with them, this lack of understanding can make interactions tense, unpredictable and scary! The same is true for a lot of people as they encounter statistics and mathematical ways of working with data.  Statistics can be confusing and opaque.  Symbols, Greek letters, very large and very small numbers, and how to interpret all of this can leave to feeling cold and disengaged—even fearful and resentful.

But in the modern information age, having a healthy relationship with statistics can make life a whole lot easier. We are constantly faced with an onslaught of data and claims about it—from news articles, to Facebook and blog posts, casual and professional conversations, reports at our workplace, advertising, and claims from politicians and public officials. How can we process that information, make sense of it, evaluate truth claims, and put ourselves in a position to act on the information?  One of the most important ways is by befriending statistics and consistently using statistical ways of thinking.
 
The purpose of this course, then is to help you develop a functional, satisfying, and useful life-long relationship with statistics. To achieve that goal, we will take a non-technical approach—you will learn how statistics work and why they are so helpful in evaluating the world of information that is around us. You will learn about the logic of statistical thinking and the concepts (rather than the mathematical details and probability theory) that guide statistical inferences and conclusions.
 
You do not need to be a math whiz to take this course. If you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide (or just be able to use a calculator to do that!), you will be more than able to handle what will happen as this relationship develops.

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Identify the most important features of a data set
• Select a statistical test based on the features of the data
• Think like a statistical detective
• Understand the relationship between two different characteristics or variables
• Perform some simple statistical calculations and draw some conclusions from real data
• Hopefully, love stats! 

We’ll do all of this using entertaining examples related to real-life situations we all encounter in everyday life.

Explora la cobertura de pensiones en América Latina y el Caribe y potenciales reformas previsionales para alcanzarla de forma universal en la Región.

El curso mostrará el carácter actual, y a veces dramático, de las concepciones que desde la filosofía griega han venido siendo denominadas como “idealismo”. Desplegará las grandes cosmovisiones occidentales en base a sus ideas rectoras, operativas en los estadios científico, artístico y sociocultural, haciendo ver cómo la filosofía ha servido de sustrato o conexión de todas estas manifestaciones espirituales, estableciendo una sistemática efectiva, patente en la atmósfera cultural de las épocas-mundo. Cada uno de estos “mundos” (en el sentido de “ordenación global”) está configurado por un conjunto bien trabado de ideas-fuerza, en torno a una Idea fundamental.

El alumno obtendrá una visión general de la cohesión interna y organización de cada una de estas cosmovisiones, respecto a las cuales se pondrá el acento en su presencia activa en los problemas del presente.

Learn how philosophy, art, literature, and history shaped the last century and the world today.

The last century ushered in significant progress. Philosophers, scientists, artists, and poets overthrew our understanding of the physical world, of human behavior, of thought and its limits, and of art, creativity, and beauty. Scientific progress improved the way we lived across the world. Yet the last century also brought increased levels of war, tyranny, and genocide. Man pushed boundaries of good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice – and people lost faith in values. Now, thinkers and leaders are reconstructing theories of value and creating institutions to embody them. Join this thought-provoking, broad-sweeping course as it draws intriguing connections between philosophy, art, literature, and history, illuminating our world and our place in it. Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.

Public libraries are becoming dynamic hubs for learning, civic engagement, and community.

This course will discuss strategies for gathering statistical and descriptive data about public library communities. Learners will identify local partners in education, social services, government agencies, and more.

While conducting real-world investigations, learners will gain deeper insight into the wants and needs of community organizations. This will empower learners to make better management decisions to address those needs, even in libraries with limited budgets.

IELTS is the world's most popular English language test for those wanting to study in higher education in an English-speaking country.

This IELTS course will prepare you to take the IELTS Academic tests with confidence. You will have immediate access to over 80 hours of interactive practice materials covering each of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

This innovative preparation course has been designed and written by experienced English teaching professionals from The University of Queensland, an IELTS testing centre and one of the world’s leading centres of learning. All of the course writers have extensive experience enabling students to reach their academic IELTS goal of entering a university where English is the primary language.

Each section of this course includes engaging multi-media presentations reviewing key test-taking skills, strategies and techniques. These are accompanied by a wide variety of authentic IELTS-style exercises and interactive activities that provide focused practice of the skills, strategies and techniques that you need to perform at your best.

In the new release of this IELTS preparation course, you will find a number of enhancements to an already-successful formula. The course appears with new videos and improvements to the explanation of answers as well as a number of new and engaging practice activities. Significantly, we have responded to requests from existing users to offer more comprehensive feedback on your writing using several new features.

As the course is self-paced, you can complete all of the course units in sequence, or only select the areas you want to focus on to prepare for the IELTS Academic tests. In completing this course, you will feel fully prepared to complete the IELTS Academic tests.

Students who select Verified enrolment in this course will have access to additional materials provided by the IELTSx course team.

Ignorance! provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how people think about unknowns, how they deal with them, and even how certain kinds of ignorance are enshrined in cultures and social institutions. We’ll be taking you on a tour through ignorance in all its varieties and guises. Ignorance is everyone’s business. Ignorance is relevant to every discipline and profession, and to everyday life, both at work and at play.

No matter what domain you study or work in, this course will have something to offer to you.

We will explore questions about ignorance such as the following: Where does ignorance come from? How do we impose it on each other, and even on ourselves? And why? We usually think about ignorance as a bad thing, but when can it be preferable not to know something? What uses do people have for ignorance? What roles does ignorance play in social interaction, group relations, institutions, and law? Can ignorance sometimes be a virtue? When can ignorance be good or bad for us? How can we harness the unknown for learning, discovery, and creativity? How can we make good decisions under ignorance?

Your understanding of ignorance will be expanded via online games, discussion forums, opportunities to find out what your own “ignorance profile” is, additional readings, and Wiki materials. There also will be discussion threads specifically for those of you who want to apply understandings about ignorance to complex social and environmental problems. Knowing more about ignorance will help you to manage it and work with it. It also will help you in dealing with the unexpected, with complex problems, and even wicked problems.

“无知！”这门课提供了一个全面的框架以了解人们如何思考未知事物，如何处理未知事物，以及某些无知如何被纳入文化和社会制度。 我们将带你浏览所有种类和伪装下的无知。 无知和每个人都有关，与每一门学科、职业以及日常生活的工作和娱乐都息息相关。

无论你的学习或职业属于什么领域，你都可以从这门课程中得到收获.

我们将探讨有关无知的如下问题：无知从何而来？我们是如何将其强加于彼此甚至是我们自己？这又是为什么？我们通常认为无知是一件坏事，但是在哪些时候不知道太多反而是一件好事呢？人们如何利用无知？无知在社会互动、团体关系、制度和法律中扮演什么角色？无知有可能在某些时候成为一种美德吗？无知在什么时候对我们是好事，什么时候是坏事？我们如何利用未知事物来促进学习、新发现和创造力？ 我们如何在无知的情况下做出好的决定呢？

你对无知的理解将通过网络游戏、论坛、探索自己的“无知个人资料”的机会、附加阅读和维基资料获得扩展。课程里还将有专门针对那些希望将无知理解应用于复杂的社会和环境问题的讨论组。 深入了解无知将有助你管理和对待它。 它也将帮助您处理意想不到的，复杂的，甚至是邪恶的问题。

Students and professionals in science, design and technology have to develop and communicate concepts that are often difficult to comprehend for the public, their peers and even themselves.

This communication course will help you enhance your communication and interpersonal skills and provide insight, tips and tricks to make such complex and seemingly unimaginable concepts and ideas imaginable.

After finishing this course you will be more skilled in finding the right visual language to convey your ideas, thoughts and vision. You will be able to illustrate concepts and themes and you will know how to unravel complexity by using diagrams and schemes.

¿Quiere saber si invertir o no en un negocio? ¿Le interesa saber el nivel de satisfacción de sus clientes? ¿Necesita averiguar sobre el posicionamiento de su marca? ¿Quiere evaluar si un producto o servicio tendría aceptación en el mercado?

Este MOOC le brindará respuestas a estos interrogantes a través del estudio de la metodología de la Investigación de Mercados. Revisaremos su diseño, herramientas y las experiencias de empresarios y emprendedores que realizaron Investigaciones de Mercados en sus organizaciones. Al finalizar el curso el estudiante estará en capacidad de explicar el impacto de la investigación de mercados en emprendimientos, pequeñas y grandes empresas a través de las generalidades y estructura de la investigación de mercados para la toma de decisiones gerenciales.