Online courses directory (457)

This course will explore questions relating to the who, what and how of terrorism studies, by introducing students to cutting-edge research and the experts investigating these topics.

Violence is among the top three leading causes of injury and death in the US and globally. We will focus on different disciplinary approaches and perspectives to understanding and potentially preventing violence.

Discover the world of computing, learn software design and development while solving puzzles with world renowned lecturer Richard Buckland. UNSW Computing 1 is presented by OpenLearning with original content derived from UNSW COMPUTING's first year computing course. Take the course for online for free, the first cohort starts on October 15th 2012.

This course will discuss issues regarding vaccines and vaccine safety: the history, science, benefits, and risks of vaccines, together with the controversies and common questions surrounding vaccines, and an update on newly created vaccines and recent outbreaks of previously controlled diseases.

Alexander the Great conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks, fused the eastern and western peoples of his empire, and became a god – before his 33rd birthday. This course explores the life, leadership, and legacies of history’s warrior, and one of its most controversial leaders, an ambiguous genius whose story helps us to understand not only the history of warfare, but also different ideas about human sexuality, the history of relations between east and west, and the religious beliefs both of ancient polytheists and modern monotheists.

Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.

This course will examine current conditions and trends in water and sanitation services in low and middle income countries. Within it we will take a critical look at the underlying political, economic, social, and technical reasons why almost a billion people lack access to improved water supplies and almost 2 billion still do not have improved sanitation services.

For adults with an interest in the study of human behaviour – especially those who have often considered studying psychology but who have yet to begin.

Learn about women’s roles in the U.S. civil rights struggles of the 1890s to the 1990s.

You cannot properly understand current world events without understanding the history of the 20th Century. This topic takes us on a journey from the end of Imperialism through two world wars and the Cold War and brings us to our modern world. Empires before World War I. German and Italian Empires in 1914. Alliances leading to World War I. Language and religion of the former Yugoslavia. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. The Great War begins. Causes of World War I. Blockades, u-boats and sinking of the Lusitania. Zimmermann Telegram. United States enters World War I. Wilson's war message to Congress -- April 2, 1917. 1917 speech by Senator George Norris in opposition to American entry. WWI Blockades and America. Schlieffen Plan and the First Battle of the Marne. Comparing the Eastern and Western Fronts in WWI. World War I Eastern Front. Battles of Verdun, Somme and the Hindenburg Line. Closing stages of World War I. Technology in World War I. Eastern and Western Fronts of World War I. Serbian and Macedonian Fronts. Serbian losses in World War I. Italy backs out of Triple Alliance. Italian front in World War I. Japan in World War I. Secondary fronts of WWI. Theodor Herzl and the birth of political Zionism. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration. Arabia after World War I. The Middle East during and after WWI. Gallipoli Campaign and ANZAC Day. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Armenian massacres before World War I. Young Turks and the Armenians. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish War for Independence. Ottoman Empire and birth of Turkey . Deaths in World War I. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles. More detail on the Treaty of Versailles and Germany. Arabia after World War I. WWI Aftermath. World War I. Initial rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and the Nazis come to power. Night of the Long Knives. Nazi Aggression and Appeasement. Rise of Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Mussolini becomes Prime Minister. Mussolini becomes absolute dictator (Il Duce). Mussolini aligns with Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Overview of Chinese History 1911 - 1949. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions. Empires before World War I. German and Italian Empires in 1914. Alliances leading to World War I. Language and religion of the former Yugoslavia. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. The Great War begins. Causes of World War I. Blockades, u-boats and sinking of the Lusitania. Zimmermann Telegram. United States enters World War I. Wilson's war message to Congress -- April 2, 1917. 1917 speech by Senator George Norris in opposition to American entry. WWI Blockades and America. Schlieffen Plan and the First Battle of the Marne. Comparing the Eastern and Western Fronts in WWI. World War I Eastern Front. Battles of Verdun, Somme and the Hindenburg Line. Closing stages of World War I. Technology in World War I. Eastern and Western Fronts of World War I. Serbian and Macedonian Fronts. Serbian losses in World War I. Italy backs out of Triple Alliance. Italian front in World War I. Japan in World War I. Secondary fronts of WWI. Theodor Herzl and the birth of political Zionism. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration. Arabia after World War I. The Middle East during and after WWI. Gallipoli Campaign and ANZAC Day. Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia Campaigns. Armenian massacres before World War I. Young Turks and the Armenians. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish War for Independence. Ottoman Empire and birth of Turkey . Deaths in World War I. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles. More detail on the Treaty of Versailles and Germany. Arabia after World War I. WWI Aftermath. World War I. Initial rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and the Nazis come to power. Night of the Long Knives. Nazi Aggression and Appeasement. Rise of Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Mussolini becomes Prime Minister. Mussolini becomes absolute dictator (Il Duce). Mussolini aligns with Hitler. Fascism and Mussolini. Overview of Chinese History 1911 - 1949. Communism. Korean War Overview. Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam War. Allende and Pinochet in Chile. Pattern of US Cold War Interventions.

Sumerian Art: Standard of Ur. Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone. Ancient Rome. Ara Pacis. Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Charlemagne: An Introduction (1 of 2). Charlemagne and the Carolingian Revival (part 2 of 2). Coronation Mantle. Sumerian Art: Standard of Ur. Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone. Ancient Rome. Ara Pacis. Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Charlemagne: An Introduction (1 of 2). Charlemagne and the Carolingian Revival (part 2 of 2). Coronation Mantle.

This course focuses on traditional nature writing and the environmentalist essay. Students will keep a Web log as a journal. Writings are drawn from the tradition of nature writing and from contemporary forms of the environmentalist essay.

In this course we will read essays, novels, memoirs, and graphic texts, and view documentary and experimental films and videos which explore race from the standpoint of the multiracial. Examining the varied work of multiracial authors and filmmakers such as Danzy Senna, Ruth Ozeki, Kip Fulbeck, James McBride and others, we will focus not on how multiracial people are seen or imagined by the dominant culture, but instead on how they represent themselves. How do these authors approach issues of family, community, nation, language and history? What can their work tell us about the complex interconnections between race, gender, class, sexuality, and citizenship? Is there a relationship between their experiences of multiraciality and a willingness to experiment with form and genre? In addressing these and other questions, we will endeavor to think and write more critically and creatively about race as a social category and a lived experience.

MIT students bring rich cultural backgrounds to their college experience. This course explores the splits, costs, confusions, insights, and opportunities of living in two traditions, perhaps without feeling completely at home in either. Course readings include accounts of growing up Asian-American, Hispanic, Native American, and South-East Asian-American, and of mixed race. The texts include selections from Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Kesaya E. Noda's "Growing Up Asian in America," Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek, Gary Soto's "Like Mexicans," Sherman Alexie's The Toughest Indian in the World, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, the movies Smoke Signals and Mississippi Masala, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, and others. We will also use students' writings as ways to investigate our multiple identities, exploring the constraints and contributions of cultural and ethnic traditions. Students need not carry two passports in order to enroll; an interest in reading and writing about being shaped by multiple influences suffices.

In this era of globalization, many of us have multi- or bi-cultural, multilingual or bilingual backgrounds, and even if we don't have such a background, we need urgently to understand the experiences of people who do. You will very likely work outside the United States at some point in your future; you will almost certainly work with people who speak more than one language, whose ancestry or origins are in a country other than the U.S., who have crossed borders of nation, language, culture, class to amalgamate into the large and diverse culture that is America. In this class we will read the personal narratives of bilingual and bicultural writers, some of whom have struggled to assimilate, others of whom have celebrated their own contributions to a culture of diversity. You will write four personal essays of your own for the class, each of which will receive workshop discussion in class and response from me; you will then revise the essays to polish them for possible publication. One of your essays will be an investigative one, where you will focus on a subject of your choice, investigate it thoroughly, and then write with authority about it. The process of the class will encourage you to both improve your writing significantly and gain a greater understanding of experiences of people who are in some way like you as well as those who are in some way different.

The reading and writing for this course will focus on what it means to construct a sense of self and a life narrative in relation to the larger social world of family and friends, education, media, work, and community. Readings will include nonfiction and fiction works by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Andre Dubus, Anne Frank, Tim O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Alice Walker. Students will explore the craft of storytelling and the multiple ways in which one can employ the tools of fiction in crafting creative nonfiction and fiction narratives.

This course is an examination of the formal structural and textual variety in poetry. Students engage in extensive practice in the making of poems and the analysis of both students' manuscripts and 20th-century poetry. The course attempts to make relevant the traditional elements of poetry and their contemporary alternatives. There are weekly writing assignments, including some exercises in prosody.

This course is an introduction to the short story. Students will write stories and short descriptive sketches. Students will read great short stories and participate in class discussions of students' writing and the assigned stories in their historical and social contexts.

This is a course focused on the literary genre of the essay, that wide-ranging, elastic, and currently very popular form that attracts not only nonfiction writers but also fiction writers, poets, scientists, physicians, and others to write in the form, and readers of every stripe to read it. Some say we are living in era in which the essay is enjoying a renaissance; certainly essays, both short and long, are at present easier to get published than are short stories or novels, and essays are featured regularly and prominently in the mainstream press (both magazines and newspapers) and on the New York Times bestseller books list. But the essay has a history, too, a long one, which goes back at least to the sixteenth-century French writer Montaigne, generally considered the progenitor of the form. It will be our task, and I hope our pleasure, to investigate the possibilities of the essay together this semester, both by reading and by writing.

Environmentalists have traditionally relied upon the power of their prose to transform the thoughts and behavior of their contemporaries. In this class, we will do our best to follow in their footsteps. We will consider the strategies of popular science writers, lesser-known geologists, biologists, and hydrologists, and famous environmentalists. Students will have a chance to try out several ways of characterizing and explaining natural environments. Weekly writing exercises will help students develop and explore material for the longer papers.

This course focuses on the period between roughly 1550-1850. American ideas of race had taken on a certain shape by the middle of the nineteenth century, consolidated by legislation, economics, and the institution of chattel slavery. But both race and identity meant very different things three hundred years earlier, both in their dictionary definitions and in their social consequences. How did people constitute their identities in early America, and how did they speak about these identities? Texts will include travel writing, captivity narratives, orations, letters, and poems, by Native American, English, Anglo-American, African, and Afro-American writers.