Online courses directory (682)

Jeff Hawkins is the co-founder of Palm and Handspring and is the architect of many computing products such as the PalmPilot and the Treo smartphone. In this course he will take you on a journey through his career, how he became an entrepreneur and the importance of believing in your product. He teaches valuable lessons about the importance of experience, following your passions and how to keep a work/life balance. He discusses how to design successful products, the role of market research and the need to continuously test products. In terms of the company workplace, he talks about how a good business culture and a strong human resources policy are vital. You will also learn about the importance and inevitability of portable technology. This course will be of great interest to business professionals who will learn much from the experience, knowledge and wisdom Jeff Hawkins has gained over his career. It will also be of interest to business students setting out on their careers, in particular those who would like to become technology entrepreneurs.<br />

This class discusses the economic aspects of current issues in education, using both economic theory and econometric and institutional readings. Topics include discussion of basic human capital theory, the growing impact of education on earnings and earnings inequality, statistical issues in determining the true rate of return to education, the labor market for teachers, implications of the impact of computers on the demand for worker skills, the effectiveness of mid-career training for adult workers, the roles of school choice, charter schools, state standards and educational technology in improving K-12 education, and the issue of college financial aid.

This free online project management professional certification course from ALISON offers a comprehensive review of project management such as methodology, tool sets and documentation, and the project life cycle including analysis, planning, design and evaluation. The course also includes a project management case study. <br /><br />With project management in great demand internationally, the diploma in project management course will greatly enhance your career prospects.<br />

Investment and tax principles are very important topics in finance and professionals who act as investment and taxation advisors must have a thorough knowledge and understanding of these areas. In this free online financial course you will learn more about risk-and-return concepts, capital markets and explore various aspects of taxation such as understanding what tax deductions are and how to calculate the upper and lower bounds on forward settlement prices. This course will be of great interest to financial and business professionals who would like a greater understanding of investment and taxation practices and procedures, and to learners who would like to learn more about these fundamental areas of finance.

Good customer service is vital for all businesses, large or small. It can have a direct impact on customer loyalty and where potential customers choose to spend their money. Simply put, the higher quality customer service you provide, the higher level of customer satisfaction you will enjoy, and that will translate into repeat business and more revenue.<br /><br />This free online course from ALISON introduces the basic concepts of customer service and dives into effective customer service techniques and practices. It will benefit anyone who deals directly with a business or organization’s customers.<br /><br />Gain thorough knowledge and understanding of customer service practices and become confident in handling enquiries, complaints, and communications.<br />

Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, defines entrepreneurship by looking to the roots of the F

Topics include productivity effects of health, private and social returns to education, education quality, education policy and market equilibrium, gender discrimination, public finance, decision making within families, firms and contracts, technology, labor and migration, land, and the markets for credit and savings.

The focus of this course is on financial theory and empirical evidence for making investment decisions. Topics include: portfolio theory; equilibrium models of security prices (including the capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory); the empirical behavior of security prices; market efficiency; performance evaluation; and behavioral finance.

This course is an advanced topics course on market and mechanism design. We will study existing or new market institutions, understand their properties, and think about whether they can be re-engineered or improved. Topics discussed include mechanism design, auction theory, one-sided matching in house allocation, two-sided matching, stochastic matching mechanisms, student assignment, and school choice.

Elizabeth Slavitt. Marcos Ojeda. Minli Virdone. Jessica Yuen. Elizabeth Slavitt. Marcos Ojeda. Minli Virdone. Jessica Yuen.

This course examines the opportunities and risks firms face in today's global world. The course provides conceptual tools for analyzing how governments and a variety of social and economic institutions influence competition among firms embedded in different national settings. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytic readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets.  In addition to traditional case/class discussions, this course will include some presentations by various guest speakers. The hope is that greater exposure to/interaction with these real-world practitioners will "bring to life" some of the issues discussed in the readings/cases. Whenever possible, informal dinners and/or coffees will be organized for small groups of students interested in meeting with our guest speakers.

Joe Liemandt, founder, CEO and chairman of Trilogy, talks about why entrepreneurship is something everyone needs to do i

Financial institutions are a pillar of civilized society, supporting people in their productive ventures and managing the economic risks they take on. The workings of these institutions are important to comprehend if we are to predict their actions today and their evolution in the coming information age. The course strives to offer understanding of the theory of finance and its relation to the history, strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century.

Financial Management studies corporate finance and capital markets, emphasizing the financial aspects of managerial decisions. It touches on all areas of finance, including the valuation of real and financial assets, risk management and financial derivatives, the trade-off between risk and expected return, and corporate financing and dividend policy. The course draws heavily on empirical research to help guide managerial decisions.

This is a course for those who are interested in the challenge posed by massive and persistent world poverty, and are hopeful that economists might have something useful to say about this challenge. The questions we will take up include: Is extreme poverty a thing of the past? What is economic life like when living under a dollar per day? Why do some countries grow fast and others fall further behind? Does growth help the poor? Are famines unavoidable? How can we end child labor—or should we? How do we make schools work for poor citizens? How do we deal with the disease burden? Is micro finance invaluable or overrated? Without property rights, is life destined to be "nasty, brutish and short"? Has globalization been good to the poor? Should we leave economic development to the market? Should we leave economic development to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Does foreign aid help or hinder? Where is the best place to intervene?

In this course, we will seek to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution: firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail are analogous to organisms struggling for survival in nature. For this reason, it is less concerned with ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit our more specific objectives--for the natural environment, public health, alleviation of poverty, and development of human potential in every child. Each book we read will be explicitly or implicitly an argument about good and bad consequences of capitalism.

Negotiation and Conflict Management presents negotiation theory – strategies and styles – within an employment context. 15.667 meets only eleven times, with a different topic each week, which is why students should commit to attending all classes. In addition to the theory and exercises presented in class, students practice negotiating with role-playing simulations that cover a range of topics. Students also learn how to negotiate in difficult situations, which include abrasiveness, racism, sexism, whistle-blowing, and emergencies. The course covers conflict management as a first party and as a third party: third-party skills include helping others deal directly with their conflicts, mediation, investigation, arbitration, and helping the system change as a result of a dispute.

Learning and grading in 15.667 is based on: readings, simulations and class discussions, four self-assessments, your analysis of the negotiations of others, writing each week in your journal, and writing three Little Papers.

In this course, students develop and polish communication strategies and methods through discussion, examples, and practice with an emphasizes on writing and speaking skills necessary for effective leaders. The course includes several oral and written assignments which are integrated with other subjects, and with career development activities, when possible.

This course is part of the MBA core and is restricted to first-year Sloan graduate students. Find out more about the Sloan MBA core on OCW.

Personal financial debt can be a source of great anxiety and worry for many people, and it can be difficult to know where to start when you want to take control of your financial debts. This free online course helps you get started on the road to reducing your personal financial debts and becoming debt free. The course offers you a clear way of understanding exactly how much money you owe and to whom by setting up a debt spreadsheet, how to contact credit card companies to request a break on interest rates, how to prioritise which debt to pay off first, what strategy you should use to pay off debts based on minimum monthly payments or highest interest rates charged, and how to implement an emergency debt elimination plan if needed. This course will be of great interest to personal finance professionals who work with people who find themselves in financial difficulty and to anyone who wants clear guidance on how to reduce their personal financial debts and become debt free.<br />

eBay is now a household name as during the past decade it has become the world’s leading online marketplace. eBay allows anyone sit in their living room and buy and sell for their pleasure or as a business. In this free online course we get an insight into the workings of how eBay was born as a company, how they managed the creative processes as well as their marketing strategies. Along with eBay there is also a discussion about PayPal, created by the team at eBay to function as their payment scheme for customers but which is now the world’s leading online payments company. The course also reviews their acquisitions projects, the successes and failures experienced by the company, potential growth sectors and the future of eBay and PayPal. This course will be of great interest to all business and marketing professionals, and budding entrepreneurs who would like learn how a world-class company like eBay grew and prospered.<br />