Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are becoming more abundant as colleges and universities partner with education technology companies such as Coursera, edX, Udacity and Academic Room to take lectures to the Web.
MOOCs allow students to enroll in the same courses that universities offer in lecture halls from the comfort of a Web browser. Students can then receive certificates of achievement or completion upon earning a passing grade. Classes such as Game Theory, offered by Coursera, and Academic Room’s Environmental Politics and Law have start and end dates like traditional face-to-face courses, related readings and quizzes.
Education Dive looked over their course catalogs and picked out some of the most interesting courses that are making the MOOC transition.
1. GAME THEORY
Offered by: Coursera
Offered When: TBA
With basic knowledge of calculus and mathematical arguments, students should be able to enjoy this introduction to game theory. The class introduces students to game theory in the following capacitates: games and strategies, the extensive-form game, Bayesian games, and repeated and stochastic games. The course, taught by Stanford professors Matthew O. Jackson and Yoav SHoham, features 8-12 minute video lectures complete with both integrated and standalone quizzes. The course reaches beyond the colloquial usage of game which covers chess and poker, and dives into modeling international conflict, business competition, and political campaigns. Students will receive a statement of accomplishment after completing the class.
2. NETWORKS: FRIENDS, MONEY, AND BYTES
Offered by: Coursera
Offered when: Sept. 17
Princeton professor Mung Chiang’s course attempts to answer 20 questions about wireless and the web in the context of Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Ericcson, HP, Skype and AT&T products. Knowledge of linear algebra and multivariable calculus is preferred for this bi-weekly course. Each lecture, about 75 minutes in length, answers one of the 20 questions, and the course features weekly assignments, midterm and final exams, blogging, and wiki-creation projects. Questions include “Why does Wikipedia even work?” “Why doesn’t the Internet collapse under congestion?” and “How do I viralize a YouTube video and tip a Groupon deal?”
3. KNOW THYSELF
Offered by: Coursera
Offered When: TBA
This philosophy course attempts to unravel the meaning behind and significance of the injunction “know thyself” from philosophic, psychoanalytic, experimental psychological, neuroscientific, aesthetic and Buddhist perspectives. Professor Mitchell Green of the University of Virginia will lead students to explore what self-knowledge is, and why it is, or should be, considered an indication of wisdom. Green will pull readings from contemporary texts, and classical Western and non-Western sources. Given the nature of the course, Green hopes he and class enrollees will “become students of our own dreams,” developing meditative and contemplative practices.
4. PH207X: HEALTH IN NUMBERS: QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN CLINICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH
Offered by: edX
Offered when: Oct. 15
Most non-math students are inclined to fulfill their Quantitative Reasoning requirements in their first year and never revisit the topic in isolation, but who says QR can’t be useful. This course, an adaptation of epidemiology and biostatistics courses at Harvard’s School of Public Health, employs QR principles to find patterns from health data of a sample population and make educated inferences about health-related characteristics of a larger unobserved population. The course, taught by Professors Earl Francis Cook and Marcello Pagano, aims to familiarize students with confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, probability and diagnostic testing, sample survey techniques, and other methods geared towards observing and improving the public’s health.
5. 6.00x: INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE AND PROGRAMMING
Offered by: edX
Offered when: Oct. 1
Students proficient in high school algebra, a sound grasp of mathematical concepts, and the need or desire to “bend the computer at their will” should take this course. Offered by MIT professors John Guttag, Christ Terman, and Eric Grimson, this class briefly yet rigorously introduces students to using computation to solve real-life problems. Students without programming experience are encouraged to take the course, as well as those taking the class as a prerequisite portal into more advanced computer programming principles. All who pass the class will receive a certificate of completion from MITx.
6. JUSTICE:WHAT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO?
Offered by: Academic Room
Offered when: anytime
One of Harvard’s most popular courses—Justice—is now available online for free. The 12-lecture course forces students to consider moral dilemmas from multiple perspectives. Bearing in mind the fundamental question, “What’s the right thing to do?,” Harvard professor Michael Sandel challenges students to alter their opinions in light of a new scenario, and grays what people often consider black-and-white issues. The course addresses today’s relevant topics such as same-sex marriage, affirmative action and rights. Included in each lecture are readings and discussion prompts.
7. ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS AND LAW
Offered by: Academic Room
Offered when: anytime
This course, taught by Yale professor John Wargo and recorded for Open Yale Courses in 2010, now reaches an even wider audience with Academic Room’s online platform. The class discusses environmental politics and law through observing and studying case histories. Case topics include environmental effects of national security, hazardous site restoration, parks and protected area management, drinking water standards, and numerous other relevant hot-topics. Each of the 24 YouTube lecture videos is about 50 minutes in length, and attempts to answer the question, “Can law change human behavior to be less environmentally damaging?”
8. HEMINGWAY, FITZGERALD, FAULKNER
Offered by: Academic Room
Offered when: anytime
Yale professor Wai Dimock teaches this 25-lecture course which examines major works by 20th century authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner. The class aims to make connections between the three authors considering “the macro history of the United States and the world, the formal and stylistic innovations of modernism; and the small details of sensory input and psychic life.” Dimock’s class pushes students to think critically about Classic texts such as Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby" in relation to other pieces of literature and with a greater context in mind.
9. APPLIED CRYPTOGRAPHY (CS387): SCIENCE OF SECRETS
Offered by: Udacity
Offered when: anytime
University of Virginia professor David Evans and California Institute of Technology computer science student Shayan Doroudi teach Applied Cryptography, a Udacity course dedicated to familiarizing students with encoding and decoding information. Students will learn to make and break puzzles. The ideal student has prior programming experience and a reasonable grasp of probability and theory of computation and algorithm analysis. From Unit 1: Perfect Ciphers, which covers what makes a perfect cipher, to the final Unit 7: Secure Computaton, a discussion of computing without revealing data, students in this class will explore the use, or misuse, of cryptography and learn how to make and break computing puzzles.
10. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (CS373): PROGRAMMING A ROBOTIC CAR
Offered by: Udacity
Offered when: anytime
This course, taught by Sebastian Thrun, a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, teaches students to program major systems of a robotic car. Methods of Artificial Intelligence, in the context of robotics, covered in the class include probabilistic inference, localization and tracking and control. Using detailed programming examples, course participants will complete assignments that will serve as a guide for practical application in building self-driving cars. Students should be able to read and use Python programing language and have a reasonable aptitude for probability and linear algebra.
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