Build up your management skills through free courses from world-renowned universities through the Coursera platform. The following are some programmes which will be commencing soon:
Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations
– Vanderbilt University. Commencing on 1 July 2014.
This course is intended to help you improve your ability to manage creativity, innovation and change in business, education, healthcare, government, and in any other complex organization or institution by diagnosing potential innovation failures before they can occur. Using an “innovation constraints” framework that draws on modern social science research and on insights from business practice, participants will learn how to best manage people (be they co-workers, bosses, customers, clients, friends or any other stakeholders) when innovation is the goal. While we see several examples of technological innovation, we are not focused on the management of technology. Instead, we focus on something much more powerful: understanding and managing the people engaged in creation, innovation and positive change, regardless of the context.
The approach in this class is to treat innovation as the process of generating, assessing, and then implementing useful and valuable ideas. As we will discuss, generating ideas is relatively easy; what can be hard is getting those ideas listened to, accepted, and implemented in organizations. In addition to learning how to lead creative people and creative teams, participants will also learn techniques for improving their own creativity. During the course you will engage numerous activities and exercises intended to bring current habits of thought and behavior to the surface for examination and change.
This nine-week course will require 6-8 hours of work per week. If you take up the Verified Certificate (US$49.00) version, you will usually have to complete some required work and receive a certificate upon completion of all the conditions.
Introduction to Communication Science
– University of Amsterdam. Commencing on 2 July 2014.
Since Antiquity, scholars have appreciated the importance of communication: as social beings, we cannot exist without communication. We need to interact with people around us, to make sense of the world and to position ourselves in a wider social and cultural reality. In this course, we look at how and why communication evolved as a science and reflect on today’s dominant paradigms. The course also extends beyond the boundaries of communication science itself, exploring dimensions of history, sociology and psychology. It explores some of the basic theories, models and concepts from the fields of mass, interpersonal and intrapersonal communication. It begins with a consideration of several basic models, progressing to the history of communication theory, linear effect-oriented theories, the reception approach and, finally, exploring theories on the production and reinforcement of culture through communication.
This seven-week course will require 3-5 hours of work per week
Questionnaire Design for Social Surveys
– University of Michigan. Commencing on 7 July 2014.
This course covers the basic elements of designing and evaluating questionnaires. It reviews the process of responding to questions, challenges and options for asking questions about behavioral frequencies, practical techniques for evaluating questions, mode specific questionnaire characteristics, and review methods of standardized and conversational interviewing.
This six-week course will require 2-4 hours of work per week.
Creativity, Innovation and Change
– Pennsylvnia State University. Commencing on 14 July 2014.
This course takes an experiential learning approach to driving creative change. Discover creative uniqueness through Creative Diversity, use Intelligent Fast Failure to build innovative skills and apply CENTER principles to drive personal change.
This six-week course will require 3-5 hours of work per week. If you take up the Verified Certificate (US$39.00) version, you will usually have to complete some required work and receive a certificate upon completion of all the conditions.
Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information
– The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Commencing on 14 July 2014.
Metadata is a tool that enables the information age functions performed by humans as well as those performed by computers. This course approaches Metadata from the perspective of Information Science, which is a broad interdisciplinary field that studies how people create and manage information.
This eight-week course will require 4-6 hours of work per week. If you take up the Verified Certificate (US$49.00) version, you will usually have to complete some required work and receive a certificate upon completion of all the conditions.
Copyright for Educators & Librarians
– Duke University, Emory University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Commencing on 21 July 2014.
This course is meant to demystify the copyright law and help educators and librarians do their jobs more effectively. Specific examples of copyright questions that arise in education will be included. The course will also introduce a framework for analyzing copyright questions that participants can use to consider the specific issues they encounter, and will work with real life examples.
This four-week course will require 2-3 hours of work per week. If you take up the Verified Certificate (US$49.00) version, you will usually have to complete some required work and receive a certificate upon completion of all the conditions.