After having followed Privacy in the Western world you have become acquainted with the overall global legal system and the origins of privacy as a concept as well as privacy as a (human) right. This course deals with the American legal system to protect privacy.
In the USA privacy is protected through different legal concepts. Constitutional protection through the 4th Amendment plays a crucial role in protecting the US citizen against unjust governmental intrusion. As part of a myriad of consumer protection laws (e.g. health, financial) personal data is also protected. And last but not least there are a number of specific laws dealing with the (privacy) protection of all sorts of communications, such as mobile telephony, e-mail, online searches, etc.
The course deals with the main legal concepts in such a way that the learner will, after having successfully completed the course, be able to follow the legal developments in the USA.
We hope you enjoy the course!
Data ScienceData Analysis
Quantitative Text Analysis and Evaluating Lexical Style in R
By the end of this project, you will learn about the concept of lexical style in textual analysis in R. You will know how to load and pre-process a data set of text documents by converting the data set into a corpus and document feature matrix. You will know how to calculate the type to token ration which evaluates the level of complexity of a text, and know how to isolate terms of particular lexical interest in a text and visualize the variation in frequency of such terms in texts over time.
Social SciencesEconomics
The Art and Science of Economic Policy
Economic policy affects every citizen. And economic policymaking is best done as a collaborative process with a wide range of stakeholders. This course brings an understanding of the relevance and impacts of economic policymaking in everyday life, and the ways for citizens to be involved in shaping economic policy, in an accessible and interesting manner. Taught by Dr. Vijay Kelkar and Dr. Ajay Shah, along with Aromar Revi, Director, IIHS, the course synthesises more than one hundred years of their combined experience as professional economists and public intellectuals.
This course can be covered across 5 weeks with 3-5 hours of learning per week. To get the best out of the course, learners are encouraged to view all the video lectures and conversations, go through other learning material, work on all the assignments and assessments, and participate in discussions in a constructive and respectful manner.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
~ Identify the role of the government in defining and implementing policy
~ Recognise the various objective aspects of policymaking, and appreciate the various softer / people aspects involved
~ Analyse the steps involved in the process of policymaking, and discuss various nuances and challenges in defining and implementing it
Each citizen plays an important role in shaping our Republic. This course enables citizens, public servants and learners to understand the implications of various aspects of governing a Republic.
If you are a student of economics, public policy, law, political science, and/or management, this course will explain the process of economic policy-making and inform you about the complex systems involved in its creation and implementation.
If you are a public servant in Indian Civil Services involved in public finance and economics, this course will help you gain deeper insights into topics and practices surrounding the design of economic public policy. UPSC aspirants will likewise benefit from the insights and by participating in the discussions the course offers.
Employees and leaders in the private sector who will benefit from having a more nuanced understanding of economic policy and development will also find this course very educational and informative.
We look forward to having you on the course!
Social SciencesLaw
Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part II - Maximize Social Wellbeing
If you really care about the big questions in the economies and societies of the 21st century, such as distributive justice - namely, inequality of income or wealth, and its correlation with economic growth - this course is meant for you. The knowledge you will gain can truly change your outlook on our world.
"Economic Growth and Distributive Justice - Maximizing Social Wellbeing" is the second part of a two part course and it includes the following five lectures:
(1) The excess burden of taxation
(2) Tax incidence: who bears the economic burden of tax?
(3) Progressivity: definition and ways to achieve
(4) Low Income, Low Ability and the Optimal Income Tax Model
(5) Designing the Tax and Transfer System that Maximizes Social Wellbeing
If you haven't done that already, we strongly recommend that you register for the first part of the course: "Economic Growth and Distributive Justice - the Role of the State". Taking both parts of the course would enable you to obtain a fuller and more comprehensive knowledge about Economic Growth and Distributed Justice.
The course is founded upon the elemental idea that the role of the state is to maximize the well-being - or simply the happiness - of its residents. In 9 fascinating, edifying lessons, using only simple words and decoding professional terminologies that sometimes baffle the intelligent layman, the course expounds many truths – both intuitive and unintuitive. Often using examples from the US and Europe, it does not however focus on policies in any particular region of the world, and is directly applicable to all countries around the globe.
The course touches upon the essence of important concepts like efficiency and equity, inequality and poverty, gross domestic product, tax evasion and tax planning; it presents the work of Nobel Laureate James Mirrlees and his followers - promoting a coherent system that integrates tax and government expenditures to maximize social welfare; and illuminates a range of high-profile issues from their economic angle:
• Climate change: the atmosphere and oceans as public goods, and how smart (Pigovian) taxation can be used to combat the rapidly increasing threats to our planet;
• Technology as the engine of economic growth;
• Taxing the rich: How can we mitigate the growing inequality problem? Should we impose a global tax on capital?
The curriculum includes interviews with major figures in the fields of law and of economics: Harvard's Elhanan Helpman, Dan Shaviro from NYU and Richard Epstein from the University of Chicago and NYU.
After successfully completing this course, you can expect to be able to:
• better understand economic issues presented in the media
• form an informed opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of presented social economic policies
• define and measure inequality and poverty
• define the connection between inequality (income, wealth) and economic growth
• explain the foundations of economic growth
• design a tax and transfer system to maximize the happiness of individuals
All these will allow you to better understand the policies being developed around you, and to play a larger, more informed role in their development, as a conscientious citizen.
In order to receive academic credit for this course you must successfully pass the academic exam on campus. For information on how to register for the academic exam – https://tauonline.tau.ac.il/registration
Additionally, you can apply to certain degrees using the grades you received on the courses. Read more on this here –
https://go.tau.ac.il/b.a/mooc-acceptance
Teachers interested in teaching this course in their class rooms are invited to explore our Academic High school program here – https://tauonline.tau.ac.il/online-highschool
This course is a direct extension of the first part "Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part I -The Role of the State", so if you have not yet taken it, we highly recommend you start your learning from there (https://www.coursera.org/learn/economic-growth-part-1/home/welcome).
This course will temporarily close for enrollment from March 1st, 2022 to August 31st, 2022. During this time, the course will be closed for new enrolments. All of the course materials will continue to be able available to previously enrolled learners; however, the course staff will not provide support in the Discussion Forums during this period.
Best,
The Tel Aviv University Team
Data ScienceData Analysis
Doing Economics: Measuring Climate Change
This course will give you practical experience in working with real-world data, with applications to important policy issues in today’s society. Each week, you will learn specific data handling skills in Excel and use these techniques to analyse climate change data, with appropriate readings to provide background information on the data you are working with. You will also learn about the consequences of climate change and how governments can address this issue.
After completing this course, you should be able to:
• Understand how data can be used to assess the extent of climate change
• Produce appropriate bar charts, line charts, and scatterplots to visualise data
• Calculate and interpret summary statistics (mean, median, variance, percentile, correlation)
• Explain the challenges with designing and implementing policies that address climate change
No prior knowledge in economics or statistics is required for this course. No knowledge of Excel is required, except a familiarity with the interface and how to enter and clear data.
Social SciencesGovernance And Society
Large Marine Ecosystems: Assessment and Management
Focusing on the Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of the world, this course will introduce the concept and practice of ecosystem-based management. LMEs occupy areas of coastal ocean at least 200 000 km² or greater in size. These coastal waters produce 12.6 trillion USD in ecosystem goods and services annually and are vitally important for billions of people around the globe.
Because LMEs are bounded by ocean features and are globally linked, management of human activities needs to occur in an integrated fashion across political boundaries and economic sectors (e.g. fishing, shipping, energy, tourism, and mining.) This represents a new type of management approached - shifting from single sector-based to multi-sector assessment and management within the spatial domain of the world's 66 Large Marine Ecosystems. There is global high-level support for this new approach and in this course, we will introduce the concepts and tools for assessing and managing LMEs.
Together, leaders and experts in a global movement to recover and sustain the goods and services of LMEs will introduce you to the mechanisms used for assessment (Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis), planning and implementation (Strategic Action Programme). Based on recent activities in implementation and practice of the LME approach in 22 projects around the globe, we will showcase examples of effective management at this scale, and highlight the challenges and issues. By the end of the online course, we hope you will be able to actively use this knowledge to advance sustainable development of the world’s oceans.
The course was created with the support and input of: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), UNESCO-IOC and IW:LEARN.
Social SciencesGovernance And Society
Financing Infrastructure in African Cities
The world is urbanizing fast. In less than a century more than 1 billion people have been urbanized. That translates into the fact that more than half of the world’s population is already living in cities. Experts forecast that very soon Africa will become one of the most urbanized continents. However, almost 70% of world’s urban population is living in the cities where governments are struggling to provide basic services like sanitation, schools, hospitals, and adequate clean water.
The reason is that, their governments do not have enough money. This may also be true also for the city where you live or work. Poor infrastructure affects your daily life. Local governments struggle with mobilizing finances so that they can improve your quality of life but many times they are not aware of the right mechanisms.
Imagine that your government wants to know how can they finance cities and they want you to advise – where will you begin with? Our finance experts are bringing their experience right at your Desk through this MOOC. This MOOC has five modules and in five weeks you will learn:
• Financial decision making environment in urban systems
• Mechanisms for mobilizing local revenues
• Innovative mechanisms for financing infrastructure projects through partnerships, and
• Financial decision making under uncertainties and risks
We will provide you a carefully selected set of literature, quizzes and interactive discussion forums. So join our MOOC and find out the ways to make your city a better place to live in for yourself and for your next generations.
(This MOOC was developed in collaboration with the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-Africa), African Local Governments Academy (ALGA), and Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Social SciencesEducation
Building Scratch and Read Activities with Seesaw
By the end of this project, you will have taken your Seesaw skills to the next level. This project is meant for those who have already started to use Seesaw with their students and are looking for ways to enhance student learning through Seesaw Activities. If you are looking for ways to engage your tech-savvy students, regardless of their age, Seesaw is a wonderful tool to use. As we learn together, you will create a Scratch and Read activity template in Microsoft PowerPoint that can be customized to use with your students right away as a Seesaw Activity.
Social SciencesGovernance And Society
African cities : An Introduction to Urban Planning
This course teached the basics of urban planning in Africa through technical, environmental, social and economical dimensions.
It focuses on African cities only. Although, they exemplify well cities in the Global South, and potentially all cities, we will make the African context highly topical.
The course is provided by the Urban and Regional community at the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). More information can be found here https://ceat.epfl.ch/
BusinessLeadership And Management
Attracting and Sourcing Diverse Candidates
It is during the shortlisting and interviewing processes, which are typically undertaken by a single panel, that candidates most often report being unfairly assessed during recruitment efforts. In this situation, it is often revealed that personal characteristics, such as age, gender, or race, rather than relevant characteristics, such as skills and experience, fed into a particular decision about who to hire.
In this module, you will learn how unconscious bias can affect the shortlisting and interview processes. You will become familiar with various practical strategies and techniques to forward a fair and merit-based assessment of all candidates.
This course represents 'Part 2' of the two-part Diversity and Inclusion Recruitment Strategy series offered by the University of Western Australia. It is also one of four that comprise the Recruiting for Diversity and Inclusion Specialization.
Complete all four courses to gain an in-depth understanding of this fascinating and important topic.
Language LearningLearning English
Writing your World: Finding yourself in the academic space
Throughout the world, writing serves to express, record and even create meaningful moments. In academic spaces, writing becomes the bridge between ourselves and the world of ideas. In this course, we provide practical insights into how to write an academic essay. We show you how to develop the academic skills needed to be a competent academic writer. You will have an opportunity to engage with texts written by academics, and to see how some of the ideas in these texts are used by students in constructing an academic essay. We address some of the challenges these students face with respect to academic writing and offer you the opportunity to practice and to develop your own writing style. For this course, we centre our lessons around a specific topic - the concept of identity, since it forms such an important feature of how we locate ourselves in an ever-changing global world. In other words, this course teaches academic writing skills through getting you to write and reflect on your understanding of identity. So if you are thinking about studying at a tertiary institution, or if you just want to brush up on your academic essay writing skills, this course is for you!
Life SciencesPublic Health
Air Pollution – a Global Threat to our Health
We all have to breathe to live. But the air we breathe is polluted both outdoors and indoors. Each year, this pollution costs 7 million lives across the globe – and a lot of suffering. 1 in 8 deaths is due to air pollution. This course will provide you with an introduction to the most recent research in the field of health effects of air pollution as well as a broader understanding of sources and spread of air pollution and what we should do about it.
What is air pollution? What are the sources? How and where are we exposed outdoors and indoors? What happens in the body? Which diseases are the result? Who are the most vulnerable? How can we assess the effects of air pollution? And what should we do to reach the Sustainable Development Goal to “substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution”? These are some of the important questions we will address in the course.
During the course you will meet researchers and experts from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark. They work with different aspects of air pollution and health: toxicology, exposure assessment, epidemiology, engineering and health impact assessment. It is a global responsibility to combat the health impacts of air pollution, and this fight can only be won through new knowledge and global collaboration.
We hope you will join us in the course and equip yourself to take part in this global and individual health challenge.
