Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest state-supported institutions of higher education on the West Coast and is one of the preeminent research universities in the world.
*Note - This is an Archived course*This is a past/archived course. At this time, you can only explore this course in a self-paced fashion. Certain features of this course may not be active, but many people enjoy watching the videos and working with the materials. Make sure to check for reruns of this course.Composites are used in many industries today to enable high-performance products at economic advantage. These industries range from space to sports and include manufactured products for aircraft, transportation, energy, construction, sports, marine, and medical use. There are many material, economic and aesthetic advantages to using composites, but a solid knowledge of the physical properties, including the mechanics, tooling, design, inspection & repair, and manufacturing options is required for working in this medium as they are intrinsically linked.This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of composite materials for high performance structures from the point of view of Aerospace engineering design, manufacturing, and repair. It is designed to address critical areas of composite technologies that focus on materials, manufacturing, mechanics, design, inspection, and repair. In this course students will learn how composite materials achieve properties of strength, weight ratios and durability that surpass aluminum in aircraft design. For these high performance applications engineers typically rely on laminated structures, which are built up from many varying layers of ply-materials. Using this process the mechanical properties of the composite part can be tailored to specific applications resulting in significant weight and cost savings. Tailoring specific properties and designing innovative laminate structures highlights the multidisciplinary nature of this industry and how it touches the expertise of many disciplines including engineers, mechanics, and inspection specialists.After successfully completing this course, students will be able to identify the unique characteristics of composites and understand how advanced composite structures are designed, manufactured and maintained. Who Can Take This Course?Unfortunately, learners from Iran, Sudan, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine will not be able to register for this course at the present time. While edX has received a license from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to offer courses to learners from Iran, Sudan and Cuba, our license does not cover this course. Separately, EdX has applied for a license to offer courses to learners in the Crimea region of Ukraine, but we are awaiting a determination from OFAC on that application. We are deeply sorry the U.S. government has determined that we have to block these learners, and we are working diligently to rectify this situation as soon as possible.
Examine the complex but critical concepts of sustainability and resilience, including a self-analysis of your environmental impact.What is sustainability, and how are we active participants in it? How does our individual ‘ecological footprint’ matter among the billions of humans’ footprints on earth? How are we alike and different in our impacts, depending on where we live; and how does civic and governmental attitude impact sustainability and resilience in the future? These questions will be explored on a global, local and personal level in this introductory course. Students will compare and contrast case studies from suburban Seattle to rural, mountainous China and consider their own significant impacts on ecology.Course Objectives:Utilize both ecological and cultural concepts to understand sustainability in our society while becoming aware of their role as local and global environmental citizens.Analyze how science and the political realm interact to shape our views of sustainabilityApply critical thinking to evaluate and participate in dialogue that influences our environmental practiceApply newly discovered self-knowledge about personal environmental impact to his or her place in a global communityAnalyze video case study of ecological impacts in China to make inferences about one’s own communityNOTE: The first five weeks of the course will be led by the instructor, after which enrollees can access all content and self-direct their learning through the course.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeIn the professional realm, we need to be able to argue without being argumentative. Whether you are fundraising for a nonprofit, pitching a business proposal, or suggesting a change to company policy, you are making arguments. In making the case for your topic, you often want to raise awareness, identify a pressing problem, discuss appropriate solutions, and outline specific steps for the audience. To be persuasive, you must be clear (the audience may have little to no existing knowledge), you must be convincing (you are trying to sway the audience that your argument is valid), and you must be compelling (you are trying to motivate the audience enough so that they want to take specific actions). Persuasive speaking thus requires clarity, strategy, topic mastery, plus a sense of style and presence. By the end of this course, you should be able to design persuasive speeches that address problems and solutions and that motivate audience members. You should be able to use rhetorical style strategically and deliver passionate and compelling speeches. Learners will record speeches, providing and receiving peer feedback.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeMachine learning algorithms can figure out how to perform important tasks by generalizing from examples. This is often feasible and cost-effective when manual programming is not. Machine learning (also known as data mining, pattern recognition and predictive analytics) is used widely in business, industry, science and government, and there is a great shortage of experts in it. If you pick up a machine learning textbook you may find it forbiddingly mathematical, but in this class you will learn that the key ideas and algorithms are in fact quite intuitive. And powerful!Most of the class will be devoted to supervised learning (in other words, learning in which a teacher provides the learner with the correct answers at training time). This is the most mature and widely used type of machine learning. We will cover the main supervised learning techniques, including decision trees, rules, instances, Bayesian techniques, neural networks, model ensembles, and support vector machines. We will also touch on learning theory with an emphasis on its practical uses. Finally, we will cover the two main classes of unsupervised learning methods: clustering and dimensionality reduction. Throughout the class there will be an emphasis not just on individual algorithms but on ideas that cut across them and tips for making them work.In the class projects you will build your own implementations of machine learning algorithms and apply them to problems like spam filtering, clickstream mining, recommender systems, and computational biology. This will get you as close to becoming a machine learning expert as you can in ten weeks!
This course is offered in an experimental format. Students are welcome to audit the course, and participate in all course activities. Certificates will not be issued.Many early childhood educators report feeling ill equipped to meet the needs of children with challenging behavior and frustrated in their attempts to develop safe and nurturing early learning environment. If you work with young children, you are not alone in your feelings! Increasing evidence suggests that an effective approach to addressing problem behavior is the adoption of a model that focuses on promoting social-emotional development, providing support for children’s appropriate behavior, and preventing challenging behavior. In this class, you will learn a framework for addressing the social and emotional development and challenging behavior of young children.The overarching goal of this course is to learn evidence-based practices to support the social and emotional development of infants and young children. We will read current research on the developmental trajectory of children with early-onset aggressive behaviors; positive behavior support program models; and intervention efforts that promote positive early childhood mental health. Evidence-based classroom management skills will also be studied and you will leave the course with a solid understanding of how to design supportive environments. This course incorporates a community with which you can learn from others, share your own current approaches and discuss your attempts to incorporate the learnings of this course into your early childhood practice.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeComputer networks from ISPs to WiFi and cellular networks are a key partof the information economy. These networks are the foundation for the Web,and they enable companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. This courseintroduces the fundamental problems of computer networking, from sendingbits over wires to running distributed applications. For each problem,we explore the design strategies that have proven valuable in practice.Topics include error detection and correction, multiple-access, bandwidthallocation, routing, internetworking, reliability, quality of service,naming, content delivery, and security. As we cover these topics, you willlearn how the internals of the Internet work to support the Web and othernetworked applications. You will develop a detailed understanding of widely-usednetworking technologies such as TCP/IP, HTTP, 802.11, Ethernet, and DNS.
The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in any given organization serves a leadership position, protecting the data and digital systems that a company’s employees as well as its customers depend upon.This course delves into the role that the CISO plays in cybersecurity operations.Throughout the lessons, learners will explore answers to the following questions: How does cybersecurity work across industries? What is the professionals' point of view? How do we keep information secure?Coursework will fully explore the CISO’s view from the top, as well as the position’s toolkit, which includes policy, procedures and practices, technologies, awareness training, and audit. It will also dive into the approaches taken in private industry, government, academia, and the military.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeIn the professional realm, most speeches and presentations we give are informative in scope. A scientist needs to explain her recent research findings. A financial officer needs to report on quarterly earnings to his company’s board. A technology professional needs to educate a consumer about a new product. Any time you need to convey ideas or demonstrate a process, you’re dealing with informative speaking.Informative speaking is a fun puzzle. You need to think from the perspective of your audience to identify what they need to hear in order to understand the key ideas. How much does the audience already know? What are the most important elements to convey? How should one convey these ideas with appropriate breadth and depth given the time constraints of the speech? This demands a strategic approach to speech design that we’ll undertake in this class.By the end of the course, you should be able to explain complex ideas vividly and accessibly, design clear and compelling presentation slides, convey your passion for a topic while maintaining your professional credibility, and speak dynamically from notes and/or a manuscript. Learners will record speeches, providing and receiving peer feedback.
This course has a focus on learning the most commonly used project management methodologies in the IT field, and why they are effective. This course introduces you to project management standards and frameworks that increase efficiency and deliver tangible business benefits to IT projects.Topics include:Relationships among projects, programs and portfoliosOrganizational culture and project management rolesProject management methods and lifecycles and their applications
This course will introduce participants to issues and concepts around the topic of ethical communication in media. Participants will examine social media and new technologies that influence ethical journalism. Lessons and course materials include evaluation of important ethical conflicts in the media.News media around the globe must balance a shared goal of providing truthful accounts for citizens with the pressures constantly applied by governments, business, religion and other social forces. A vocabulary and consensus about ethics has emerged in the past half century in countries relatively free of government control to guide news organizations in that balancing act. This course examines the idea of ethical communication, considers the pressures on ethical journalism because of social media and new technologies and places three important ethical conflicts in its spotlight: How can the truth be gathered and shared in rapidly changing circumstances? How can the news media honor fairness and justice when social forces challenge that goal? Can an institution that feeds on violence also play a role in minimizing harm?Course Objectives:identify an ethical dilemma, describe the choices faced by the moral agent, and explain the moral implications of each choice;apply key concepts of truthfulness, fairness, respect, autonomy, integrity, and transparency in resolving a dilemma;evaluate ethical decisions in class forums, drawing on a careful analysis that takes into account levels of fact and historical and social context; andshow how new and evolving forms of technology affect ethical considerations.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeThis Specialization is designed to teach you to communicate effectively in English in professional contexts. You will expand your English vocabulary, improve your ability to write and speak in English in both social and professional interactions, and learn terminology and skills that you can apply to business negotiations, telephone conversations, written reports and emails, and professional presentations.
Networking is important for job hunters, people changing or entering careers, entrepreneurs, and people in all areas of business. This four-course, 16-week program provides learners with English grammar and vocabulary to identify and expand their social networks. Learners will explore their current network, write emails, create an “elevator speech,” prepare for and attend a networking event, as well as conduct informational interviews to strengthen their job skills.This program is appropriate for an audience who speaks English as an additional language at the intermediate level.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeIn this course, you will explore several structured, risk management approaches that guide information security decision-making. Course topics include: developing and maintaining risk assessments (RA); developing and maintaining risk management plans (RM); regulatory and legal compliance issues affecting risk plans; developing a control framework for mitigating risks; risk transfer; business continuity and disaster recovery planning from the information security perspective.Considerupgrading to an enhanced, more rigorous version of this course offered onlineat the University of Washington. You’ll gain access tomeaningful interaction with instructors and additional assignments, readingsand multimedia material, as well as earn a valuable University of Washingtoncredential.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeThis course gives you a reliable model for preparing and delivering effective presentations. In business, in school, and in public life, we are often called upon to “make a few comments.” Often, people tasked with such speeches become flummoxed. They might not know what to talk about, or ramble without making a point, or simply be confusing to listen to. This course is designed to help you shine where others falter. We’ll learn how organize talks clearly, write them memorably, and deliver them confidently. By the end of the course, you should be able to significantly reduce your fear of public speaking, use rehearsal techniques to develop a strong, vibrant speaking voice, and perform speeches with dynamic movement and gestures. The speech model that we’ll practice is useful for briefings, elevator talks, interviews, and even as a structure for hour-long presentations.If you’re a beginner, this course will help you quickly master the fundamentals of speaking. If you’re a seasoned speaker, this course will help you better understand public speaking and push you to the next level.
Class Central TipsLearn How to Sign up to Coursera courses for free1600+ Coursera Courses That Are Still Completely FreeDo you have data and wonder what it can tell you?Do you need a deeper understanding of the core ways in which machine learning can improve your business?Do you want to be able to converse with specialists about anything from regression and classification to deep learning and recommender systems?In this course, you will get hands-on experience with machine learning from a series of practical case-studies.At the end of the first course you will have studied how to predict house prices based on house-level features, analyze sentiment from user reviews, retrieve documents of interest, recommend products, and search for images.Through hands-on practice with these use cases, you will be able to apply machine learning methods in a wide range of domains.This first course treats the machine learning method as a black box.Using this abstraction, you will focus on understanding tasks of interest, matching these tasks to machine learning tools, and assessing the quality of the output. In subsequent courses, you will delve into the components of this black box by examining models and algorithms.Together, these pieces form the machine learning pipeline, which you will use in developing intelligent applications.Learning Outcomes:By the end of this course, you will be able to: -Identify potential applications of machine learning in practice. -Describe the core differences in analyses enabled by regression, classification, and clustering. -Select the appropriate machine learning task for a potential application. -Apply regression, classification, clustering, retrieval, recommender systems, and deep learning. -Represent your data as features to serve as input to machine learning models. -Assess the model quality in terms of relevant error metrics for each task. -Utilize a dataset to fit a model to analyze new data. -Build an end-to-end application that uses machine learning at its core. -Implement these techniques in Python.