Georgetown University Courses

Globalization's Winners and Losers

4

This course will examine how the spread of trade, investment, and technology across borders affects firms, workers, and communities in developed and developing countries. It investigates who gains from globalization and who is hurt or disadvantaged by globalization. The course will explore difficult questions such as:How can developing countries avoid the "resource curse"?What are some possible methods to deal with possible "sweatshop" abuses?How can emerging market economies take advantage of supply chains from local firms into developed country markets?How might globalization contribute to wage inequality in developed countries?Should developed countries protect or promote manufacturing jobs?Is China becoming an economic "superpower"?Is the United States in economic decline?The course concludes by allowing the participant to decide how to resolve the US budget deficit, and reform Social Security, so as to keep the United States competitive in the world economy.Before your course starts, try the new edX Demo where you can explore the fun, interactive learning environment and virtual labs. Learn more.*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.

Ethical Decision-Making for Global Managers

0

Global managers face increasing pressures from governments and civil society groups to go beyond traditional business roles for the sake of the common good. Ethical issues of human rights, labor conditions, and environmental impacts can pose serious policy dilemmas that involve difficult value choices and management decisions. Should foreign companies try to influence a country’s domestic political process on issues such as democratic elections, religious freedoms, the treatment of indigenous peoples, or the domestic allocation of tax revenue?Should large international retailers enforce ethical practices for their foreign suppliers, such as requiring a “living wage”?Do international marketing practices manipulate vulnerable consumers into making inappropriate purchases or enhance their free choice of products?This program consists of three courses that analyze questions of business ethics using actual cases from around the world. Drawing on established theory and ethical principles, the courses use normative criteria to evaluate “best choice” options for real-world ethical decision-making. The courses also promote awarenessof the complexities facing global decision makers caught between competing national laws or cultural practices.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

4.4

Terrorism has gone from a persistent yet marginal security concern to one of the most important security problems of our day. There are few countries that do not suffer from some form of terrorism. Though many attempts at terrorism fail, some groups wage lengthy and bloody campaigns and, in exceptional cases, kill hundreds or even thousands in pursuit of their ends.This course on terrorism will explore the nuances involved in defining terrorism; the nature of Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic State, and other important groups; the effectiveness of different counterterrorism tools; terrorist recruiting, counterterrorism and the rule of law; the political context in South Asia and the Middle East; and the terrorist use of technology.For those interested in an abbreviated version of this course, the 3-section course Terrorism and Counterterrorism: An Introduction is available here.

Genomic Medicine Gets Personal

3.4

While the advances in genomics promise to usher a new era in medical practice and create a major paradigm shift in patient care, the ethical, legal and social impact of genomic medicine will be equally significant. The information and potential use of genomic discoveries are no longer issues left for scientists and medical professionals to handle, but have become ones for the public at large. Rarely a day passes without a genomics-related story reported in the media. By the end of this course, students will be able to better understand the field of genomics; be familiar with various online databases and resources; and understand and appreciate the medical, social, ethical, and legal issues associated with the availability of personal genomic information.Given the diversity of the topics and the specific expertise required to cover each, this is a unique cross-disciplinary course where faculty from different disciplines including genetics, computational sciences, bioinformatics, genetic counseling, bioethics, law, and business will participate in lecturing. We have assembled a team of experts from various departments at Georgetown University and other institutions, to teach this comprehensive online genomics course.For a detailed description of the weekly topics, see the course outline.

Sign Language Science: Factors Contributing to Nature Structure

0

In this course, we will look at how people make sign language work—and to understand this, we have to analyze the actual language. In this course, Professor Ted Supalla will walk you through examples of how alterations within a sign can change its meaning and how this can affect word order in a sentence. This is discussed under the broad term “structure”, because a number of things can influence signed language grammar. Many factors have to be considered, which is why we have to take a layered, cumulative approach here.

The Divine Comedy: Dante's Journey to Freedom

3.7

Learning to read poetry is learning to do the deep magic of language. It's learning to speak to the dead. At first the book just sits there silent as the grave, but if we listen carefully then, softly at first, the poetry begins to speak to us and we find ourselves speaking to it in response. Dante is the master of speaking with the dead. He convinces us that the dead can tell us things we do not know—things we cannot discover about the meaning of life because we are still in the middle of it. He shows us that conversations with the dead can change the way that we look at life. You and I may not have enough imagination to explore the realms of death that open up in the middle of life, and Dante knows that no one can find their way through life without a guide. This course will help you discover the magic of Dante's poetry and Dante will teach you to imagine the deepest terrors and the highest hopes that are still undiscovered in your heart. Only then will you be in a position to decide finally, for yourself, who you choose to become. In this course, you will begin to question for yourself the meaning of human freedom, responsibility and identity by reading and responding to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The Comedy , which is richly steeped in the medieval culture of 14th century, still speaks vividly to modern readers struggling with the questions “who am I?” and “what meaning or value can my life have?” Dante struggled with the same questions before coming to a moment of vision that wholly transformed him as a person. This course is presented to you through the MyDante platform, an online environment developed by Professor Frank Ambrosio in collaboration with the Georgetown University Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). Throughout the course, you will be asked to reflect on Dante's interpretation of freedom, how it functions in the formation of personal identity, and whether we might be able to find appropriate metaphors to discuss these issues in our modern lives. You, the modern reader, will only understand the full implications of Dante's poetry if you participate with it in a way that is personal and genuinely contemplative. Through the MyDante platform, you will learn to know yourself in your own historical, personal, and spiritual contexts as you journey toward a richer understanding of your freedom, identity, and responsibility as a person.

Foundations of Ethical Decision-Making: Government and Political Issues

0

Globalization has dramatically increased the influence of international corporations in political, economic, and sociocultural spheres. More than ever, global managers are faced with profound choices about their impact. In this course, you will analyze real-world ethical dilemmas using multiple frameworks and ultimately refining your own approach to ethical decision-making.When considering complex ethical questions, how useful are your starting assumptions? How do your decisions change when you prioritize established rules versus projected outcomes? Through case studies on mineral extraction and racial discrimination, you will gain a practical foundation in applied ethics and the skills to makes sound ethical decisions throughout your career.

How the U.S. Government Works & How to Get Involved

0

Feeling overwhelmed by modern-day politics? Looking to get involved but not sure where—or how—to start? Wondering what you can do to channel your energy into action and make a difference? This course is for you. Led by expert faculty from Georgetown University, How the Government Works & How to Get Involved offers a refresher on the fundamentals of American government in the context of what’s happening right now. You’ll leave the course with the tools you need to become an engaged, empowered citizen and make your voice heard. This course will cover a range of topics including the structure, function, and organization of the three branches of government, proven strategies to influence government, the relationship between the government and the media, American foreign policy, and how U.S. citizens can actively participate in shaping the government. How the U.S. Government Works & How to Get Involved is a self-paced course, which allows you to progress through the content at your own speed.

Demystifying Biomedical Big Data: A User’s Guide

0

With the continuous generation of massive amounts of biomedical data on a daily basis, whether from research laboratories or clinical labs, we need to improve our ability to understand and analyze the data in order to take full advantage of its power in scientific discoveries and patient care. For non-bioinformaticians, “handling” big data remains a daunting task. This course was designed to facilitate the understanding, analysis, and interpretation of biomedical big data to those in the biomedical field with limited or no significant experience in bioinformatics. The goal of this course is to “demystify” the process of analyzing biomedical big data through a series of lectures and online hands-on training sessions and demos. You will learn how to use publicly available online resources and tools for genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data analysis, as well as other analytic tools and online resources. This course is funded by a research grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Initiative.

Quantum Mechanics

5

Quantum mechanics courses typically require you to learn a lot of high-level math in addition to the science, making it challenging to absorb and apply quantum ideas. Students often take these classes multiple times before they even begin to understand. In this course, we teach quantum mechanics in a representation-independent fashion that focuses on operators. The prerequisite math is lower, and we need to develop less of it. This allows us to focus on developing conceptual understanding and on relating quantum ideas to real experiments. We are amidst the second quantum revolution, where we observe and manipulate individual quanta. This has ushered in the new field of quantum information science, with its three pillars of quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum sensing. This course will prepare you best for the quantum sensing side of quantum information science. You will even learn enough quantum mechanics to understand how the laser interferometry gravitational wave observatory works---one of the engineering marvels of humankind. Prerequisites: The three-semester calculus sequence and a math methods course are required. Freshman physics and modern physics are recommended. This course is appropriate for those with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, and engineering who are interested in learning quantum mechanics with a focus on applications to quantum sensing.GeorgetownX currently offers a Mathematical and Computational Methods course.

Sign Language Structure, Learning, and Change

2

This course aims to integrate the history of ideas about American Sign Language (ASL) with research that has been done on the structure, learning, and historical change of ASL and other sign languages.Structure is crucial to languages. There are several layers of grammatical structure in all languages. We will learn about these and examine how sign languages are structured.Learning is how children and adults acquire the ability to understand and use a sign language.Change takes place over time in all languages. Recent research on historical change in ASL and other sign languages has begun to reveal how sign languages come into existence and how they change as they are used over generations among deaf and hearing users. We will look at historical change in depth, especially the historical heritage of ASL.This course is a four-week self-paced course. Lecture videos are delivered in ASL with English subtitles and voiceover. The course will introduce all of these students to the science of sign language research and, for fluent ASL signers, the history and structure of their own language.  It will also expose students at the intermediate level to the fields of linguistics and the cognitive sciences.

American Sign Language Science

0

The program integrates the history of American Sign Language (ASL) with research that has been done on the structure, learning, and historical change of ASL and other sign languages. In this program, you will learn how sign languages are structured and how these structures vary. It also looks at how children and adults acquire the ability to understand and use sign language. The program takes a deep dive into recent research on how sign languages have come into existence and how they change as they are used over generations of deaf and hearing users. In addition, this program serves as a resource that helps students process new information, including cutting-edge research.The program is divided into four parts, each exploring different aspects of sign language. The program will introduce students to the science of sign language research and, for the fluent ASL signer, the history and structure of their own language. The content exposes students to an intermediate level in the fields of linguistics and cognitive sciences.

Sign Language Science: Emergence and Evolution of Sign Language

0

ASL has a long history and good documentation. This course, Emergence and Evolution of Sign Language, explores the origins of ASL by beginning with the key events and key concepts. How do people learn signed languages? Why do people enjoy using them? This key information will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between how people use language, how it’s learned, and how a language community is formed and sustained. This foundation will illustrate how the language survives, which is equally important to recognize. These ideas will be discussed in this core course and they provide a foundation of understanding about where language comes from and why they vary.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism: An Introduction

2

Terrorism has gone from a persistent yet marginal security concern to one of the most important security problems of our day. There are few countries that do not suffer from some form of terrorism. Though many attempts at terrorism fail, some groups wage lengthy and bloody campaigns and, in exceptional cases, kill hundreds or even thousands in pursuit of their ends.This course on terrorism will explore the nuances involved in defining terrorism; the nature of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other important groups; the effectiveness of different counterterrorism tools; terrorist recruiting, counterterrorism and the rule of law; the political context in the Middle East; and the terrorist use of technology.For those interested in a more extended version of the course, the full 7-section course Terrorism and Counterterrorism is available here.

Ethical Decision-Making: Cultural and Environmental Impact

0

International corporations can trigger significant cultural shifts and environmental impacts. For example, when foreign corporations set up large mineral extraction operations in developing countries, both culture and environment are altered. Ethical concerns arise when manipulative marketing techniques are used to mislead foreign consumers, especially about potentially harmful products. In this course, you will consider the ethics of these types of global influence.When should international marketing practices be valued for increasing consumers’ choices, rather than criticized for making dubious claims? What role should foreign corporations play in the decisions developing countries make about environmental conservation and economic growth? In exploring these issues, you will consider competing values and apply multiple frameworks for ethical analysis.