Online and connected 4: Online Lectures on Sustainability

19 March 2012 by 1 Comment

In the fourth installment of our series about how universities are using the internet to engage students and the wider community in sustainability, we look at the growing range of online platforms where students can hear lectures about topics relating to sustainability. But these are not only interesting resources for students, for faculty these can be interesting additions to courses but also the opportunity to post your own lectures and courses to gain a wider audience for your work.

As we have seen in previous blogs, there are several universities around the world that already post their lectures and courses online for free on their websites. This includes, but is not limited to, Yale, MIT, Open University. There are also several lecturers and universities posting lectures to popular online video sites, such as Youtube and Vimeo, for example from the University of California Berkeley.

ITunesU contains over 500,000 lectures and courses from leading universities and other schools, all free of charge. Several schools, such as INSEAD, HEC, Western Reserve University and the University of Warwick also have podcasts of lectures relating to sustainability available through iTunes.

There are several not for profits that are also providing a space to post and share lectures online. Academic Earth was founded with the goal of extending high-quality online learning opportunities to people around the globe. It contains a range of lectures available to listen to free online from the academics across the US. Udemy is platform where you can take a course (free or for a limited charge) or teach a course in any topic you like.

Khan Academy  is a library of over 2,600 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance and history. Khan Academy is a not for profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world class education to anyone anywhere.

Finally, TED is a not for profit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” Its conferences bring together the worlds of technology, entertainment and design. The website provides a range of short (20 minute) videos on a wide range of topics including many relating to sustainability.

Have you contributed to any of these platforms? Are there others that you have or would like to contribute to? Share you views in the discussion area below.

Filed under 3-Method, 4-Research, 5-Partnership, 6-Dialogue, Asia, Australasia, Eastern Europe and CIS, Global, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, North America, Online and Connected, Western Europe

Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Universities (Part 3)

15 March 2012 by Leave a comment

As we saw in part 1 of this series on online games focused on sustainability and business, we see that games and simulations are a fun way to not only educate individuals about sustainability issues but also to help come up with some real solutions. In part 2, we looked at games that are being developed by leading businesses around the world. Now, in part 3, we look at games and simulations being developing by universities.

  • Climate CoLab is an online platform that seeks to harness the collective intelligence of contributors from all over the world to address global climate change. Teams submit proposals for a range of contests that are posted on the site. MIT, the developer of this platform, has also created a number of other multiplayer games. In Eclipsing the Competition: The Solar PV Industry Simulation participants play the role of senior management at SunPower, and need to compete against other firms, simulated by the computer and set the industry conditions. In Fishbanks: A Renewable Resource Management Simulation, participants play the role of fishers and seek to maximise their net worth as they compete against other players, deal with variations in fish stocks and their catch.
  • The University of Virginia developed the uva bay game, a large scale participatory simulation based on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Players take the roles of stakeholders, such as farmers, developer, watermen and local policy-makers, and make decisions about their livelihoods or regulatory authority and see the impact of their decisions on their own personal finances, the regional economy and health of the watershed.
  • The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania created Tragedy of the Tuna, a game that aims to educate students about the concept of the “tragedy of the commons.” In this, game each student or group of students represent a county in control of a tuna fishing fleet and makes decisions about fleet size and deployment. As the game progresses, teams vie to stay afloat as competition for the shared fish population becomes more intense.

Do you use any games or simulations in your classes? Please share your experiences in the discussions area below.

Filed under 3-Method, Global, Online and Connected Tagged with , , , , ,

Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Business Sector (part 2)

5 March 2012 by 2 Comments

As we saw in part 1 of this series, games and simulations are a fun way to not only educate individuals about sustainability issues but also to help come up with some real solutions. In part 2, we look at a growing range of games created by some of the world’s leading businesses and NGOs, many of which look at the challenges of being a CEO or manager in companies where sustainability is increasingly important.

  • Chevron and the Economist group developed Energyville, a game where players work to power a virtual city through 2030 while keeping the economic, environmental and security impacts low in the choices they make.
  • CEO2 is a game developed by the WWF and Allianz where users are challenged to run a successful company while reducing CO2. The game puts the player in the role of CEO in one of four major industries from 2010 to 2030.
  • BT has a range of games available on their website which each last approximately 30 minutes. Better Business Dilemmas Game focuses on how to manage social and environmental issues in a business.  Better Business Choices tests entrepreneurial skills by designing a business that is profitable, responsible and sustainable.  Intrique 2016 challenges players to limit carbon emissions by keeping their carbon score as close to zero as possible.
  • IBM released the online game CityOne, which helps users discover how business process management, collaborative technologies and service oriented architecture enable industry solutions that help organisations and industries adapt to new demands and build a sustainable advantage. The game looks specifically at water, energy, banking and retail.
  • McDonalds developed a game as a way to explain to their customers the challenges of running a business, including some of the negative impacts that corporations such as theirs have on society and the environment, from rainforest destruction, to working conditions, faulty advertising campaigns, food poisoning, etc.
  • The Deloitte Business Simulation Game (not free) is designed to accelerate the implementation of corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives via stakeholder engagement and development of leadership capabilities.
  • Novo Nordisk has developed three online games. The Business Ethics Challenge looks at how to deal with business ethics issues in a day-to-day business situation while ensuring a balance between sales targets and company reputation. EnviroMan looks at climate change and how you strike the right balance between economy and environment. Finally, The Convincer has players work to convince the Minster of Health to invest in ways to effectively address the rising challenges of the proper diabetes initiatives.
  • The BBC launched an online environmental game called Climate Challenge, which focuses on policy and sustainable development over a 110 year period. Players take on the role of leader of an EU country and must choose which policies to implement, taking into consideration environmental effectiveness while managing the challenges of neighbour countries’ potentially conflicting policy choices and the ultimate challenge of re-election.

Do you use any games or simulations in your classes? Please share your experiences in the discussions area below.

 

Filed under 3-Method, Global, Online and Connected Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Using Online Games to Teach Sustainability – Part 1

27 February 2012 by 2 Comments

Lately, I have been seeing quite a bit about games and how games can be used to not only help educate individuals about sustainability issues, but also help solve the challenges it poses. Games provide of the opportunity for friendly competition, lower the barriers to participation and can spur innovation. This three part series will look at a range of games, most available for free online.

Using gamers to collectively explore options: Fold it is a web platform that involves gamers in contributing to important scientific research. Individuals can compete to design new proteins that could be used to prevent or treat diseases like HIV. Planet Hunters allows individuals to look through the massive quantity of images coming back from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft to help look for planets amongst the stars.

Using games to encourage green behaviour: A growing number of sites such Recylebank reward individuals for everyday green behaviours, like recycling, with deals and discounts in the US.

Using games to educate about sustainability: Oceanopolis is a Facebook game based on designed to educate users on sustainable living, in which users protect their island paradise from being buried under recyclable rubbish. Sweatshop is a game that educates users about the realities that many workers around the world contend with each day. Players act as the factory manager and are responsible for hiring workers while ensuring that prices stay down and product numbers stay high.

Using games to show gamers the challenges that businesses face: Karma Tycoon offers gamers the chance to run their own NGO. Oiligarchy puts gamers in the seat of CEO of the world biggest oil company, confronting them with real challenges like corruption.

Using games to come up with creative solutions to the world’s problems: Evoke is a ten week crash course in changing the world. The goal of this social network game is to help empower people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems. The game was developed by the World Bank Institute and is appropriate for all ages.

Using games to raise awareness about particular issues: The Reebok Human Rights Foundation, International Crisis Group and mtvU created the Darfur Digital Activities Challenge, which brought together technology students to create games to help educate the public about the genocide in Darfur. One of the finalists, Darfur is Dying, requires players to negotiate forces that threaten the survival of their refugee camps.

Using Games for Good: PSFK and Al Gore, with The Climate Reality Project, collaborated in an open source Gaming for Good Challenge where gamers were encouraged to create games that build awareness, promote fundraising, solve the unsolvable, embed knowledge, teach new skills or leverage collective manpower. One of the finalists was the very popular Facebook game, FarmVille, which gives players the change to run their own farms.

Do you use any games or simulations in your classes? Please share your experiences in the discussions area below.

Filed under 3-Method, Global, Online and Connected Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Online and connected: Creating discussion spaces online

23 January 2012 by Leave a comment

In the third installment of our series about how universities are using the internet to engage students and the wider community in sustainability, we look at how universities are creating online platforms to share sustainability information on campus with stakeholders.

Simon Frasier University in Canada created inov8.ca to get SFU students and alumni talking about how big problems like global warming and poverty affect them at an individual and local level. The site has four sections: a ‘talk’ section to identify and discuss issues, a ‘plan’ section to form teams and develop project ideas, an ‘act’ section to track the status of projects and, finally, a ‘review’ section to share thoughts and comments on completed projects.  Inov8 also supports – financially, administratively and politically – student organised and run projects that aim to solve local problems.

Sustainable Business Performance is an online community formed by researchers, scientists and students of Kozminski University in Poland to communicate the message of sustainability and help businesses minimise waste, reduce costs and create jobs.

Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies in Korea has created a webzine focused on Sustainability Management. The webzine provides links to a range of short articles and teaching aids around the topics of ethics, social responsibility, protection of the natural environment and sustainable management.

The University of Greenwich Sustainability Team in the UK has an active blog where they regularly post updates about a wide range of campus greening projects. Posts range from updates on solar panels being installed on the roof of some of the student residences, planting a new Orchard on campus and the results of an exhibition on campus focused on sustainable procurement. Activities are also updated regularly on Twitter (@Sust_Greenich)

Mendoza College of business relaunched their website to focus on their Ask More of Business Campaign, which highlights the college’s greater commitment to business for good and to the Principles of PRME. “Did you know that 51 of the world’s largest economies are corporations? And that multinational corporations account for 25 percent of the world’s assets?” The site provides a range of information around individual integrity, creating more effective organizations and how Mendoza is incorporating these topics into their curriculum.

How are you engaging your students in sustainability via the web? Share your experiences and examples below in the comments area.

Filed under 1-Purpose, 3-Method, 6-Dialogue, Canada, Korea, Online and Connected, Poland, UK, United States Tagged with , , , , , ,

Online and connected: Engaging students in sustainability projects

12 December 2011 by 2 Comments


In the second installment of our series about how universities are using the internet to engage students in sustainability, we look at a growing range of online platforms where students can work together to come up with solutions to real problems and challenges around the world.

IEDC-Bled School of Management in Slovenia co-founded the Challenge:Future global student competition, which has engaged nearly 15000 students ages 18 to 30 from 90 countries to address global sustainability challenges through the means of open collaborative innovation. With six sustainability challenges explored in the 2009-2010 competition year (communication, transportation, media, health, youth in society, and prosperity), Challenge:Future has ignited interest across universities and created a vibrant online youth community dedicated to these issues. Young people can submit solutions to the challenges and/or vote on the submissions already posted online.

Several universities, including Boston University School of Management, are becoming active on an online platform called JustMeans, a social networking and corporate news site devoted to issues in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Here, users can participate in forums and contests, read editorials, listen to podcasts, post news releases, look for jobs, network with leading companies in the CSR space, and follow the professional activities of others in their networks.

Dominican University is using the power of microlending to flight global poverty by working with Kiva, an online platform that lets individuals lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs around the world. Lenders receive updates and, as the borrower repays the loan, the money becomes available in the lenders account again. Dominican University’s Kiva Lending Team, founded in June 2009, surpassed its first-year goal of making $5,000 in loans. The team has provided over US $17000 in loans to date, which places the school in the Top 25 “Colleges/Universities” supporting Kiva.

Another interesting example is OpenIDEO, an online platform that involves the global community to solve big challenges for social good. Although not associated with any specific business school (IDEO, a design and innovation firm, developed OpenIDEO as a way to include a broader range of people in the design process), it is a place where students can participate in coming up with solutions to real problems around the world.  Challenges are posted on the website and go through three phases – inspiration, conception and evaluation. The community is then invited to contribute through photos, sketches, and/or business models, which might provide new information, sometimes building off another person’s work.

Ashoka Changemakers is a global online community that supports everyone’s ability to be a changemaker by inspiring, mentoring, and collaborating with other members of the community. The website hosts online competitions posted and sponsored by NGOs, foundations and businesses around the world. Individuals and groups can submit solutions to the challenges and collaborate to refine, enrich and implement them. Many of the challenges have cash prizes.

Have you created or do you use any online platforms to involve and exposure students to sustainability and responsible leadership issues? Please share them in the comments area below.

Filed under 3-Method, 5-Partnership, 6-Dialogue, Global, Online and Connected, Slovenia, Student, Teaching Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Online and connected: Bringing Sustainability courses online

5 December 2011 by Leave a comment

More and more business schools are exploring the wide range of ways that they can use the Internet to not just promote their programmes, but to enhance them. This is the first of a series of blogs looking at how business schools are using the Internet to communicate and engage with not just students but the wider community regarding sustainability issues.

One of the ways is by providing programme online content for students. There are already a number of schools offering degree progammes online, such as Marlboro College in the USA with their MBA in Managing for Sustainability. Antioch University also in the USA has a new Sustainable MBA which held a virtual open house on their website last March to introduce prospective students to their programme.
A growing number of business schools are using the web to provide the public with a range of free online courses on topics relating to sustainability and responsible leadership. The Open University Business School in the UK provides a range of individual courses and programs focused on sustainable business via distance and online learning. Their OpenLearn website gives free access to course materials and Learning Space, including many free study units, each with a discussion forum. Sample lectures from many of their courses are also available from iTunes U, a database of thousands of free lectures from all around the world. MIT in the US has an Opencourseware platform which provides over 2000 courses online free of charge, including a range of courses from the business school, covering topics relating to responsible management.

FGV-EAESP, in collaboration with Walmart Brazil, has developed three free online courses about sustainability. The first course, “Sustainability in everyday life: guidelines for citizens” launched on February 1 in Portuguese and addresses the importance of responsible consumption. The course is offered through the OpenCourseWare Consortium, a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organisations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.

The Escuela de organizacion industrial in Spain, also a member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium has a programme called Salvia. Salvia is an institutional repository of books, case studies, projects, research etc. produced by the school on the topic of sustainability available to the public. EOI also has a wide range of blogs on the topics of commons, sustainability and responsible innovation and is active on a wide range of social media platforms.

Grenoble Ecole de Management in France created OPEN RIM – Responsible Innovation and Management, an online knowledge sharing and learning platform financed by the Rhône-Alpes region.  It is kept up to date by students and faculty who develop online content including courses and educational materials, student initiatives and projects. The web platform will be available to the general public during the 2010-2011 academic year with several online courses, including responsibility in the global economy, acting on sustainable development, and business ethics, among others.

The Innovation School at EUROMED in France is an online learning platform that acts as a knowledge database and provides a range of online course modules. Each student can use the platform to personalise his/her own learning path by choosing which areas he/she wants to learn about. Students can browse through this global tool, which is accessible from anywhere in the world, and check his/her own level of understanding and acquisition of these concepts, look for internships, access a specific module etc.

Is your university exploring using the Internet to provide online courses to students or to the wider community? Share your experiences in the comments area below.

Filed under 3-Method, Brazil, France, Online and Connected, Spain, UK, United States Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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