Every year there is an increase in the number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) available on sustainability topics. These courses are available for free online and open to anyone with an interest in the topic, lasting between three and fourteen weeks and taking three to eight hours per week to complete. Below is a selection of such courses offered this Summer 2016, listed by topic, from PRME signatory schools.
Social Norms, Social Change: This is a course on social norms, the rules that glue societies together. It teaches how to diagnose social norms and how to distinguish them from other social constructs, like customs or conventions. These distinctions are crucial for effective policy interventions aimed to create new, beneficial norms or eliminate harmful ones. From University of Pennsylvania (joint with UNICEF) – starts June 20
How to Scale Social Impact: This course equips you with the knowledge necessary to scale your organisation’s impact and reach by setting your programmes apart from those of your peers. Through on the ground interviews with current nonprofit practitioners in India, Pakistan, and Kenya, you will learn how to design and implement effective programmes that are far reaching, replicable, and scalable. From Haas School of Business – starts May 31.
Ethical Leadership: Character, Civility, and Community: This course explores theoretical and practical elements of ethical leadership with an emphasis on leaders’ personal narratives within social historical contexts. Three specific areas of ethical leadership will be emphasized: morally-anchored character, transformative acts of civility, and a sense of community. From Boston University – starts May 24
Conversations that Inspire: Coaching, Learning, Leadership and Change: Coaching can inspire and motivate people to learn, change, and be effective leaders, among other roles in life. Although most attempts are “coaching for compliance,” decades of behavioral and neuroscience research show us that “coaching with compassion” is more effective. From Case Western Reserve University – starts June 1.
Women in Leadership: Inspiring Positive Change: This course aims to inspire and empower women and men across the world to engage in purposeful career development and take on leadership for important causes – to lead change with more conviction and confidence – and improve our workplaces and communities for all. From Case Western Reserve University – starts May 30.
International Human Rights: This course looks at international human rights law in comparative perspective: how the individual has been protected from both public and private power. From Universite Catholique de Louvain – starts June 15.
Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility: This course explores what corporate social responsibility is, how it works, and its true impacts. It will look at whether stakeholders care, and, if they do, how companies should communicate with them. From Universite Catholique de Louvain – starts June 9.
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