gamification About the Course Gamification is the application of digital game design techniques to non-game contexts, such as business, education, and social impact challenges. Video games are the dominant entertainment form of modern times because they powerfully motivate behavior. Game mechanics can be applied outside the immersive environments of games themselves, to create engaging experiences as well as assign rewards and recognition. Over the past few years, gamification adoption has skyrocketed. Game thinking means more than dropping in badges and leaderboards to make an activity fun or addicting. Subtitles forall video lectures available in: English, Russian (provided by Digital October), Turkish (Koc University), and Ukrainian (provided by Bionic University) Course Syllabus The course is divided into 12 units. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Recommended Background This course is designed as an introduction to gamification as a business practice. Suggested Readings Course Format Yes.
Model Thinking This course will consist of twenty sections. As the course proceeds, I will fill in the descriptions of the topics and put in readings. Section 1: Introduction: Why Model? In these lectures, I describe some of the reasons why a person would want to take a modeling course. To be an intelligent citizen of the worldTo be a clearer thinkerTo understand and use dataTo better decide, strategize, and design There are two readings for this section. The Model Thinker: Prologue, Introduction and Chapter 1 Why Model? Section 2: Sorting and Peer Effects We now jump directly into some models. In this second section, I show a computational version of Schelling's Segregation Model using NetLogo. NetLogo The Schelling Model that I use can be found by clicking on the "File" tab, then going to "Models Library". The readings for this section include some brief notes on Schelling's model and then the academic papers of Granovetter and Miller and Page. Notes on Schelling Granovetter Model Miller and Page Model
Organizational Analysis About the Course Best MBA Mooc in 2013 as per review in the Financial Times! "The best [MBA Mooc] was Organizational Analysis taught by Stanford's Dan McFarland" - Philip D. Broughton MBA It is hard to imagine living in modern society without participating in or interacting with organizations. Each case is full of details and complexity. Through this self-paced course you will come to see that there is nothing more practical than a good theory. Join your future classmates and course alumni on Facebook! Course Syllabus Module 1: Introduction Module 2: Decisions by rational and rule-based procedures Module 3: Decisions by dominant coalitions Module 4: Decisions in organized anarchies Module 5: Developing organizational learning and intelligence Module 6: Developing an organizational culture Module 7: Managing resource dependencies Module 8: Network forms of organization Module 9: Institutions and organizational legitimacy Module 10: Summary Suggested Readings Course Format
social network analysis About the Course Everything is connected: people, information, events and places, all the more so with the advent of online social media. A practical way of making sense of the tangle of connections is to analyze them as networks. Course Syllabus Week 1: What are networks and what use is it to study them? Concepts: nodes, edges, adjacency matrix, one and two-mode networks, node degree Activity: Upload a social network (e.g. your Facebook social network into Gephi and visualize it ). Week 2: Random network models: Erdos-Renyi and Barabasi-Albert Concepts: connected components, giant component, average shortest path, diameter, breadth-first search, preferential attachment Activities: Create random networks, calculate component distribution, average shortest path, evaluate impact of structure on ability of information to diffuse Week 3: Network centrality Concepts: betweenness, closeness, eigenvector centrality (+ PageRank), network centralization Week 4: Community Recommended Background
Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society About the Course This is a course aimed at making you a better designer. The course marries theory and practice, as both are valuable in improving design performance. Lectures and readings will lay out the fundamental concepts that underpin design as a human activity. Weekly design challenges test your ability to apply those ideas to solve real problems. The course is deliberately broad - spanning all domains of design, including architecture, graphics, services, apparel, engineered goods, and products. Student Testimonials from Earlier Sessions of the Course:"An amazing course - a joy to take. "When I signed up for this course I didn't know what to expect; the experience was so good and rewarding. See examples of student projects: here Recommended Background No specific background is required. Suggested Readings To get a feel for the style of the instructor and the material in the course, this book is a good place to start: Ulrich, K.T. 2010. Product Design and Development by Karl T.
Data Analysis About the Course You have probably heard that this is the era of “Big Data”. Stories about companies or scientists using data to recommend movies, discover who is pregnant based on credit card receipts, or confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson regularly appear in Forbes, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. This course is an applied statistics course focusing on data analysis. Recommended Background Some familiarity with the R statistical programming language ( and proficiency in writing in English will be useful. Course Format The course will consist of lecture videos broken into 8-10 minute segments.
Critical Thinking in Global Challenges About the Course Critical thinking is the ability to gather and assess information and evidence in a balanced and reflective way to reach conclusions that are justified by reasoned argument based on the available evidence. Critical thinking is a key skill in the information age, valuable in all disciplines and professions. This introductory course will give you the opportunity to better understand what critical thinking is, and to practice and enhance your critical thinking skills. The relevant background information for each global challenge will be provided to ensure that you can complete the exercises. Subtitles for all video lectures available: Portuguese (provided by the Lemann Foundation), English Course Format The course contains lectures, quizzes and exercises. This is a basic, informal and very pragmatic course, which focuses on getting you to think rationally and critically about evidence, and does not attempt to teach you about logic, reasoning and knowledge in a formal way.
Introduction to Sociology About the Course We live in a world that is changing very quickly. Sociology gives us the tools to understand our own lives and those quite remote from us. The premise of this class is that in order to benefit from the sociological perspective, we need to learn how to ask certain basic questions. We will strive to understand how interaction in micro-level contexts affects larger social processes and how such macro-level processes influence our day to day lives. Course Syllabus Week 1: The Sociological Imagination Week 2: Three Sociological Questions Week 3: Methods of Sociological Research Week 4: Us and Them Week 5: Isolation, Groups, and Networks Week 6: Cities Week 7: Social Interaction and Everyday Life Recommended Background None; all are welcome. Suggested Readings All assigned readings are open source materials which can be found through the web. and Introduction to Sociology (Eighth Edition) (both with Anthony Giddens, Richard P. Course Format Each week, there will be two sessions.
social defined networking About the Course This course introduces software defined networking, an emerging paradigm in computer networking that allows a logically centralized software program to control the behavior of an entire network. Separating a network's control logic from the underlying physical routers and switches that forward traffic allows network operators to write high-level control programs that specify the behavior of an entire network, in contrast to conventional networks, whereby network operators must codify functionality in terms of low-level device configuration. Logically centralized network control makes it possible for operators to specify more complex tasks that involve integrating many disjoint network functions (e.g., security, resource control, prioritization) into a single control framework, allowing network operators to create more sophisticated policies, and making network configurations easier to configure, manage, troubleshoot, and debug. Course Syllabus Module 3: Control Plane Prof.
Malicious Software and its Underground Economy: Two Sides to Every Story Cybercrime has become both more widespread and harder to battle. Researchers and anecdotal experience show that the cybercrime scene is becoming increasingly organized and consolidated, with strong links also to traditional criminal networks. Modern attacks are indeed stealthy and often profit oriented. Malicious software (malware) is the traditional way in which cybercriminals infect user and enterprise hosts to gain access to their private, financial, and intellectual property data. By mixing a practical, hands-on approach with the theory and techniques behind the scene, the course discusses the current academic and underground research in the field, trying to answer the foremost question about malware and underground economy, namely, "Should we care?". Students will learn how traditional and mobile malware work, how they are analyzed and detected, peering through the underground ecosystem that drives this profitable but illegal business.