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Nature & Environment
‘Land grab’: an environmental issue?
This free course, ‘Land grab’: an environmental issue?, explores how environmental problems are entangled with economic and political issues and offers tools for making sense of the complexity that results. The case of land grab illustrates how everyday issues such as food prices are caught up in connections that link different places, different...
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level 3: advanced icon
Science, Maths & Technology
Mosquito resistance to insecticides
Learn about how allele frequency can change rapidly in a population in response to selective pressure by considering how evolutionary change can occur in insects that are exposed to insecticides. This free course, Mosquito resistance to insecticides, further demonstrates how traits that are advantageous in one environment can have effects that ...
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level 3: advanced icon
Society, Politics & Law
Managing complexity: a systems approach
Do you need to change the way you think when faced with a complex situation? Managing complexity: a systems approach, is a free course that examines how systemic thinking and practice enables you to cope with the connections between things, events and ideas. By taking a broader perspective complexity becomes manageable and it is easier to accept...
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level 1: introductory icon
Digital & Computing
Systems diagramming
Please note: This course contains a Flash activity which is no longer playable. It is being updated. This course can still be studied, but you may like to postpone your study for now if you would rather have the full experience.
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level 3: advanced icon
Society, Politics & Law
Remaking the relations of work and welfare
How do 'welfare to work' programmes such as the New Deal take into account and shape people's personal lives? This free course, Remaking the relations of work and welfare, looks at how participation in, and drop-out from, 'workfare' programmes are interpreted within different theoretical perspectives, and uses two case studies to connect the ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Nationalism, self-determination and secession
What makes a 'nation' and what makes peoples strive for nationhood? This free course, Nationalism, self-determination and secession, will provide you with an introduction to studying political ideas by looking at how people who see themselves as nations challenge the existing order to assert their right to a state of their own.
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History & The Arts
Robert Owen and New Lanark
Childcare, education, working conditions, healthcare, crime: these issues are hotly debated in today's society. They are also issues that Robert Owen, seen by some as a visionary and by others as a knave and a charlatan, sought to address in the early 1800s. This free course, Robert Owen and New Lanark, uses a series of essays written by Owen to...
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History & The Arts
David Hume
This free course, David Hume, examines Hume's reasons for being complacent in the face of death, as these are laid out in his suppressed essay of 1755, 'Of the immortality of the soul'. More generally, it examines some of the shifts in attitude concerning death and religious belief that were taking place in Europe at the end of the eighteenth ...
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level 1: introductory icon
Languages
Gaelic in modern Scotland
Modern Scotland is a multi-lingual country. Gaelic, Scots and English, along with newer introductions from Europe and beyond, all influence the way Scotland's people now speak to each other and to the rest of the world. Created with the positive encouragement of Bòrd na Gàidhlig and with support from BBC Alba, this free course, Gaelic in modern ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Contemporary Wales
This free course provides an accessible and lively social science account of contemporary Wales. It introduces key aspects of the economy, society, politics and culture of Wales, providing a wealth of up-to-date evidence that is organised around core social science concepts and theories, to help you make sense of a changing nation.
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level 2: intermediate icon
Society, Politics & Law
Innovation, markets and industrial change
How does a firm emerge as 'leader of the pack'? Why do most of the small firms so common in the early years of new industries disappear? This free course, Innovation, markets and industrial change, looks at how and why change occurs through the industry life cycle, at the role of innovation and at how production costs, demand and technology ...
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level 2: intermediate icon
Society, Politics & Law
Children and violence: an introductory, international and interdisciplinary approach
Children are subject to many forms of adversity, for example, poverty or ill health. However, a significant form of adversity experienced by children in many different regions of the world is violence. The form of violence against children varies widely and is hugely disparate. In this free course, Children and violence: an introductory, ...