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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Courseware
This course covers the fundamental principles, practices and tools of Lean Six Sigma methods that underlay modern organizational productivity approaches applied in aerospace, automotive, health care, and other sectors. It includes lectures, active learning exercises, a plant tour, talks by industry practitioners, and videos. One third of the course is devoted to a physical simulation of an aircraft manufacturing enterprise or a clinic to illustrate the power of Lean Six Sigma methods. The course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Industrial efficiency Lean manufacturing Six sigma (Quality control stard)
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course explores perspectives in the policy process - agenda setting, problem definition, framing the terms of debate, formulation and analysis of options, implementation and evaluation of policy outcomes using frameworks including economics and markets, law, and business and management. Methods include cost/benefit analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, and system dynamics. Exercises include developing skills to work on the interface between technology and societal issues; simulation exercises; case studies; and group projects that illustrate issues involving multiple stakeholders with different value structures, high levels of uncertainty, multiple levels of complexity; and value trade-offs that are characteristic of engineering systems. Emphasis on negotiation, team building and group dynamics, and management of multiple actors and leadership.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Policy sciences -- Economic aspects Political planning -- Economic aspects
- Resource Type:
- Courseware
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Presentation
This video was recorded at MIT World Series: Back to the Classroom 2009. Cooperation may be making us "a little bit too nice" when it comes to innovation, suggests Fiona Murray. She believes there's nothing like competition for injecting energy into the process of solving key innovation problems, whether in business or society. Murray is convinced competition make ventures "more effective, more global, more inclusive and more democratic," all important dimensions for business in a flattening world. She describes the rapidly expanding R&D expenditures of India and China, including the vast numbers of Ph.D.s these nations are producing in science and engineering. The corporate sector has found building global R&D organizations and collaborations difficult. In this challenging environment, where the advantage goes to those firms snagging the best scientists, Murray believes "prizes are complementary mechanisms" for attracting global talent. Just like historic rivalries among great artists (Nb., Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese), or the race to discover the structure of DNA, "fierce competition" can yield "dramatic productivity" and innovation, especially when the right rewards are at stake. Murray cites the 18th century competition to invent a mechanism for determining a ship's longitude, which offered a 20 thousand-pound prize. She jumps to the present, with the X Prize Foundation and its various competitions to solve engineering challenges and societal problems, such as the three-person reusable spaceship, and a 100-mpg car -- each with a $10 million prize purse. But it's not just the money. Recent studies show that prizes prove alluring when they focus efforts and resources on a problem that people are already studying, offering fame and "putting fun back into innovation." The fascination skews rational calculations, with competitors often spending well beyond the amount offered to the winner. Corporations should adopt the prize mechanism, believes Murray, to help generate new ideas (such as new applications for Google's phone); or to help solve very specific problems. Campus competitions are up markedly, she notes, which might be a distraction for students at places like MIT. Start small and inside the organization first, creating a shared bulletin board and offering small prizes, she advises, which will "generate energy." Then take competition beyond the company. And don't forget, "the work must be fun" in order to "get a richer set of people to participate.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Competition
- Resource Type:
- Presentation
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Courseware
The fact of scarcity forces individuals, firms, and societies to choose among alternative uses – or allocations – of its limited resources. Accordingly, the first part of this summer course seeks to understand how economists model the choice process of individual consumers and firms, and how markets work to coordinate these choices. It also examines how well markets perform this function using the economist's criterion of market efficiency. Overall, this course focuses on microeconomics, with some topics from macroeconomics and international trade. It emphasizes the integration of theory, data, and judgment in the analysis of corporate decisions and public policy, and in the assessment of changing U.S. and international business environments.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Microeconomics
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- Courseware
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Courseware
15.875 is a project-based course that explores how organizations can use system dynamics to achieve important goals. In small groups, students learn modeling and consulting skills by working on a term-long project with real-life managers. A diverse set of businesses and organizations sponsor class projects, from start-ups to the Fortune 500. The course focuses on gaining practical insight from the system dynamics process, and appeals to people interested in system dynamics, consulting, or managerial policy-making.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Business consultants Social psychology
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course draws on different disciplines, conceptual frameworks, and methodological approaches to examine gender in relation to health, including public health practice, epidemiologic research, health policy, and clinical application. It discusses a variety of health-related issues that illustrate global, international, domestic, and historical perspectives, while considering other social determinants of health as well, including social class and race.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Public health Gender identity Equality -- Health aspects
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders. We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Globalization
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course examines representations of race, class, gender, and sexual identity in the media, with a particular focus on new media and how digital technologies are transforming popular culture. We will be considering issues of authorship, spectatorship, (audience) and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, blogs, video, advertising) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Social classes Mass media sex United States Mass media race relations Mass media -- Social aspects
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course offers an introduction to the history of gender, sex, and sexuality in the modern United States, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. It begins with an overview of historical approaches to the field, emphasizing the changing nature of sexual and gender identities over time. The remainder of the course flows chronologically, tracing the expanding and contracting nature of attempts to control, construct, and contain sexual and gender identities, as well as the efforts of those who worked to resist, reject, and reform institutionalized heterosexuality and mainstream configurations of gendered power.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Sex United States Social conditions Gender identity
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course is an introduction to principles and techniques of visual communication, and provides opportunities for science and engineering majors to acquire practical skills in the visual computer arts, in a studio environment. Students will learn how to create graphics for print and web, animations, and interactive media, and how to use these techniques to effectively communicate scientific and engineering concepts for learning and teaching. This class involves three hands-on creative projects, which will be presented in class.
- Subjects:
- Computing and Visualisation
- Keywords:
- Information visualization
- Resource Type:
- Courseware
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Courseware
This course explores the values (aesthetic, moral, cultural, religious, prudential, political) expressed in the choices of food people eat. Analyzes the decisions individuals make about what to eat, how society should manage food production and consumption collectively, and how reflection on food choices might help resolve conflicts between different values.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Food habits Food consumption
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This class examines the built, psychosocial, economic, and natural environment factors that affect health behaviors and outcomes. Students will be introduced to tools designed to integrate public health considerations into policy making and planning, and will be given hands-on training on the application of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) methodology. This class is designed to prepare graduate students from planning and policy fields to interface with public health organizations, agencies, or advocacy groups in professional contexts.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Public health Medical policy
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course examines both the structure of cities and the ways they can be changed. It introduces graduate students to theories about how cities are formed, and the practice of urban design and development, using U.S. and international examples. The course is organized into two parts: Part 1 analyzes the forces which act to shape and to change cities; Part 2 surveys key models of physical form and social intervention that have been deployed to resolve competing forces acting on the city. This course includes models of urban analysis, contemporary theories of urban design, and implementation strategies. Lectures in this course are supplemented by discussion periods, student work, and field trips.
- Subjects:
- Building and Real Estate
- Keywords:
- Cities towns City planning
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This seminar focuses on understanding the role of high-quality design as a tool to address urban social problems. This course will also examine marginalized spaces and how urban design can intervene as a tool to creatively challenge traditional urban design practices.
- Subjects:
- Building and Real Estate
- Keywords:
- City planning
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course explores the evolution of poverty and economic security in the United States, within a global context. It examines the impact of recent economic restructuring and globalization, and reviews the current debate about the fate of the middle class, sources of increasing inequality, and approaches to advancing economic opportunity and security. In this class, students will study the topic of poverty and economic security through the lens of the lived experience of Americans: individuals, families, and households; exploring the history, geography, and forces shaping the likelihood of being poor in America.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Economic security United States Poverty
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course focuses on national environmental and energy policy-making; environmental ethics; the techniques of environmental analysis; and strategies for collaborative environmental decision-making. The primary objective of the course is to help students formulate a personal theory of environmental planning practice. The course is taught comparatively, with constant references to examples from around the world. It is required of all graduate students pursuing an environmental policy and planning specialization in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. This course is the first subject in the Environmental Policy and Planning sequence. It reviews philosophical debates including growth vs. deep ecology, "command-and-control" vs. market-oriented approaches to regulation, and the importance of expertise vs. indigenous knowledge. Emphasis is placed on environmental planning techniques and strategies. Related topics include the management of sustainability, the politics of ecosystem management, environmental governance and the changing role of civil society, ecological economics, integrated assessment (combining environmental impact assessment (EIA) and risk assessment), joint fact finding in science-intensive policy disputes, environmental justice in poor communities of color, and environmental dispute resolution. Environmental Problem-Solving (Susskind et. al, 2017, Anthem Press), a video-enhanced eBook, provides students with full access to all the assigned readings, faculty commentary on the readings, and examples of the best student performance on course assignments in previous years.
- Subjects:
- Environmental Policy and Planning
- Keywords:
- Environmental protection Environmental policy
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course focuses on the tools and programs available to economic development practitioners to address capital needs for businesses and economic development projects. It provides an overview of private capital markets and financing sources to understand capital market imperfections that constrain economic development, business accounting, financial statement analysis, federal economic development programs, and public finance tools. The course covers policies and program models, including revolving loan funds, guarantee programs, venture capital funds, bank holding companies, community development loan funds and credit unions, micro-enterprise funds, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of economic development finance practice in the United States, and to develop a knowledge base and skills to either be a development finance practitioner, or apply economic development finance approaches to other fields of planning and community development.
- Subjects:
- Economics and Finance
- Keywords:
- Economic development -- Finance Business enterprises -- Finance United States
- Resource Type:
- Courseware
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Courseware
This course provides an introduction to public policy analysis. It is designed for students who may be planning a career in public or non-profit sectors. The primary goal is to help students understand the implications of public policy for different pursuits. The class examines various approaches to policy analysis by considering the concepts, tools, and methods used in economics, political science, and other disciplines. Students apply and critique these approaches through case studies of current public policy problems.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Political planning Policy sciences
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- Courseware
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Courseware
This course examines alternative conceptions and theoretical underpinnings of sustainable development. It focuses on the sustainability problems of industrial countries, and of developing states and economies in transition. It also explores the sociology of knowledge regarding sustainability, the economic and technological dimensions, and institutional imperatives, along with implications for political constitution of economic performance.
- Subjects:
- Environmental Engineering, Political Science, and Social Ecology
- Keywords:
- Sustainable development
- Resource Type:
- Courseware
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Courseware
This course explores Japan's role in world orders, past, present, and future. It focuses on Japanese conceptions of security; rearmament debates; the relationship of domestic politics to foreign policy; the impact of Japanese technological and economic transformation at home and abroad; alternative trade and security regimes; Japan's response to 9/11; and relations with Asian neighbors, Russia, and the alliance with the United States.
- Subjects:
- Area Studies and Political Science
- Keywords:
- Diplomatic relations Japan Politics government National security East Asia
- Resource Type:
- Courseware