Title: Online Globalization Course Attracts Students from 150 Countries
Georgetown’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in partnership with edX, “Globalization’s Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries,” will begin Oct. 1 with about 20,000 students from 150 countries.
Georgetown’s first massive openOnline Course (MOOC), in partnership with edX, focuses on how to spread the benefits of the globalization of trade, investment and technology more evenly among developed and developing countries.
The seven-week course, “Globalization’s Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and Developing Countries,” will begin Oct. 1 with about 20,000 students from 150 countries.
“The aim of this innovative new course is to showcase what the School of Foreign Service does best, namely, to offer students opportunities to explore and debate the most important international policy issues through an interdisciplinary and interactive approach,” said SFS Dean Carol Lancaster.
BEYOND THE GATES
The course is the initial offering in the university’s partnership with edX, the online learning initiative founded by Harvard and MIT.
The partnership was announced in December 2012 shortly after the university announced its$8 million investmentin theInitiative on Technology-Enhanced Learning(ITEL).
Designed for practitioners and students around the world, the course will be taught by Theodore H. Moran, who holds the Marcus Wallenberg Chair in International Business and Finance at the School of Foreign Service (SFS).
Moran also serves as director of the SFS Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy.
“The MOOC format allows Georgetown to engage individuals beyond the gates of Georgetown, throughout the United States and beyond, in a discussion of the impact of economic global integration,” he said.
GLOBAL AUDIENCE
Moran’s latest book isForeign Direct Investment and Development: Launching a Second Generation of Policy Research(Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2011).
The course begins with an examination of dilemmas faced by developing societies, such as how to manage societies with the “resource curse” – having abundant resources such as oil and minerals.
“Georgetown is using MOOCs to expose a global audience to the high-quality learning experiences our faculty offer each day to our on-campus students,” said Georgetown Provost Robert Groves.“With our long Jesuit tradition of global ethical engagement and our world-class faculty, we are positioned to address some of the most challenging injustices of our time.”
DEVELOPING VS. DEVELOPED WORLDS
Students will learn about sweatshop abuse in plants that produce goods sold by multinational corporations and the impact of wage inequality within both the developed and developing worlds.
The course also examines the impact of trade and investment on firms, workers and communities within the United States and the policies needed to strengthen the ability for the U.S. to engage in a globalized world.
In addition to Moran, seven other Georgetown faculty members contributed to the course: SFS professor John Kline; former SFS professor Carl Dahlman; SFS associate professors Rodney Ludema, Anna Mayda and Scott Taylor; Kathleen McNamara, associate professor of government; SFS assistant professor Lindsey Oldenski, and SFS alum William Plummer (F’86).
Access to the course is freeand can be found on theedX website.