The University of Maryland is pleased to offer free online courses in collaboration with Coursera, an online education platform. These non-credit interactive courses, taught by Maryland faculty, will be available in early 2013. For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd.

University of Maryland’s Free Online Courses

Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies
Dr. James V. Green

Begins May 20, 2013 (6 weeks long)

This course promotes “developing great ideas into great companies.” With strong economies presenting rich opportunities for new venture creation, and challenging economic times presenting the necessity for many to make their own job, the need to develop the skills to develop and to act on innovative business opportunities is ever present.

Using proven content, methods, and models for new venture opportunity, students will learn how to analyze each part of a company and a customer development orientation to see if anyone really wants the product. Our goal is to demystify the startup process, and to help you build the skills to identify and act on innovative opportunities now, and in the future.

For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd

Exploring Quantum Physics
Dr. Charles W. Clark and Dr. Victor Galitski

Begins March 25, 2013 (8 weeks long)

Quantum physics is the foundation for much of modern technology, provides the framework for understanding light and matter from the subatomic to macroscopic domains, and makes possible the most precise measurements ever made. More than just a theory, it offers a way of looking at the world that grows richer with experience and practice. Our course provides some of that practice. Our course will provide some of that practice and teach you "tricks of the trade" (not found in textbooks) that will enable you to solve quantum-mechanical problems yourself and understand the subject at a deeper level.

The basic principles of quantum physics are actually quite simple, but they lead to astonishing outcomes. Two examples that we will look at from various perspectives are the prediction of the laser by Albert Einstein in 1917 and the prediction of antimatter by Paul Dirac in 1928. Both of these predictions came from very simple arguments in quantum theory, and led to results that transformed science and society. Another familiar phenomenon, magnetism, had been known since antiquity, but only with the advent of quantum physics was it understood how magnets worked, to a degree that made possible the discovery in the 1980’s of ultrastrong rare-earth magnets. However, lasers, antimatter and magnets are areas of vibrant research, and they are all encountered in the new field of ultracold atomic physics that will provide much of the material of “Exploring Quantum Physics”.

Richard Feynman once said, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” We say, that’s no reason not to try! What Feynman was referring to are some of the “spooky” phenomena like quantum entanglement, which are incomprehensible from the standpoint of classical physics. Even though they have been thoroughly tested by experiment, and are even being exploited for applications such as cryptography and logic processing, they still seem so counterintuitive that they give rise to extraordinary ideas such as the many-world theory. Quantum physics combines a spectacular record of discovery and predictive success, with foundational perplexities so severe that even Albert Einstein came to believe that it was wrong. This is what makes it such an exciting area of science!

For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd

Genes and the Human Condition (From Behavior to Biotechnology)
Dr. Tammatha O'Brien and Dr. Raymond St. Leger

Begins April 22, 2013 (6 weeks long)

In this class we will cover the essentials of genomics to help you better understand your own life (know thy genome, know thyself), and how advances in biotechnology are radically changing the scientific landscape.

We will begin with some of the most basic issues of genetics, such as the composition of genomes and how the information in them is processed so we can get an adult human from an egg. Then we’ll see that much of the power of genomics is in comparisons. If I only had your genome there's not much I could do with it. But if I lined it up against a chimpanzee genome I’d see that they are 98.5% identical. It’s that 1.5% difference that we study to determine what makes a chimp a chimp and a human a human.

In the next few years you’ll be able to get your genome done for a few hundred dollars, and we will look at the challenges you might face dealing with this new self-knowledge. We shall particularly focus on behavior. How can genes predispose some of us to be nice and others of us to be psychopaths? We will be examining behavior as a complex unfolding of interactions between your genome and the environment.

Thanks in large part to genomics we are beginning to understand the living processes that constitute ourselves, where we can begin to intervene to take control of our own future. We will look at the technologies involved and the consequences of this new power. Genetic engineering has already changed what you eat and the medicines you take, and will likely therefore change how long you live. If we choose to genetically engineer ourselves as some advocate then we may also change how we view ourselves as human beings. We do not know where our ability to intervene in our own living processes is going to lead us. Depending on your point of view that is the promise or the threat of the era we live in. Scientists today already envisage creating life from scratch, and we are entering a world where political considerations, and imagination, may be the only brakes on biotechnology.

For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd

Surviving Disruptive Technologies
Professor Hank Lucas

Begins March 25, 2013 (7 weeks long)

The purpose of this course is to help individuals and organizations survive when confronted with disruptive technologies that threaten their current way of life. We will look at a general model of survival and use it to analyze companies and industries that have failed or are close to failing. Examples of companies that have not survived include Kodak, a firm over 100 years old, Blockbuster and Borders. It is likely that each of us has done business with all of these firms, and today Kodak and Blockbuster are in bankruptcy and Borders has been liquidated. Disruptions are impacting industries like education; Coursera and others offering these massive open online courses are a challenge for Universities. In addition to firms that have failed, we will look at some that have survived and are doing well. What are their strategies for survival?

By highlighting the reasons for the decline of firms and industries, participants can begin to understand how to keep the same thing from happening to them. Through the study of successful organizations, we will try to tease out approaches to disruptions that actually work. Our ultimate objective is to develop a strategy for survival in a world confronting one disruptive technology after another.

For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd

Women and the Civil Rights Movement
Dr. Elsa Barkley Brown

Begins February 25, 2013 (12 weeks long)

This course examines the U.S. civil rights movement from the vantage point of women, considering women’s involvement in the legal campaigns, political protests and the impact of civil rights struggles on women’s status and identity. Taking a “long civil rights movement” perspective, we begin in the late nineteenth century and consider events, organizations, and personalities through the twentieth century.

Throughout we will consider issues which have preoccupied historians, social movement theorists, and historians alike: developing and sustaining political commitment, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of political organization, maximizing influence and securing long-range objectives. We will also examine competing definitions of leadership; class, race, and gender dynamics within the movement; and the cultural dynamics of political organizing and social change. In the process we consider not only how the movement altered the status of African Americans in the U.S. but the legacy of these struggles as they changed understandings of citizenship and rights more broadly. Our concern throughout the course will be to not only understand the historical narrative, but also to see how historians work to make sense of the past.

For more information, please visit www.coursera.org/umd