This course presents an examination of ethical issues relevant to systems-based research procedures, professional conduct, social and environmental impacts, and embedded ethics in research and professional practice in RESS based jobs. In this course, you will consider case studies of ethical issues that can arise when engaging renewable energy and sustainability systems. You will also develop an ethics case study based on your area of RESS interests. The goals of the course are to provide you with tools for analyzing ethical issues both in the line of professional duties and in consideration of the various ethical issues that face an entire sector of renewable energy and that underpin the very reasons for taking a sustainable and renewable approach.

This course considers the interaction between law, policy, and technology as they relate to the evolving controversies over control of the Internet. In addition, there will be an in-depth treatment of privacy and the notion of “transparency” – regulations and technologies that govern the use of information, as well as access to information. Topics explored will include:

Legal Background for Regulation of the Internet
Fourth Amendment Law and Electronic Surveillance
Profiling, Data Mining, and the U.S. PATRIOT Act
Technologies for Anonymity and Transparency
The Policy-Aware Web

This is a semester-long jigsaw project in which students work in teams to explore the effects of energy resource development on local water resources, economics, and society. Students are presented with a contemporary energy resource development issue being debated in their community. They research the water, geological, economic, and social impact of the project, and then either defend or support the development proposal.

Major reports and initiatives by the city and its collaborators are described here in chronological order, starting in 2007. Use the drop down menu to filter the reports by subject area.

The FOSTER portal is an e-learning platform that brings together the best training resources addressed to those who need to know more about Open Science, or need to develop strategies and skills for implementing Open Science practices in their daily workflows. Here you will find a growing collection of training materials. Many different users - from early-career researchers, to data managers, librarians, research administrators, and graduate schools - can benefit from the portal. In order to meet their needs, the existing materials will be extended from basic to more advanced-level resources. In addition, discipline-specific resources will be created.

This course explores the foundations of policy making in developing countries. The goal is to spell out various policy options and to quantify the trade-offs between them. We will study the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. This is an empirical class. For each topic, we will study several concrete examples chosen from around the world. While studying each of these topics, we will ask: What determines the decisions of poor households in developing countries? What constraints are they subject to? Is there a scope for policy (by government, international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs))? What policies have been tried out? Have they been successful?
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner’s ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.740x Foundations of Development Policy.

Urban governance comprises the various forces, institutions, and movements that guide economic and physical development, the distribution of resources, social interactions, and other aspects of daily life in urban areas. This course examines governance from legal, political, social, and economic perspectives. In addition, we will discuss how these structures constrain collective decision making about particular urban issues (immigration, education…). Assignments will be nightly readings and a short paper relating an urban issue to the frameworks outlined in the class.

Fundamentals of photoelectric conversion: charge excitation, conduction, separation, and collection. Lectures cover commercial and emerging photovoltaic technologies and cross-cutting themes, including conversion efficiencies, loss mechanisms, characterization, manufacturing, systems, reliability, life-cycle analysis, risk analysis, and technology evolution in the context of markets, policies, society, and environment.
This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is an elective subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute–wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

This report covers funder data-sharing policies/practices, and provides recommendations to funders and others as they consider their own policies. It was commissioned by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2017. If any comments or questions, please contact Stephanie Wykstra (stephanie.wykstra@gmail.com).

The studio will focus on the district of Gaoming, located in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) - the fastest growing and most productive region of China. The District has recently completed a planning effort in which several design institutes and a Hong Kong planning firm prepared ideas for a new central area near the river. The class will complement these efforts by focusing on planning and design options on the waterfront of the proposed new district and ways of integrating water/hydrological factors into all aspects and land uses of a modern city (residential, commercial, industrial) - including watershed and natural ecosystem protection, economic and recreational activities, transportation, and tourism.

In January 2024, Ruchita Gupta, Ph.D. presented a lecture on Indian urban informal settlements to CAORC OFDS participants visiting the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi.
Informal Housing in Delhi: Policies and Case Studies: The growth of India’s population and increase in urban migration has amplified the shortage of affordable housing in India’s capital. How do government policies address the need for housing for the urban poor, slums and squatter settlements in the city of Delhi? Ruchita Gupta, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Housing, School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, presents several case studies to provide a glimpse of the living conditions of the urban poor in these settlements. Moderated by FDS participant Amar Sawhney, Professor of Architecture, Building Construction and Interior Design, Miami Dade College.

This course will provide students with an analytic framework to understand the roles that gender, race, and class play in defining and determining access to leadership and power in the U.S., especially in the context of the workplace. We will explore women and men in leadership positions within the corporate, political and non-profit sectors, with attention to the roles of women of color and immigrant women within this context. We will also look at specific policies such as affirmative action, parental leave, child-care policy, and working-time policies and the role they play–or could play–in achieving parity. We will further investigate ways in which these policies address gender, racial, and class inequities, and think critically about mechanisms for change. The course will be highly interactive, and will combine texts, theater, videos and visual arts.

This course uses theories of gender to explore sociopolitical, ethical and theological perspectives on immigration policy, with a focus on the U.S. The course begins with an overview of global developments in the feminization of migration and ethical and policy dilemmas that are specific to the current era.

Have you seen a Clean Coal baseball cap? In the challenge to meet soaring energy demand with limited resources, volatile issues like those related to the environment, national security and public health are often addressed outside of normal market transactions and are called externalities, or nonmarket factors. Stakeholders can act in resourceful ways to create a nonmarket environment that best serves their interest. A firm may challenge a law that makes it expensive or difficult to do business or compete with others, for example. An individual may organize a boycott of products or services that violate the individual's interests or principles--hey, don't buy from them! Nonmarket strategy in the energy sector is the subject of this engaging course.

This practical toolkit is designed to support open education leaders and community members across states and districts interested to increase awareness of OER and digital equity. It contains talking points, sample newsletter or website language, and sample social media posts, for anyone to use and adapt in their communications.

In October 2022, the #GoOpen National Network launched an important strategic policy action to advocate for integrating OER into digital equity implementations and this toolkit supports the network's communications strategies.

Funded by the federal bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, P.L. 117-58), the Digital Equity Act of 2021 requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish grant programs for promoting digital equity, supporting digital inclusion activities, and building capacity for state-led efforts to increase adoption of broadband by their residents. As states craft their Digital Equity Plans, they have a unique opportunity to leverage OER to support equity and capitalize on improved digital infrastructure.

The #GoOpen Policy Letter and Guidance documents were shared with state level IT and broadband infrastructure leaders across the country and are available as resources featured in the #GoOpen Hub on OER Commons.

GoOpen Michigan is a community of educators and learners who access and contribute free, openly licensed, high-quality digital resources to enable equitable transformative learning experiences.

The GoOpen National Network is disseminating this letter to state leads of broadband, IT and digital equity to consider OER in their Digital Equity Plans during 2022-2023.

The letter can be copied and customized for those interested in communicating and advocating with state leaders about OER awareness and the potential benefits of OER integration into state plans.

Read the accompanying GUIDANCE document: https://www.oercommons.org/courses/goopen-guidance-maximizing-the-impact-of-digital-access-and-inclusion-by-using-oer?__hub_id=97

BACKGROUND: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“IIJA”, P.L. 117-58) requires State Digital Equity Plans to identify barriers to broadband and device equity and accessibility. The plans must also feature objective measures of educational, workforce, health, and other benefits derived from closing connectivity gaps. Requiring or encouraging open licensing of digital materials, such as high-quality educational materials, is a powerful policy strategy for magnifying the educational and other social impacts of broadband access and inclusivity. With this goal as our guide, the #GoOpen National Network encourages you to work with the education leaders in your state to make open educational resources and other openly licensed materials a key element of your state’s Digital Equity Plan.

This is a guide to good practices for college and university open-access (OA) policies. It's based on the type of rights-retention OA policy first adopted at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Kansas. Policies of this kind have since been adopted at a wide variety of institutions in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, for example, at public and private institutions, large and small institutions, affluent and indigent institutions, research universities and liberal arts colleges, and at whole universities, schools within universities, and departments within schools.

In this role-play activity, students take the roles of various important players in the climate change policy negotiation including politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives. Working in these roles, students must take a position, debate with others, and then vote on legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Can be used in a variety of courses including writing and rhetoric, and social sciences.

When the science is so clear, why is it so difficult to make agreements that will reduce our impact on climate change? This exercise is designed to help students explore that important question in an active and engaging way. Students are cast into the roles of various important players in the climate change issue, including politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives. Working in these roles, students must take a position, debate with others, and then vote on legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

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