Together with many reputable partners, the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam offers a range of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs).
What are MOOCs?
MOOCs are online courses that are freely accessible to anyone who wants to register. Since the launch of our first MOOC, "Planning for Climate Change in African Cities", in 2017, more than 2000 people have signed up for our courses. Over the past two years, IHS has released three more MOOCs on urban management and development topics: "Financing Infrastructure in African Cities", "Local Economic Development", and "Studying Cities: Social Science Methods for Urban Research". The IHS MOOCs can be accessed through the online education platform Coursera.org. The latest MOOC "Making Housing Markets Work in African Cities", is available on the African Cities Lab Open edX platform.
The MOOCs:
- are developed together with reputable partners;
- are taught by renowned academics;
- run approximately four times per year;
- take about 5 weeks to complete (1-5 hours per week, depending on the course);
- do not have entry requirements but will be especially useful to specific groups of students depending on the topic;
- can be taken at any time of the day during the cohort and from anywhere online;
- are self-paced, and self-study organized but offer access to a community of online learners through forums and discussion boards;
- are free to follow;
- offer the chance to earn a certificate of completion (fees defined by the learning platform).
What MOOCs does IHS offer?
- Financing Infrastructure in African Cities
- Planning for Climate Change in African Cities
- Local Economic Development
- Studying Cities: Social Science Methods for Urban Research
Please visit the specific course pages to view all starting moments.
Who are our partners?
Our MOOC series on urban development in African cities was developed in collaboration with United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-Africa), African Local Governments Academy (ALGA), Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) and Erasmus University Rotterdam. The Local Economic Development MOOC was developed in partnership with the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Together we also run an on-campus version of the Local Economic Development (LED) course.