Description Improving access to healthcare is only as useful as the quality of care provided. Many agree that quality is important – but what is it? How do we define it? How do we measure it? And most importantly, how might we make it better?The course is designed for those who care about health and…
Description From the Syrian refugee crisis to the West Africa Ebola outbreak, humanitarian emergencies have reached unprecedented dimensions and proportions. As need for humanitarian aid grows, how can efforts to alleviate human suffering evolve with it? This course from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and HarvardX seeks to prepare learners to recognize and analyze emerging challenges…
Description Causal diagrams have revolutionized the way in which researchers ask: What is the causal effect of X on Y? They have become a key tool for researchers who study the effects of treatments, exposures, and policies. By summarizing and communicating assumptions about the causal structure of a problem, causal diagrams have helped clarify apparent…
Description The weather forecasts we see every day are based on an army of meteorological sensing networks and intensive computer modeling. Before the rise of these technologies, predictions were made by methods like discerning cloud formations and wind directions. This course will explore the science behind weather systems by teaching the observational skills needed to…
Description In 1854, a cholera epidemic swept through the London neighborhood of Soho. In the course of about three weeks, over 600 people died. This incident was, tragically, not unusual in London or the rest of the 19th century world as a whole. The scourge of cholera seemed unstoppable and, even worse, unpredictable. But one…
Description Humans have been navigating for ages. As we developed the tools and techniques for determining location and planning a route, navigation grew into a practice, an art, and a science. Navigational skill has long been tied to commercial, economic, and military success. However, the ability to predict when and where one will reach a…
Description Humans have always sought to know their own future, be it the destiny of an empire or an individual’s fate. Across cultures and history, we find people trying to find their place in the Universe by attempting to gaze into the future. Join us for this one-week, immersive learning experience as we explore “pre-scientific”…
Description During each module of this course, chefs reveal the secrets behind some of their most famous culinary creations — often right in their own restaurants. Inspired by such cooking mastery, the Harvard team will then explain the science behind the recipe. Topics will include: How molecules influence flavor The role of heat in cooking…
Description To become an expert data scientist you need practice and experience. By completing this capstone project you will get an opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills in R data analysis that you have gained throughout the series. This final project will test your skills in data visualization, probability, inference and modeling, data wrangling,…
Description As part of our Professional Certificate Program in Data Science, this course covers the basics of data visualization and exploratory data analysis. We will use three motivating examples and ggplot2, a data visualization package for the statistical programming language R. We will start with simple datasets and then graduate to case studies about world…