News

New MOOC "Co-Creating Sustainable Cities" launched

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October 10, 2017

Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological and political innovations for achieving sustainability.

You can learn about these challenges and opportunities in the new AMS Institute MOOC titled "Co-Creating Sustainable Cities". It is developed by Wageningen UR and TU Delft, two of the founding universities of AMS Institute, and in cooperation with Tsinghua University.

ENP is proud to have played a major role in building this MOOC, and it features several ENP researchers. Professor Gert Spaargaren is the coordinating instructor of the course.

Read more about the MOOC and how to register here.

Edukatico, a search portal for online courses, interviewed AMS Institute about the new MOOC. Below is an excerpt:

Edukatico: Your new MOOC "Co-Creating Sustainable Cities" explores how citizens can be co-creators of modern sustainable cities. What are the key skills or insights participants can expect to get, and why are they important?

AMS Institute: Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological, and political innovations for achieving sustainability. Sustainability can be seen to be the result of the interplay between technology, policy and people’s daily lives. 
In this MOOC, participants will learn about different forms of co-creation and how these result in sustainable cities. Throughout the course, it will be shown which specific forms of co-creation are preferred in specific urban socio-technical contexts (and why). 
This will be illustrated by investigating and comparing case studies from three cities (Amsterdam, Kampala and Beijing) on three themes that have a vast effect on city life: 1) Water and wastewater, 2) Energy, air, and mobility, and 3) Green spaces and food.

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Edukatico: What was your experience with your introductory MOOC on "Sustainable Urban Development"? Can participants from various metropolitan regions of the world enrich the learning experience in a MOOC?

AMS Institute: We were delighted by the massive number and diversity of participants (over 11,000 students from more than 165 countries) who joined us for our first MOOC on sustainable urban development, and we were thrilled to see that the course was so greatly appreciated, that it hit the renowned edX’ Best Rated MOOC list. 
Including the re-run, we even had more than 20,000 participants taking part in our first MOOC – a sign of worldwide interest in advanced metropolitan solutions. The diverse backgrounds, different activities and team challenges have enabled students to share their experiences in forum discussions and to learn from each other.
 

Edukatico: What does the AMS Institute expect to achieve from offering MOOCs? Can MOOC participants continue to work with the AMS on the topic of urban development?

AMS Institute: With our MOOCs we want to open up our network and knowledge, but also create a community of people working together and sharing knowledge on metropolitan solutions. The MOOC resulted in multiple requests for collaboration, information and also in pre-enrollments for the MSc MADE degree program that was introduced this September.

Link to the full interview: https://www.edukatico.org/en/news/thousands-of-learners-worldwide-explore-the-challenges-of-urbanization-in-this-new-mooc