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Super Bowl Commercials

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Super Bowl Commercials

Did you watch Super Bowl LIII? If so, what did you think of the commercials this year? Which were your favorites and least favorites? Why?

This year’s ads steered clear of controversy. Do you think that was a smart move for advertisers? Do you like when brands try to take a political stance? Why or why not?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to find out more about the advertising strategy for this year’s Super Bowl commercials.

Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

Word + Quiz: paltry

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Word + Quiz: paltry

Note: Our Sixth Annual 15-Second Vocabulary Video Challenge is underway. It will run until Feb. 18.

1. contemptibly small in amount

2. not worth considering

_________

The word paltry has appeared in 88 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 17 in “Politics Looms Over Empty Seats as Saudi Arabia Faces Qatar in Asian Cup” by Tariq Panja:

Saudi’s soccer federation, meanwhile, has secured thousands of tickets for its games, but their fans’ presence has had little effect at a tournament notable for its paltry attendance figures. The lack of fans has created a strange atmosphere inside the stadiums, with loud music echoing around largely empty arenas and M.C.s who exhort those present to “make some noise.”

Despite tickets priced as low as about $7, even neutral fans are staying away. Several migrant workers, a group that heavily outnumbers U.A.E. nationals in Abu Dhabi, said their biggest obstacle was not ticket prices or geopolitical intrigue but something far more basic: As one Nigerian taxi driver said, he was just too busy.

“I’m always at work,” he said.

Learning With: ‘Patriots Win in Lowest-Scoring Super Bowl Ever’

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Learning With: ‘Patriots Win in Lowest-Scoring Super Bowl Ever’

Before reading the article:

Did you watch the Super Bowl on Sunday? If so, how did you feel about the outcome? What commercials that aired during the game stood out to you? What did you think of the halftime entertainment?

Now, read the article, “Patriots Win in Lowest-Scoring Super Bowl Ever,” and answer the following questions:

1. What was the final score?

2. The article states, “New England’s reign is as relentless as a downpour, and without precedent.” What statistics explain this?

3. Why, according to the writers, will these Rams and Patriots “be forever linked in Super Bowl ignominy?” What does that mean?

4. Who was named the game’s most valuable player?

5. What other team has won six Super Bowls? How many years did it take that team to achieve those wins? How does that compare to the Patriots’ record?

What’s Going On in This Picture? | Feb. 4, 2019

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What’s Going On in This Picture? | Feb. 4, 2019

Students

1. After looking closely at the image above, think about these three questions:

• What is going on in this picture?

• What do you see that makes you say that?

• What more can you find?

2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)

3. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.

Each Monday, our collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern Time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.

Free Course Global Marketing

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he following course in Global Marketing is provided in its entirety by Atlantic International University’s “Open Access Initiative” which strives to make knowledge and education readily available to those seeking advancement regardless of their socio-economic situation, location or other previously limiting factors. The University’s Open Courses are free and do not require any purchase or registration, they are open to the public.

The course in Global Marketing contains the following:

  • Lessons in video format with explaination of theoratical content.
  • Complementary activities that will make research more about the topic , as well as put into practice what you studied in the lesson. These activities are not part of their final evaluation.
  • Texts supporting explained in the video.
  • Evaluation questionnaire, that will grant access to the next lesson after approval.
  • Final exam for overall evaluation of the course.

The Administrative Staff may be part of a degree program paying up to three college credits. The lessons of the course can be taken on line Through distance learning. The content and access are open to the public according to the “Open Access” and ” Open Access ” Atlantic International University initiative. Participants who wish to receive credit and / or term certificate , must register as students.

Lesson 1: Worldwide competition

One of the product categories in which global competition has been easy to track in U.S.is automotive sales. The increasing intensity of competition in global markets is a challenge facing companies at all stages of involvement in international markets. As markets open up, and become more integrated, the pace of change accelerates, technology shrinks distances between markets and reduces the scale advantages of large firms, new sources of competition emerge, and competitive pressures mount at all levels of the organization. Also, the threat of competition from companies in countries such as India, China, Malaysia, and Brazil is on the rise, as their own domestic markets are opening up to foreign competition, stimulating greater awareness of international market opportunities and of the need to be internationally competitive. Companies which previously focused on protected domestic markets are entering into markets in other countries, creating new sources of competition, often targeted to price-sensitive market segments. Not only is competition intensifying for all firms regardless of their degree of global market involvement, but the basis for competition is changing. Competition continues to be market-based and ultimately relies on delivering superior value to consumers

Video ConferenceLecture MaterialsExam

Lesson 2: Advertising

Advertising or advertising in business is a form of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to take or continue to take some action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. This type of work belongs to a category called affective labor.In Latin, ad vertere means “to turn toward.” The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various old media; including mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television advertisement, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs, websites or text messages.

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Lecture Materials

Lesson 3: Advertising theory

The marketing mix has been a key concept to advertising, it was proposed by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s. The marketing mix consists of four basic elements called the four P’s. Product is the first P representing the actual product. Price represents the process of determining the value of a product. Place represents the variables of getting the product to the consumer such as distribution channels, market coverage and movement organization. The last P stands for Promotion which is the process of reaching the target market and convincing them to buy the product.

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Lesson 4: Advertising Research and Marketing


There are two types of research, customized and syndicated. Customized research is conducted for a specific client to address that client’s needs. Only that client has access to the results of the research. Syndicated research is a single research study conducted by a research company with its results available, for sale, to multiple companies. Pre-market research can be conducted to optimize advertisements for any medium: radio, television, print (magazine, newspaper or direct mail), outdoor billboard (highway, bus, or train), or Internet. Different methods would be applied to gather the necessary data appropriately.

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Lesson 5: Customer orientation

A firm in the market economy survives by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm’s future viability and even existence as a going concern. Many companies today have a customer focus (or market orientation). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally, there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the market change identification approach and the product innovation approach.

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Lesson 6: Marketing research 

Marketing research is “the process or set of processes that links the consumers, customers, and end users to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.”

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Lesson 7: Nation branding and Visual marketing


Nation branding aims to measure build and manage the reputation of countries (closely related to place branding). Some approaches applied, such as an increasing importance on the symbolic value of products, have led countries to emphasise their distinctive characteristics. The branding and image of a nation-state “and the successful transference of this image to its exports – is just as important as what they actually produce and sell.” This is also referred to as country-of-origin effect. Nation branding is still a developing field in which scholars continue their search for a unified theoretical framework. Many governments have resource dedicated to Nation Branding. Their aim is to improve their country’s standing, as the image and reputation of a nation can dramatically influence its success in attracting tourism receipts and investment capital; in exports; in attracting a talented and creative workforce and in its cultural and political influence in the world.

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Lecture Materials

Lesson 8: New product development

In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the complete process of bringing a new product to market. A product is a set of benefits offered for exchange and can be tangible (that is, something physical you can touch) or intangible (like a service, experience, or belief). There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new product within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share

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Lesson 9: NPD strategies #1

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a separate and emerging business-process management methodology related to traditional Six Sigma. While the tools and order used in Six Sigma require a process to be in place and functioning, DFSS has the objective of determining the needs of customers and the business, and driving those needs into the product solution so created. DFSS is relevant to the complex system/product synthesis phase, especially in the context of unprecedented system development. It is process generation in contrast with process improvement.There are different options for the implementation of DFSS. Unlike Six Sigma, which is commonly driven via DMAIC (Define – Measure – Analyze – Improve – Control) projects, DFSS has spawned a number of stepwise processes, all in the style of the DMAIC procedure. Another option is, however, to integrate the DFSS approach into the Product Development Process.

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Lesson 10: NPD strategies #2 and User-centered design

A Phase–gate model, also referred to as a phase–gate process, is a project management technique in which an initiative or project (e.g., new product development, process improvement, business change) is divided into stages or phases, separated by gates. At each gate, the continuation of the process is decided by (typically) a manager or a steering committee. The decision is based on the information available at the time, including the business case, risk analysis, and availability of necessary resources (e.g., money, people with correct competencies). The Phase–gate model may also be known as stage-limited commitment or creeping commitment.

Video Conference:
Lecture Materials

We understand how busy adults do not have time to go back to school. Now, it’s possible to earn your degree in the comfort of your own home and still have time for yourself and your family. The Admissions office is here to help you, for additional information or to see if you qualify for admissions please contact us. If you are ready to apply please submit your Online Application and paste your resume and any additional comments/questions in the area provided. (Online Application) (Request Info)

Atlantic International University
800-993-0066 (Gratis en EUA)
808-924-9567 (Internacional)



Who are our learners: Part 3: The ‘Personal Life’ archetypes

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Who are our learners: Part 3: The ‘Personal Life’ archetypes

A research-based insight into FutureLearners.

Part 3: The ‘Personal Life’ archetypes.

By Tracey Walker, User Experience Researcher at FutureLearn

In part one, Tracey explained how the research and data team at FutureLearn set out to understand more about our learners. You can read more about this in Part 1: what we did and why?

In part two, Tracey focused on the ‘Work and Study’ group of archetypes which included the Advancers, Explorers, and Preparers. You can read more about our insights into these learners in Part 2: The ‘Work and Study’ archetypes.

In this article, part three of the series, Tracey focuses on another one of the groups of archetypes that came out of the research, the ‘Personal Life’ archetypes. Within this category, there were two different archetypes; fixers and flourishers – read on to find out who these archetypes are and what they want from FutureLearn.

Fixers

Fixers learn in order to understand or manage current aspects of their personal life. This could include the physical or mental health of themselves or those close to them, political or cultural issues, situations requiring practical life skills, or major life changes such as bereavement, parenthood, retirement or redundancy. Unlike the work and study related archetypes, Fixers were spread quite evenly across 19-75 year olds  and therefore came from a range of employment types. A higher proportion of Fixers came from Asia (45%) and only 28% from Europe. Fixers had the lowest purchase rate by a long way of any group since proof is not the reason for their learning at all.

What do Fixers want from FutureLearn?

  • A range of quality, up-to-date courses to support needs
  • Pathways to learn more if desired
  • Empathy and understanding
  • Confidence and empowerment
  • Accessible, credible content and expert advice

Flourishers

Flourishers enjoy self-help learning in order to be happy and healthy in their personal and professional lives. They may learn to be calm, manage stress, be enriched, build self-esteem, gain motivation, help others and/or share what they learn. Like Fixers, they come from a wide range of ages and employment, however, the highest proportion tended to come from Europe (40%). Flourishers had one of the highest number of enrolments per group.

What do Flourishers want from FutureLearn?

  • Up-to-date courses, covering well-being, health and the arts
  • Plenty of accessible content
  • Quality videos with engaging presenters
  • Reference packs of material and downloadable audio content to engage with on the move

Understanding more about who are learners are and what they want from our social learning platform helped inform our strategy and enabled us, alongside our partners, to build a portfolio of courses to target those learners.

In part four, our final part of this series, Tracey will look at the last group of archetypes, the ‘Leisure’ archetypes.

Read more in part 1: what we did and why, part 2: The ‘Work and Study’ archetypes and part 4: Who are our Learners? The ‘Leisure’ archetypes.

Category
Research insights

Making great online courses: 10 insights

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Making great online courses: 10 insights

Top 10 insights about how to make great online courses – based on course evaluation.

By Reka Budai, Strategy & Insights Analyst at FutureLearn

At FutureLearn, we take great pride in having high quality courses from reputable institutions and educators. When asked recently in our Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, 91% of learners said that the last course they took on FutureLearn met or exceeded their expectations. To make sure we continuously improve our courses together with our partners, we have a diligent evaluation process in place that looks at learner behaviour data coupled with learner feedback. The main objectives of our course evaluation are to understand what we could improve for reruns, and to uncover overall patterns in excellent course design. Learners consistently give us the same reasons why a course did not meet their expectations, or why a course was outstanding, compared to other online courses they have taken before.

To help educators who are starting to design courses for online learners, we summarised our top 10 insights from course evaluation.

You can read all our tips on Edtechnology.co.uk in part one and part two.

Category
Research insights

Who are our learners: Part 2: The ‘Work and Study’ archetypes

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Who are our learners: Part 2: The ‘Work and Study’ archetypes

A research-based insight into FutureLearners.

Part 2: The ‘Work and Study’ archetypes.

By Tracey Walker, User Experience Researcher at FutureLearn

In part one, Tracey explained how, last year, the research and data teams set about some foundational research to understand who our learners really are. We wanted to understand their motivations, their personalities and characteristics, where they’re from and other key demographics, and finally, the team wanted to identify their key learning needs. Read more in part 1: what we did and why

In this article, part two of the series, Tracey focuses on one of the groups of archetypes that came out of the research, those who identified themselves as most interested in ‘Work and Study’. Within this category, there were three different archetypes; advancers, explorers and preparers – read on to find out who these archetypes are and what they want from FutureLearn.

Advancers

Advancers are on their chosen career path. They’re ambitious and self-motivated to do better, progress and not stagnate. They are likely to be employed full-time and a greater proportion are from the 26-35 age group. The highest representation of Advancers were found in Asia (36%)  Europe (30%) and Africa (18%). Advancers made up the highest purchasers of upgrades on the FutureLearn Platform

What do Advancers want from FutureLearn?

  • Work related courses with clear outcomes
  • Up to date information and on trend topics
  • Pathways to specialise further
  • Certificates and accreditation

Explorers

Explorers are evaluating their options and want to inform their decisions about what to do next. They might be looking to change career, find a better life balance or decide where to start their working lives. They were more likely to come from the 26-35 age group and like Advancers, the highest representation of Explorers were found in Asia (38%), Europe (34%) and Africa (15%).  Explorers had the lowest purchase rate of work and study related groups, but still higher than personal life and leisure groups.

What do Explorers want from FutureLearn?

  • Engaging courses, with cutting-edge, work-related topics
  • Ways to build confidence in themselves, their knowledge and abilities
  • Reassurance about the viability of their chosen path
  • Pathways to more advanced courses

Preparers

Preparers tend to be starting out in jobs, careers or related study, having already chosen what they want to do. They have specific career or study goals and learn in order to improve their chances of success, improve their career prospects, stand out from the crowd, and increase their confidence. Explorers were mostly in the 19-35 age group and the largest group came from Asia (47%). This group of learners also had the highest proportion of student learners than any other archetype. Preparers had the second highest purchase rate of all archetypes

What do Preparers want from FutureLearn?

  • Courses in up-to-date, job-relevant topics
  • Interactive and engaging learning tools
  • Ways to build confidence in knowledge/skills, e.g. tests
  • Support for non-native English speakers
  • Increasingly advanced courses and learning pathways
  • Certificates and accreditation

Understanding more about who are learners are and what they want from our social learning platform helped inform our strategy. Through this research, we were able to focus on the needs of the learners who were most likely to bring in more revenue and, alongside our partners, build a portfolio of courses to target those learners.

But all of our learners don’t fit into this group of archetypes, so we had more to learn.

Read more in part 1: what we did and whypart 3: Who are our learners: The ‘Personal Life’ archetypes and part 4: Who are our Learners? The ‘Leisure’ archetypes.

Category
Research insights

Development and impact of a MOOC for antimicrobial stewardship

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Development and impact of a MOOC for antimicrobial stewardship

A short summary of the research paper ‘Development and impact of a MOOC for antimicrobial stewardship’ which appeared in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Written by Sally Bradley, E-Learning Manager, British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

The University of Dundee and the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) developed a course called Antimicrobial Stewardship: Managing Antibiotic Resistance to address the global need for education to support antimicrobial stewardship in low and middle income countries.

This was the first course from the university and BSAC and it ran for the first time in September 2015. Having been successfully received, it will be starting its ninth run on 5 February 2018. To date, there have been over 40,000 enrolments on the course with participants from all healthcare professions across the globe.

The course was designed by the lead educator, Professor Dilip Nathwani, OBE and thirteen specialists in antimicrobial resistance and stewardship.  The course is six weeks long with each week exploring different aspects of stewardship.  A mixture of steps were used to ensure participants understood key elements within the course including quizzes and written assignments to ensure their understanding.

The participants were asked to complete a survey sent out to them on our behalf by FutureLearn to assess the impact of the course on their clinical practice.

  • At this time, a total, 32 944 people, 70% of them healthcare professionals, from 163 countries joined the course from Europe (49%), Asia (16%), Africa (13%), North America (9%), Australia (8%) and South America (5%).
  • Between 33% and 37% of joiners in each run completed at least one step in any week of the course and 219 participants responded to a post-course survey.
  • The course was rated good or excellent by 208 (95%) of the participants, and 83 (38%) intended to implement stewardship interventions in their own setting.
  • A follow-up survey 6 months later suggested that 49% had implemented such interventions.

The University of Dundee and BSAC are delighted with the uptake of the course which has now been translated and launched in Chinese with Spanish and Russian versions due to launch early in 2018.

Measuring the impact on clinical practice remains a challenge, however.

Read the full research paper written by Jacqueline Sneddon, Gavin Barlow, Sally Bradley, Adrian Brink, Sujith J Chandy, and Dilip Nathwani in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Category
Research insights

Who are our Learners? Part 1: What we did and why

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Who are our Learners? Part 1: What we did and why

A research-based insight into FutureLearners.

Part 1: What we did and why.

By Tracey Walker, User Experience Researcher at FutureLearn

After 4 years, thousands of courses, and millions of learners, it seemed a good time to investigate who our learners really are and get to know them better.  

At the beginning, we assumed that our learners might follow the Open University demographic; mostly retired people looking for a new lease of life through study and learning. This proved to be correct but as with the world itself, FutureLearn evolved and by the time I joined in 2016, our learners were much more diverse. Thus, with a determination to shake up our comfortable understanding of learner demographics, the research and data team set about doing some foundational research which we hoped would permeate the strategy and design of FutureLearn and help us to understand how far we had come and the types of people we were now attracting.

The research question

We wanted to understand who our learners are. Specifically, we wanted to:

  • Explore their motivations
  • Understand their personalities and characteristics
  • Find out where they are from, and other demographics
  • Identify their key learning needs

The research process

To understand who learns with FutureLearn, the first thing we needed to do was understand the ‘why’; what were their motivations for coming to the platform?  

This was a broad question but it fitted with our focus on framing this research as a discovery piece, a sort of naive wonderment at who our learners might be, how they might feel and what they might need. This was to be a piece of research looking at the long term and the big picture rather than something that focused more on our targets and metrics.

Thinking about our output of the research, we discussed producing personas from the sample, but concluded that personas could be rather static and we wanted an output that allowed for change and flux – just like the real world.

We decided instead to try to understand learners in terms of behavioural archetypes which we felt would be a much more useful way to engage product teams and help them to understand how best to tailor business goals so that they serve learners needs, because while we wanted to look at the big picture, ultimately we needed to produce insights that would be useful to the various work streams within FutureLearn.

Why behavioral archetypes and why are they useful?

So, what is an archetype and how does it help product teams to understand our learners in this way?  Generally, an archetype is “a pattern of behaviour that others are likely to follow.” Archetypes reflect human behaviour at the cognitive level, they represent typical attitudes, motivations and goals and so help us to understand what learners do, how they do it, and most importantly, why.

Ultimately, by defining the different types of learners using our platform in the form of archetypes, we were able to act more strategically. Specifically, we were able to:

  • Inform FutureLearn’s strategy for 2017-2018
  • Focus on learners who are likely to bring in more revenue
  • Build a portfolio of courses that targets specific learner needs.

The research method

We designed a survey asking learners to tell us about their motivations for learning with FutureLearn, their preferences and behaviours across the platform and their personal lifestyle choices. This was sent to existing learners from our global database and resulted in nearly 7,000 responses.

Research Results

The results were collated and studied, resulting in us grouping our learners into 7 different types of people, or archetypes. We had some fun brainstorming names for these groups and came up with the following:  Advancers, Explorers, Preparers, Fixers, Flourishers, Hobbyists, Vitalisers.  In addition, each of the 7 archetypes fit into one of three different areas:

Work and Study

  • Learners who use FutureLearn primarily to enhance career prospects

Personal Life

  • Learners who use FutureLearn primarily to positively affect a problem in their personal life

Leisure

  • Learners who learn for ‘the love of learning’ or to satisfy their curiosity/interest in a hobby or community activity

In part 2 of this series, we’ll look in more detail at the Work and Study group of archetypes.

Read more in part 3: Who are our learners: The ‘Personal Life’ archetypes and part 4: Who are our Learners?: The ‘Leisure’ archetypes.

Category
Research insights