Short Courses: Engineering Management

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Featured Short Courses: Engineering Management

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (GetSmarter)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School Of Management offers a fully online short term course titled, Business Process Design for Strategic Management. The program is delivered in collaboration with GetSmarter, an online education provider. This course will expose students to the principles and development of “Dynamic Work Design”—an improvement framework for processes, from the creators (Nelson Repenning and Donald Kieffer) of this sustainable operations improvement methodology.

The course is designed to equip managers with the necessary skills that help them refine business processes. The faculty of the program includes industry experts sharing in-depth subject knowledge and experience with students throughout the course.

In order to access the course, students must have a current email account, a computer with internet, a PDF reader, as well as Adobe Flash Player, to play the videos. It is also recommended to access the course in Google Chrome. The course offers an interactive learning experience to students with discussion forums, e-learning activities, and infographics.

The coursework is divided into six modules, with the first one being an orientation module. Some of the topics covered in the curriculum include an introduction to dynamic work design, principles of dynamic work design, problem statement, structured problem solving, designing work for people, and visual management.

Students get a detailed understanding of the approaches and principles driving improvement and develop the skills for applying them in the real world.

  • Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Accreditation: New England Commission of Higher Education
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: $2,800
  • Program length: 6 weeks (5–7 hours per week)

Rice University (Coursera)

Rice University offers the engineering project management specialization in collaboration with the online course provider, Coursera. This engineering project management specialization is designed as an introduction to project management, providing students with the tools to successfully and effectively manage projects, giving them a solid foundation of skills, confidence, and knowledge that sets them apart and gives them a competitive edge as they move into leadership positions. This specialization is ideal for engineers who want to improve their project management skills.

This specialization, offered through Coursera, is a series of courses helping students master engineering project management skills. Students will have to finish a hands-on project to complete this specialization and earn their certificates. After completing all courses in this specialization, students will earn a certificate they can share with their professional network and prospective employers.

There are three courses in this specialization:

Engineering Project Management (Initiating and Planning): This course provides students with the tools needed for initiating a project plan, managing both stakeholders and relationships, organizing their team, developing a project charter, and building a business case for a project.

Engineering Project Management (Scope, Time, and Cost Management): The course teaches students how to develop the scope of a project, schedule and budget, and predict project performance.

Engineering Project Management (Risk, Quality, Teams, and Procurement): Students through this course will learn about managing risk, controlling the quality of the deliverables, engaging and managing people, and procuring services and goods. During this course, students will be preparing a qualitative risk analysis and will be evaluating the cost of quality for a provided case study.

  • Location: Houston, Texas
  • Accreditation: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: Free
  • Program length: Four months (four hours per week)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (edX)

Founded in 1861, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university dedicated to advance knowledge and educate students in technology, science, and many other areas.

The “Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership” is an online short term course offered through edX, an online MOOC provider. This course is part of another program, Principles of Manufacturing MicroMasters. The course aims to expose students to key practices and principles in engineering management.

The program comprises nine credit-hours, exploring topics such as an introduction to power system markets, signal processing for power systems, electrical power engineering, and electric power quality.

Other courses offered in the principles of manufacturing micro-master’s program include manufacturing process control I and II, manufacturing systems I and II, management in engineering: accounting and planning (formerly known as management in engineering I), and supply chains for manufacturing: capacity analytics.

Students will learn how to perform risk analyses for building technology and business strategies, using best management practices, and choosing effective marketing, operations, and development approaches in specific business cases.

After completing this course, students can pursue an official instructor-signed certificate for verifying their achievements and increasing their job prospects. This certificate can be added to their resume or posted to LinkedIn.

  • Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Accreditation: New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: Free
  • Program length: Eight weeks (ten to 12 hours per week)

Columbia University (Coursera)

The Columbia University in the city of New York offers the construction management specialization in collaboration with the online course provider, Coursera. This specialization is ideal for construction industry professionals, architects, and engineers who are looking to advance their careers.

It is also ideal for students who are interested in learning about construction project management. Students through the program will gain skills in project management, cost estimation, cost control, construction management, project planning, and finance.

The series of courses included in this specialization will help students in mastering construction management skills. To earn a certificate, students will have to finish a hands-on project and complete all courses in this specialization. Upon completion, students will earn a certificate that can be shared with prospective employers and professional networks.

The four courses in the specialization are:

Construction Project Management: This construction project management course introduces students to project initiation and planning.

Construction Scheduling: Students through this course will discover key project scheduling procedures and techniques.

Construction Cost Estimating and Cost Control: This course introduces students to the types of cost estimation in different phases such as the conceptual design phase and the more detailed design phase of a construction project.

Construction Finance: This final course helps students in understanding the economics and mathematics of money.

  • Location: New York City, New York
  • Accreditation: Middle States Commission on Higher Education
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: Free
  • Program length: Five months (four hours per week)

Udemy

Udemy offers an online short course: “The Project Management Course: Beginner to PROject Manager.”

This online short course is ideal for students who wish to manage projects, university graduates and young professionals interested in a project management career, and professionals who wish to enhance or develop their project management skills and knowledge. The faculty of the program includes PMP certified professional instructors who have years of experience in this job.

Consisting of 98 lectures, the content of the course is divided into 19 sections with the first one being the introduction to project management section. The curriculum includes topics such as the project phase, initiation phase, planning phase, execution phase, monitoring and control phase, closure phase, and agile project management, among others.

Students will gain project management skills and knowledge needed for managing entire projects, understand the role of project managers, and acquire the skills for becoming successful in this profession. They also learn about the best practices and fundamental theories of project management.

  • Location: Online
  • Accreditation: N/A
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: $6.18
  • Program length: Seven hours and 11 minutes

Georgia Institute of Technology (Udacity)

The “Introduction to Operating Systems” online short course is offered at the Georgia Institute of Technology through Udacity, an educational platform offering massive open online courses. All courses offered by Udacity are delivered by qualified and experienced instructors. They help students acquire valuable real-world skills.

This graduate-level program in operating systems teaches students about fundamental operating system mechanisms, abstractions, and implementations. Taught by industry professionals, the course includes instructor videos and learning by doing exercises.

To enroll for this course, students must have taken an undergraduate level course on, or be otherwise familiar with, basic software and hardware aspects of computer systems organization. Prior programming C experience is recommended. Also, students must have an updated version of Chrome, a quick and reliable internet connection, the ability to watch YouTube videos, as well as a Google account.

The curriculum of the course includes the following four sections:

Lesson 1: This is an overview of the course including an introduction to operating systems

Lesson 2 – This includes topics such as threads and concurrency, process management, and thread implementation considerations.

Lesson 3 – This section is about resource management and communication covering topics such as inter-process communication, memory management, and IQ management

Lesson 4 – This lesson about distributed systems covers data center technologies, distributed file systems, and distributed shared memory

Students in this course learn how to implement operating systems. They will also examine the practical aspects of operating systems.

  • Location: Atlanta, Georgia
  • Accreditation: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: Free
  • Program length: Two months

George Washington University (GetSmarter)

The Project Management Essentials online short course from the George Washington University School of Business is designed to introduce professionals to popular and new project management techniques and tools. Students will learn about the various aspects of project management, including project initiation and development.

This course is ideal for students who wish to develop core project management competencies and explore key leadership, strategic, and interpersonal skills. Operations managers, managing directors, and supervisors will also benefit by adding these skills to their current management practices.

All the coursework is available online. Students will have access to course videos, discussion forums to interact with fellow classmates and live online group tutorials. To enhance their learning, they will also work through real-world case studies and complete weekly assignments.

The coursework is divided into eight modules, apart from an orientation module. The curriculum includes the following topics: introduction to project management, initiate and develop a project, develop a project schedule, the execution and control of projects, leadership and project management, communication and stakeholder management, project management approaches, and measures of project and project management success.

Students will be equipped with the tools for initiating, controlling and implementing business projects while also managing the constraints of cost, scope, and time.

  • Location: Washington, D.C., United States
  • Accreditation: Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: $1,800
  • Program length: Eight weeks (seven to ten hours per week)

Linkedin Learning

Formerly known as Lynda.com, Linkedin Learning is a leading online platform, helping professionals learn software, business, and technology skills for achieving professional and personal goals. It offers the online short course Moving from Developer to Engineering Manager, preparing students with the skills needed to successfully lead an engineering team after working for a few years as an individual contributor.

The curriculum includes topics such as core duties of an engineering manager, conducting effective one on one meetings, conducting employee reviews, approaching technical challenges as a manager, supporting developers, advocating the team, handling conversations, and enhancing technical and management skills.

The course will cover topics such as ethics in management. Students will also be introduced to the task an engineering manager must perform, such as conducting one on one reviews and interviews.

  • Location: Online
  • Accreditation: N/A
  • Format: Online
  • Cost: Free (for the first month)
  • Program length: 52 minutes

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