OPEN ACCESS COURSES

1.       Open Access Course on Case Studies in Primary Health Care Available Now:

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has many of its courses available on-line to anyone for free through a program called OpenCourseWare (OCW). One of these was initiated 20 years ago by the late Dr. Carl Taylor, the founder of the Department of International Health at Hopkins and a global force for primary health care in the second half of the 20^th century. I now teach this with Carl’s son, Dr. Henry Taylor. The current version is available on OCW. It is entitled Case Studies in Primary Health Care. This is a set of recordings and associated Powerpoints that includes lectures by Carl, me and others on some of the pioneering primary health care projects in the 20^th century. The course would be a good foundation for any of you or your colleagues who are working on primary health care projects in developing countries and who have not had much access to formal training in primary health care. It would also be a good review for you if you haven’t had much recent continuing education in the field.  You can access this course by going to:http://ocw.jhsph.edu/index.cfm/go/viewCourse/course/casestudiesinphc/coursePage/index/. This course can be taken at any time by anyone with internet access.

2.       Upcoming Open Access Course on “Health for All Through Primary Health Care“

I have the privilege of teaching a short course that begins on January 23 and runs for 5 weeks entitled “Health for All Through Primary Health Care.“ This is what is called now a MOOC (massive open on-line course) that is being given on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/). You can read about the course at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm0WZpswPaE. It will involve four hours of student work per week – one hour of lecture, one hour of course readings, and two additional hours of work. The course runs for 5 weeks, and a statement of completion will be provided for those who successfully complete the assignments. In contrast to the Case Studies in Primary Health Care, this course is time-limited in the sense that the work must be completed weekly according to the time schedule for the course, and it will not be available to take except for the period between January 23rd and February 26th. However, it is free and open to anyone with internet access. To enroll, go to: https://www.coursera.org/course/healthforall. More than 11,000 people are currently enrolled!