Online and Remote Learning

Successful organizations need professionals who can actively participate in implementation and operations of strong records and information management programs. This intermediate course takes you deeper into information storage, governance, security and privacy issues. You’ll learn the best ways to classify and retain information. You’ll develop effective risk-assessment policies and procedures. You’ll explore emerging trends in digital preservation, information architecture and Electronic Documents and Records Management (EDRM) systems, across the life cycle management of information. Create functional classification and taxonomies. Adopt and maintain an effective retention schedule. Develop effective risk-assessment policies and procedures. Ensure compliance with relevant local, regional or national legal requirements of RIM practice. Be aware of emerging information management and record-keeping issues.

If you have learned the fundamentals of records & information management, and are familiar with its tools, standards and practices, this advanced course takes you deeper into development of a strategy and roadmap. The course provides insights you need to develop strong records and information management strategies and successfully implement them. Identification of strategic business drivers, developing and presenting a business case and monitoring its performance with metrics will be covered. Identify components of a RIM roadmap and strategy Develop and present a business case for RIM implementation Apply project management, monitoring and performance measurement of a RIM program Identify business process improvement methodologies in RIM programs Describe and apply change management principles in the context of technology changes, digitization and process improvement

To succeed in today’s competitive business environment, organizations must not only collect reams of data but glean the most useful insights from this information. In this five-session micro course, you’ll learn to use Python to organize and analyze data and tell compelling stories your customers and stakeholders understand. You’ll plan your own analytics project, using Python to import data, organize it into a data frame and analyze it correctly. You’ll emerge well equipped to apply these methods at work and become a better business storyteller. Within 4-6 weeks of successfully completing this course, you will receive your micro-credential indicating achievement of the outlined learning outcomes and competencies/skills. Micro-credentials are tamper proof, verifiable, blockchain-based and 100% digital. They can be shared on social media, including LinkedIn and Facebook, embedded in websites or downloaded as PDFs. By the end of this micro course, you'll be able to: Plan an analytics project. Apply basic statistical methods. Import data into Python, organize into a data frame and conduct basic analysis. Tell a compelling story with data. Competencies/skills developed in this micro course include: Python Programming Descriptive Statistics with Python Querying Databases with SQL Data Analytics Data Visualization Business Storytelling with Data

If you already know how to use Python to organize and analyze data, this second-level micro course is for you. You’ll learn to apply data cleansing techniques and inferential statistical methods. You’ll develop a clearer understanding of how predictive models can support more informed business decisions, and create one using the insights you pulled. You’ll explore the fascinating world of data visualization and machine learning and emerge with greater confidence in the stories you tell and the data they’re based on. Within 4-6 weeks of successfully completing this course, you will receive your micro-credential indicating achievement of the outlined learning outcomes and competencies/skills. Micro-credentials are tamper proof, verifiable, blockchain-based and 100% digital. They can be shared on social media, including LinkedIn and Facebook, embedded in websites or downloaded as PDFs. By the end of this micro course, you'll be able to: Apply data cleansing techniques to your dataframe. Apply inferential statistical methods. Build a basic predictive model and draw insights. Competencies/skills developed in this micro course include: Cleaning Data Exploring Data Predictive Modeling Drawing Inferences from Data Assessing Data Quality Data Privacy Data Security

This course will equip you with the fundamental machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and techniques for mining and analyzing data, and extracting insights for data-driven decision making. You will learn how to formulate a ML/AI problem, prepare data, build and optimize predictive models using a wide range of algorithms and evaluate the performance of those models. Throughout the course you will use Scikit-learn and TensorFlow hands-on to build applications that learn from data. The Data Science courses are also offered online in partnership with University of Waterloo - WatSPEED.  3586 - Machine Learning - ONLINE Note: If you wish to apply the 3586 - Machine Learning - ONLINE completed at University of Waterloo - WatSPEED towards the Certificate in Artificial Intelligence at School of Continuing Studies, please follow the Prior Learning Application form on SCS website.   Formulate machine learning and AI problems Learn techniques to pre-process data for modeling  Train generalized predictive classification and regression models Identify clusters in data such as market segments Evaluate and combine models for best performance

If you want to achieve greater performance and success in your personal and professional life, this course is for you. You’ll learn how the science, practice and philosophy of mindfulness can reduce stress, enhance emotional intelligence and help you meet your goals. You’ll discover how to use cognitive-based and dialectical-based practices to work with emotions associated with stress, loss and change. You’ll learn practices that incorporate neuroscientific research, competitive advances and trends in athletics, military and executive leadership. Apply mindfulness practices that improve focus, concentration and performance. Use breathing, visualization and other techniques to reduce stress, manage pain and enhance emotional intelligence. Improve your intuition, decision-making and objective reasoning skills. Access “flow states” during performance events and everyday life. Develop greater resilience when dealing with adversity.  

The intent of this learning experience is to help you strengthen your own personal and professional contributions in group settings, to lead and develop stronger teams. You’ll learn how mindfulness can improve interpersonal relations, personal accountability, information sharing, productive conflict, support psychological safety and enhance team performance. You’ll also learn practical mindfulness techniques that can be applied in various team settings. Each live, weekly session will combine theory and experiential learning practices including several discussion points to cultivate a team environment amongst participants. Each week will also have a self-directed learning component that will include posting self-reflective assignments to support your understanding of the course content while creating opportunity to engage in on-going discussions to strengthen relationship building and enhance the course’s team environment. By the end of this course, learners will have an increased understanding on: How mindfulness can improve self-awareness and interpersonal communication to strengthen team relationships. The competencies and environments that contribute to team effectiveness. The top two downfalls of teams and how to overcome them. How to lead groups through a mindful pause and at least one additional mindful practice.

Learn to apply mindfulness practice to reconciliation and conflict resolution. In this two-day course, you’ll learn to recognize and handle the roots of strong emotions in conflict, and communicate effectively at times of difficulty. You’ll explore the four-step framework of “Beginning Anew”, based on the tradition of scholar, Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh. “Beginning Anew” offers a concrete structure that can be applied to a wide spectrum of daily settings, including workplaces, classrooms and the home. Apply mindfulness processes to reconciliation and conflict management. Identify and handle strong emotions. Develop effective communication tools that help navigate conflict. Integrate mindfulness into your interpersonal relationships. Use language and tools for healthy and sustainable reconciliation.

Are you driven by a need to better inform the public about the issues that matter to you and your community? This course will help you start or boost your journalism or freelance journalism-writing career. Polish your newspaper, broadcast and magazine writing skills by exploring the essential journalistic tools and techniques required to produce compelling news copy, feature stories and opinion articles in both traditional and independent news outlets. This course also provides a unique opportunity to tap into the expertise and lived experiences of established journalists. As a class, we will collectively assess journalism’s responsibilities in an age of rampant misinformation and AI, and examine its often distorted representation of Black, Indigenous and racialized communities. Learners from this class have had their assignments published in CBC Arts, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Vice News.   Work on the fundamentals of writing articles for digital use. Adapt your writing knowledge and skills to a digital context. Use a range of online platforms to tell and promote your stories. Create resonant stories that integrate an online strategy. Build a portfolio of original online material you can share with employers and talent developers.

Human service providers need to know which programs work best for various user groups. They need tools and skills to assess the impact of their efforts. Over the course of this four-day module, you'll learn about the basic approaches and skills needed to implement program evaluation with rigor, and how human service managers leverage these tools to articulate social impact. You’ll learn to collect and apply the data that contemporary funders and granting foundations want, and how to develop sustainable evidence-based programming.   Develop a structured program evaluation based on different stages of data collection. Assess the social outcomes of your service users. Know which methods to use when analyzing outcomes. Support improved outcomes, organizational development and sustainability. Monetize social goods that your organization creates.