This course is designed to help the student improve his or her writing ability, which is necessary for ongoing success in all academic subjects. Coursework focuses on critical reading and analytic writing in response to readings with emphasis on organization, unity, coherence, and adequate development; an introduction to the expository essay; and a review of the rules and conventions of standard written English. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: recognize organizing principles, including the relationship between sentences; outline the relationships between main ideas and subordinate ideas within assigned readings; write analytical paragraphs in response to readings; recognize main and secondary points, making somewhat fine distinctions; make simple deductions from a series of facts; use punctuation correctly; demonstrate sound principles of reading critically; craft short essays employing a variety of organizational patterns; narrow a topic, write a clear and focused thesis statement, and create an outline with main and subordinate ideas; support the thesis statement with sufficient appropriate primary and secondary points and details; craft appropriate introductions and conclusions; use transitional words and expressions and employ a variety of sentence patterns to improve coherence; proofread to eliminate spelling and usage errors. This free course may be completed online at any time. It has been developed through a partnership with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; the Saylor Foundation has modified some WSBCTC materials. (English 000)

An introduction to the human communication concentration in the communications major. This course will introduce you to communication principles, common communication practices, and a selection of theories to better understand the communication transactions that you experience in your daily life.

In this course, you will be exposed to a number of different sub-fields within finance. You will learn how to determine which projects have the best potential payoff, to manage investments, and even to value stocks. In the end, you will discover that all finance boils down to one concept: return. In essence, finance asks: ŇIf I give you money today, how much money will I get back in the future?Ó Though the answer to this question will vary widely from case to case, by the time you finish this course, you will know how to find the answer.

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a fundamental understanding of the principles of macroeconomics. Macroeconomists study how a country's economy works and try to determine the best choices to improve the overall wellbeing of a nation. Typical topics include inflation (the overall level of prices), employment, fiscal policy (government taxing and spending), and money and banking (interest rates and lending policies). By studying macroeconomics and understanding the critical ideas and tools used to measure economic data, the student will have a better perspective on the issues and problems discussed in contemporary economics. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Discuss key macroeconomic concerns, including national income accounting, saving and investment, and market forces; Describe the determinants of total output and the ways to measure nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as real GDP; Compare and contrast definitions of total employment and unemployment, the three forms of unemployment, and inflation; Explain different ways of computing the general movement in prices, and define the relationship between inflation and unemployment; Explain the model of aggregate demand and aggregate supply; Analyze the government's role in the economy and examine how it uses its fiscal policy and monetary policy to influence macroeconomic variables in order to enable macro and micro economic stability; Describe the mechanics of money supply in detail. They will specifically be able to identify different types of money; explain the money creation process, the money multiplier, and the process of interest rate determination; and discuss the role of the Federal Reserve System and its tools of monetary policy; Identify and analyze major theories of economic growth; Analyze various strategies for developing of less-developed nations; Present the concepts behind international trade. (Economics 102; See also: Business Administration 201)

This course will illustrate the ways in which the practice of management evolves as firms grow in size. Historically, middle managers have served as so-called ŇgatekeepersÓ who collect, analyze, and pass information up and down the management chain within an organization. But two recent developments at the turn of the 21st century Đ namely, low-cost data manipulation in computers and the emergence of widespread, real-time communication (in the forms of inexpensive, long-distance global calling, email, text messaging, and social media) Đ have reduced the need for these middle-manager gatekeepers, and companies have eliminated thousands of such positions. The goal? To speed the flow of information and decision-making and reduce the number of layers that separate the customer from the leadership of an organization.

This is a free textbook offered by Saylor Foundation.

'Principles of Managerial Economics addresses subject of applying microeconomics to business decisions.

Although economics is sometimes dismissed as a discourse of practical relevance to only a relatively small circle of academicians and policy analysts who call themselves economists, the reality is sound economic reasoning benefits any manager of a business, whether they are involved with production/operations, marketing, finance, or corporate strategy.

Stengel presents key relationships between price, quantity, cost, revenue, and profit for an individual firm are presented in form of simple conceptual models.Principles of Managerial Economics includes key elements from the economics of consumer demand and the economics of production. It discusses economic motivations for expanding a business and contributions from economics for improved organization of large firms. Market price quantity equilibrium, competitive behavior, and the role of market structure on market equilibrium and competition are also addressed.

Finally, the text considers market regulation in terms of the generic problems that create the need for regulation and possible remedies for those problems.

Although the academic literature of managerial economics often employs abstract mathematics and large corporations create and use sophisticated mathematical models that apply economics, Principles of Managerial Economics focuses on concepts, terminology, and principles, with minimal use of mathematics. Your students will gain a better understanding of why businesses and markets function as they do and how those institutions can function better.'

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a basic understanding of the principles of microeconomics. At its core, the study of economics deals with the choices and decisions that have to be made in order to manage scarce resources available to us. Microeconomics is the branch of economics that pertains to decisions made at the individual level, i.e. by individual consumers or individual firms, after evaluating resources, costs, and tradeoffs. "The economy" refers to the marketplace or system in which these choices interact with one another. In this course, the student will learn how and why these decisions are made and how they affect one another in the economy. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Think intuitively about economic problems; Identify how individual economic agents make rational choices given scarce resources and will know how to optimize the use of resources at hand; Understand some simplistic economic models related to Production, Trade, and the Circular Flow of Resources; Analyze and apply the mechanics of Demand and Supply for Individuals, Firms, and the Market; Apply the concept of Marginal Analysis in order to make optimal choices and identify whether the choices are 'efficient' or 'equitable'; Apply the concept of Elasticity as a measure of responsiveness to various variables; Identify the characteristic differences amongst various market structures, namely, Perfectly Competitive Markets, Non-Competitive Markets, and Imperfectly Competitive Markets and understand the differences in their operation; Analyze how the Demand and Supply technique works for the Resource Markets. (Economics 101; See also: Business Administration 200)

The author of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, Amy Blackstone, started envisioning this textbook while sitting in her own undergraduate sociology research methods class. She enjoyed the material but wondered about its relevance to her everyday life and future plans (the idea that one day she would be teaching such a class hadn't yet occurred to her).

The professional world can be full of challenging situations, including conflicting personalities, miscommunication, and cultural differences. In this course, you will learn about typical workplace etiquette protocols, communication standards, and cultural awareness strategies in order to navigate these common obstacles as smoothly as possible.

This course will help prepare you to conduct public relations suitable for small start-up businesses, international companies, political campaigns, social programs, personal development, and other outreach projects.

The purpose of this course is to systematically examine the elements and factors which result in an effective speech. Tying these together are the themes of information and ethics, emphasized in each resource because they are becoming increasingly important to all communicators. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: resolve ethical issues involving speech preparation and presentation; recommend techniques for resolving issues, which may interfere with active listening; identify the most effective speech topics, qualities, content, and delivery techniques based on the specific characteristics of an audience; evaluate the effectiveness of speeches for different types of audiences; use online and library-based research to find and critique the credibility of sources of information; cite sources of information appropriately, accurately, and clearly in both spoken and written contexts; choose the most effective pattern of organization for presenting different types of information to a listening audience; evaluate the effectiveness of supporting details or evidence based on the main ideas or arguments they are used to support; choose the most appropriate pattern for organizing a persuasive speech, based on the relationship between arguments and evidence or the relationship between the topic and the audience; identify whether the functions of an introduction or conclusion have been fulfilled and will be effective when presented to a specific type of audience; create keyword and sentence outlines for informative and persuasive speeches; revise a passage written for readers so that it can be delivered effectively and engagingly to listeners; identify and use techniques to improve the fluidity and clarity of verbal delivery; recognize non-verbal techniques that communicate the speakerĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s confidence and credibility in a sample speech; demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of effective, ethical public speaking by accurately and thoroughly assessing the qualities of entire informative, persuasive, and special occasion speeches. This free course may be completed online at any time. (Communication 101)

This book is intended for the Risk Management and Insurance course where Risk Management is emphasized.

When we think of large risks, we often think in terms of natural hazards such as hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados. Perhaps man-made disasters come to mind such as the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Typically we have overlooked financial crises, such as the credit crisis of 2008. However, these types of man-made disasters have the potential to devastate the global marketplace. Losses in multiple trillions of dollars and in much human suffering and insecurity are already being totaled, and the global financial markets are collapsing as never before seen.

We can attribute the 2008 collapse to financially risky behavior of a magnitude never before experienced. The 2008 U.S. credit markets were a financial house of cards. A basic lack of risk management (and regulators' inattention or inability to control these overt failures) lay at the heart of the global credit crisis. This crisis started with lack of improperly underwritten mortgages and excessive debt. Companies depend on loans and lines of credit to conduct their routine business. If such credit lines dry up, production slows down and brings the global economy to the brink of deep recession—or even depression. The snowballing effect of this failure to manage the risk associated with providing mortgage loans to unqualified home buyers have been profound, indeed. When the mortgages failed because of greater risk- taking on the Street, the entire house of cards collapsed. Probably no other risk-related event has had, and will continue to have, as profound an impact world wide as this risk management failure.

How was risk in this situation so badly managed? What could firms and individuals have done to protect themselves? How can government measure such risks (beforehand) to regulate and control them? These and other questions come to mind when we contemplate the consequences of this risk management fiasco.

Standard risk management practice would have identified sub-prime mortgages and their bundling into mortgage-backed-securities as high risk. People would have avoided these investments or would have put enough money into reserve to be able to withstand defaults. This did not happen. Accordingly, this book may represent one of the most critical topics of study that the student of the 21st century could ever undertake.

Risk management will be a major focal point of business and societal decision—making in the 21st century. A separate focused field of study, it draws on core knowledge bases from law, engineering, finance, economics, medicine, psychology, accounting, mathematics, statistics and other fields to create a holistic decision-making framework that is sustainable and value- enhancing. This is the subject of this book.

This book is a practical discussion of six actionable steps that students can take to land a job regardless of the market. Whether the estimate is 25% unemployment or single-digit unemployment, that number doesn't apply to any one student. For any individual, the unemployment rate is 0% or 100%. One either has a job or doesn't. When any one person is looking for a job and there is 10% unemployment, that person just wants to be one of the nine people that has a job.

Small Business Management in the 21st Century offers a unique perspective and set of capabilities for instructors. The authors designed this book with a “less can be more” approach, and by treating small business management as a practical human activity rather than as an abstract theoretical concept.

Social Problems: Continuity and Change is a textbook covering social problems, poverty, racial and ethnic inequality, gender and sexual diversity inequality, aging, substance abuse, crime, sexual behavior, family, schools and education, work and the economy, urban and rural problems, health and healthcare, population and the environment, war, and terrorism.

This course presents software engineering concepts and principles in parallel with the software development life cycle. Topics addressed include the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), software modeling using Unified Modeling Language (UML), major phases of SDLC (Software Requirements and Analysis, Software Design, and Software Testing), and project management. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: demonstrate mastery of software engineering knowledge and skills, and professional issues necessary to practice software engineering; discuss principles of software engineering; describe software development life cycle models; learn principles of software modeling through UML as a modeling language; identify major activities and key deliverables in a software development life cycle during software requirements and analysis, software design, and software testing; apply the object-oriented methodology in software engineering to create UML artifacts for software analysis and requirements, software design, and software testing; apply project management concepts in a software engineering environment to manage project, people, and product; participate as an individual and as part of a team to deliver quality software systems. This free course may be completed online at any time. (Computer Science 302)

This course will provide you with a comprehensive introduction to spreadsheets; it is designed for first-time users with very little or no exposure to the subject.

This course is developed to help you understand how information technology can be used as part of an organizationŐs overall strategy.