Abstract for: System Dynamics MOOCs for sustainability transformations

International organizations such as the EU, UN, and OECD now point to the need for systems analysis to ensure sustainable development. However, there is very little capacity worldwide to teach policy-oriented System Dynamics (SD) for sustainability transformations. Therefore, six partner universities in Europe have received funding from EU’s Erasmus+ program for Strategic Partnerships to develop 8 MOOCs. The MOOCs will cover courses in SD model building and analysis; group model building; resilience and emergencies; sustainable production and consumption; interactions between food, water, and energy; and between energy and climate. The workshop presents the content of the planned MOOCs, the overall teaching philosophy, MOOC technology, quality control across MOOCs, seamless integration of Stella learning environments in the Canvas learning platform, and exams. The workshop focuses on how the MOOCs can: 1. Be integrated within home university programs. 2. Provide virtual student mobility between partner universities. 3. Enable universal free access to the MOOCs. We engage workshop participants in a discussion of how MOOCs can be utilized in SD study programs to complement existing SD course offerings. What can we learn from other efforts to co-create teaching? What are possible administrative barriers to cost-effective education and collaboration?