Public procurement is a process that occurs when a government organisation or a public authority purchases from external suppliers. Public authorities in Europe spend over €2000 billion a year purchasing goods and services, and this huge purchasing power forces suppliers to become more innovative as they have to produce higher quality products at lower prices. Public authorities in Europe have introduced procurement rules which are designed to increase competition between suppliers. This free online Diploma course has been created by Procurement Academy, an institute dedicated to training procurement professionals. In this course you will learn about the European public procurement process. The course covers topics such as best practices for developing specifications, what procedures ar.. Read More

Microsoft Word is one of the world’s most popular software applications. Although first released decades ago, the number of feature sets, ease of use, and the overall power of this productivity tool has continued to increase. This free online course will assist Microsoft Word users to make the switch from earlier versions of Word to the more advanced 2010 version. Word 2010 allows for more customization of the work space and creates an easier work flow when creating more complex documents. This course will introduce all the new aspects of Word 2010 including the new Backstage view, the Navigation Pane, the customizable Ribbon, formatting text and images together, live collaboration, saving your document to the cloud, and much more. This course will be of great interest to all Microsoft .. Read More

Microsoft Excel 2010 is one of the most popular software applications worldwide and is part of the Microsoft Office 2010 productivity suite. This free online course will help you switch to Excel 2010 from a previous version of the software, and will give you a thorough knowledge and understanding of Excel and its applications if you have never used it before. You can use Excel to analyse data, for example, in accounts, budgets, billing and many other areas. You learn how to navigate this revised version of Excel, exploring the menu bar and the different tasks that can be done with it. You will work on sample spreadsheets doing basic math, adding and deleting columns and rows, and preparing the worksheet for printing. You will learn how to represent your data visually to show trends, patte.. Read More

Product design is the process whereby product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas before turning them into products ready to be sold by a business to its customers. This free online course introduces the principles and concepts of product design. You will learn about heuristic problem-solving, the usefulness of design models, taking the design from concept to prototype, and understanding the product design specification. The free course also looks at case studies in design and innovation. It will be of great interest to design and business professionals who would like to learn more about product design and its role in business development, and to learners who are interested in how products are designed. As new technologies emerge that give more and more people access to capability .. Read More

Janice Fraser is CEO and co-founder of Adaptive Path, an experience design consultancy firm based in San Francisco, California and Austin, Texas. Janice is an experienced entrepreneur and in this free online course she talks in detail about how important the culture of a business is for the success of that business. She emphasises that a productive culture is one where managers create meaning for their employees. By promoting a business culture that employees can buy into they will become more motivated and work more passionately to make the business a success. Janice believes that alignment is the key factor underlying everything we do. In a business alignment means that employees are doing fulfilling work which they excel at. This course will be of great interest to all business profess.. Read More

Tien Tzuo is Chief Strategy Officer with Salesforce.com, and in this free online course he discusses why businesses must move their marketing strategy away from direct-marketing campaigns to online marketing. For online marketing to work he explains why businesses must understand how the 21st century customer learns about new products or services online through online buzz, online PR, and online dialogues. He explains that when designing a complex product, a business should create a layered product that allow customers choose how complex the functionality of the product should be, and that in the modern marketplace businesses must serve the customer by providing a free trial of the product. Businesses must also provide a post-sales service to customers. This course will be of interest to .. Read More

Banking is a key component of the global financial system. Most large banks are now global in nature, with offices in all key financial centres, from New York to London to Hong Kong and have the power to influence the economies of countries around the world no matter how large, as seen during the recent financial crisis. This free online banking course reviews the banking system, basic banking practices, and explains at an introductory level how international banking works. The course examines topics such as fractional reserve banking, reserve ratios, treasuries, leveraging, the Fed funds rates, and the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR). This course will be of great interest to business and finance professionals, and anyone who would like to learn more about banking and how the global f.. Read More

With the wide-spread use of the Internet copyright has become a very important issue for publishers of books, music, software, films, television programmes and many other industries. This free online course is an introduction to copyright law as practised in the United States, however, the principles and concepts will be of interest to legal professionals in other jurisdictions. The course reviews the structure of copyright under federal law, the basics of legal research and legal citations. It examines copyright and its applications in the music and broadcasting industries, and looks at legal cases involving examples such as Napster, Grokster and peer-to-peer file sharing services. It also reviews software licensing, and the General Public License and free software. This course will be o.. Read More

Many people would like to know how to go about valuing stocks and shares and investing in the stock market but the terminology and concepts can be confusing and intimidating. This free online course is an introduction to valuation and investing and aims to take the fear-factor out of stocks and shares by explaining the concepts behind valuing and investing in a clear and simple manner. The course covers concepts such as Income Statements, Return On Assets (ROA), Return On Equity (ROE), Price-to-Earnings ratio, depreciation, amortization and many others. This course will be of great interest to business and finance professionals who would like to learn more about, or refresh their knowledge of, valuing and investing in stocks and shares, and to learners who would like to know more about th.. Read More

The Irish (or Gaelic) language is the official language of Ireland and is also recognised as a working language by the European Union. This free online course will introduce you to the Irish language and Irish language pronunciation skills and basic everyday vocabulary. You will learn how to pronounce words related to people, clothes, food, travel, directions, eating out, the body, places, numbers, colours, dates and times, as well as other general phrases. This free Irish language course will be of interest to all learners who would like to discover more about the Irish language and Irish Culture.
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