Political Science News - News

Discover DiploNews

DiploNews is the authoritative one-stop source and world-leading provider for diplomatic and foreign policy information.

Our proprietary system works 24/7 to gather, sort, and centralize information directly from official state and international organizations. As a result, DiploNews members easily find the information they need and increase their understanding of world developments.

Additionally, any reader may subscribe for free to DiploWeek, a summary of the week's diplomatic events in about 15- minutes of reading which is delivered via email each Friday.

Today, the archives represent approximately 2 million A4 pages, and 33% of its readership is based in the U.S.


DiploNews centralise l'information diplomatique et de politique étrangère délivrée par les Etats et les organisations internationales en un seul serveur, actualisé 24/7.

Les utilisateurs facilitent leur lecture et augmentent leur compréhension de l'actualité internationale grâce au tri préalable et aux documents originaux réalisés par l'équipe du site. A ce jour, les archives représentent l'équivalent de 2 millions de pages A4.

Développé par une société Française, DiploNews réalise 33% de son lectorat aux Etats-Unis et constitue le leader mondial de l'information diplomatique en ligne.

Le lecteur peut recevoir gratuitement, chaque Vendredi et par email, la lettre hebdomadaire DiploWeek qui permet une lecture de l'actualité diplomatique de la semaine, en 15 minutes chrono.

Online Memorial to Guillermo O'Donnell (1936-2011)

Dear friends and colleagues:

We write to thank you for your willingness to share your reflections on the legacy and impact of the work of Guillermo O’Donnell through your testimonies in writing or on video. Your reflections helped make the days in Buenos Aires to honor Guillermo a remarkable, unforgettable occasion. Guillermo was an amazing person with a huge impact, and it was great to celebrate his life and work with so many people who were touched by him.

Many others wrote papers or served as discussants for the conference on “Guillermo O’Donnell and the Study of Democracy” in Buenos Aires that the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame organized with colleagues from la Universidad de San Andrés, la Universidad de Buenos Aires, la Universidad Nacional de San Martín, la Asociación Nacional de Politólogos, la Sociedad Argentina deAnálisis Político, the Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the United Nations Development Program.

We were impressed by the hard work that went into the conference and deeply moved by the tributes.

We would like to share with you a tribute webpage focusing on Guillermo’s life and legacy. The following link will take you to letters we have received, links to other tributes, and press reports, as well as a slightly edited version of the video tribute shown in Buenos Aires on March 27. Please share it with others who might be interested.

http://kellogg.nd.edu/odonnell

Finally, the conference co-organizers, Dan Brinks, Marcelo Leiras, and Scott Mainwaring, are reviewing and editing the papers from the conference for an academic volume that we plan to publish with a major university press. We like to think Guillermo would be pleased.

In gratitude,

Scott Mainwaring, Steve Reifenberg, and Sharon Schierling

MIT and Harvard announce EdX that will offer classes online for free

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) today announced edX, a transformational new partnership in online education. Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners.

EdX will build on both universities’ experience in offering online instructional content. The technological platform recently established by MITx, which will serve as the foundation for the new learning system, was designed to offer online versions of MIT courses featuring video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, and student paced learning. Certificates of mastery will be available for those motivated and able to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material.

MIT and Harvard expect that over time other universities will join them in offering courses on the edX platform. The gathering of many universities’ educational content together on one site will enable learners worldwide to access the course content of any participating university from a single website, and to use a set of online educational tools shared by all participating universities.

EdX will release its learning platform as open source software so it can be used by other universities and organizations who wish to host the platform themselves. Because the learning technology will be available as open-source software, other universities and individuals will be able to help edX improve and add features to the technology.

MIT and Harvard will use the jointly operated edX platform to research how students learn and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online. The edX platform will enable the study of which teaching methods and tools are most successful. The findings of this research will be used to inform how faculty use technology in their teaching, which will enhance the experience for students on campus and for the millions expected to take advantage of these new online offerings.