World Bank and Eurasian Center for Food Security: Two Online Masters Courses Focused on Food Security in Eurasia
Monarch Media was contracted by the World Bank to create two online master’s programs focused on food security in the Eurasian region for the Eurasian Center for Food Security (ECFS), located within Moscow State University (MSU).
The two master’s programs are targeted to regional students and aim to equip them with appropriate knowledge and tools for careers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors related to agribusiness, natural resources management, and food security. These programs will be delivered by the Eurasian Center for Food Security at MSU, in cooperation with the World Bank.
The vision of both master’s degree programs is to go beyond a strictly Natural Resources and AgroFood Management (the two programs) approach to provide an interdisciplinary and interrelated foundation to the essential problems in food security and how to solve them in long-term and sustainable ways.
Monarch Media oversaw the entire project from planning, instructional design, curriculum content development, design, translation, online delivery strategy, and implementation. For this project, we partnered with the University of Missouri (CAFNR) and The Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) for their subject matter expertise. The programs are hosted in a Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) that allows professors and students to conduct the coursework and assessments online. Each course contains lectures, assignments and exams, as well as instructor guides to teaching the online class. The LMS keeps track of a student’s progress in each course.
Monarch Media hired the team of subject matter experts and collaborated closely to produce all seventeen courses. The courses range from broad subjects such as Sustainable Agriculture and Development to more specific subjects such as Climate Change and Land Degradation.
Monarch also put together a team of top ranking translators to localize all seventeen courses in to the Russian language. The Moodle LMS is designed to serve the content in both English and Russian languages.