Sustainable Communities: A Local Systems Approach to Planning is intended for all interested in community development and sustainability. The course will provide you with a systems perspective of community sustainability looking through the lens of some of the common topics that communities are facing today-- energy, local food, built environments, mobility, natural resources, capacity, and economic development. This Sustainable Communities course was previously a training program created by a task force of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) in partnership with the Foundation of Practice program and the eXtension Land Use Planning Community of Practice. If you have any questions/concerns please contact Wayne Beyea, beyea@msu.edu.

This course is designed to help identify the steps to create an online presence. In the Take Charge of Your Online Presence audit course you are on your own with no access to Instructors or additional help.

The course looks at:

• Getting Started - ecommerce trends, online business models, target markets, your competition, and domain names;
• Planning Your Site - sitemaps, planning, content and hosting;
• Site Design - the appearance, usability, security, privacy and who is going to build the site
• Online Marketing - tips on SEO and getting found on the Internet
• Social Media - describes various social networking tools to use in reaching a new audience

University of Nebraska Extension Educators:

• Jay Jenkins - jjenkins2@unl.edu
• Jenny Nixon - jnixon1@unl.edu
• Connie Hancock - chancock1@unl.edu

MSU Citizen Planner is a seven-session blended course for Michigan local land use officials. The main purpose of the online course is to allow participants to make up classroom sessions they missed. The online content includes recorded versions of the classroom presentations, online exercises and a forum.

Contact: Dean Solomon, Michigan Statue University, solomon@anr.msu.edu