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About this Site
About this Site
Harvard University's teaching and research activities span the globe, and take many forms. Harvard Worldwide allows users to search for activities by geography, by activity type, by the Harvard School in which the activity is housed, by keyword, or by any combination of these.
The sections below describe how the site works by answering the most common questions we receive about it:
How are the activities on Harvard Worldwide organized?
How accurate and comprehensive are the search results?
How can I suggest that activities be added to, edited, or deleted from Harvard Worldwide?
How are the activities on Harvard Worldwide organized?
Harvard Worldwide allows users to find international activities at Harvard by searching:
1. a country or region,
2. an activity “type,”
3. a school at Harvard, or
4. one or more keywords.
Searching by country or region
Most activities listed on Harvard Worldwide take place in, or are focused on, a country or region. Others are oriented globally (e.g. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy). Users can find these latter activities by selecting “Global” as a region in the search tool.
Searching by activity type
Harvard Worldwide provides information on 11 different types of activities. These range from Harvard courses to research centers to grants and fellowships that help students study or work outside the United States. These 11 “activity types” are listed and described here.
Often, the activity type to which a particular activity should be assigned is obvious. Occasionally, it is not. We welcome feedback from users who believe an activity has been assigned to the wrong activity type.
Searching by school
Harvard has 12 schools that cover multiple disciplines and professions. The University’s international activities occur within individual schools, across multiple schools, or University-wide.
One school – the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) – is itself comprised of four schools:
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Harvard College
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Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
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School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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Division of Continuing Education (which includes the Summer and Extension Schools)
A search for a particular FAS school will return activities specific to that school. A search for “All FAS Schools” will return all results for FAS.
Searching by keyword
When users search by keyword, Harvard Worldwide searches for the keyword in the title or the description of an activity.
How does the search work?
If a user searches Harvard Worldwide by activity type, all activities that have been assigned to that activity type will be returned. If a user searches by country, region, school, or keyword, then the way the search works depends on the activity type. For all activity types, with the exceptions described below, the source of the data is a Harvard Worldwide database compiled through input from various University resources. The search will return all activities in the database that meet the user’s selected parameters.
The following activity types have unique data sources and searches:
Academic Courses
Harvard Worldwide searches the course title and description in the Harvard Course Catalog for the name of the country, region, and keyword selected by the user. If a user selects a school, only courses from that school are returned.
Faculty
Harvard Worldwide searches the text in each faculty member’s biography page for the name of the country, region, or keyword selected by the user. If a user selects a school, only faculty members from that school are returned. The catalog of faculty biography pages is compiled by Harvard Worldwide’s administrator, based on faculty listings provided by individual schools.
Faculty Research Projects
The majority of the research projects in the Harvard Worldwide database come from the University’s Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS), which tracks sponsored research. The Harvard Worldwide administrator receives updates from GMAS on a quarterly basis; updates from the Harvard Business School, which does not use GMAS, are received monthly. Additional non-sponsored research projects are provided by international and area studies centers and other sources. Research projects that ended more than four years ago are removed from the database.
How accurate and comprehensive are the search results?
The data for all activity types, with the exception of academic courses, is maintained by the Harvard Worldwide Administrator. Updates are provided by Harvard schools and organizations. Our data collection methods ensure a high degree of accuracy for search results. However, because we rely on other organizations for updates, Harvard Worldwide does not, nor will it ever, contain up-to-the-minute information on every international activity at the University. It does provide a broad overview of these activities, with links to more detailed information and resources on a school or organization's website.
How can I suggest that activities be added to, edited, or deleted from Harvard Worldwide?
Members of the Harvard community can suggest edits, deletions, or additions to the Harvard Worldwide database by clicking here . For questions about this process, please contact the Harvard Worldwide administrator.
If you have a Harvard ID and PIN, you can add to or edit the activities in Harvard Worldwide.
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