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Module Development
We wish to develop useful, innovative material on liberty for the undergraduate classroom. With our products we intend to fill an educational need not satisfied by free online course material and traditional textbooks.
Most online course material and traditional texts focus on the entire course - syllabus, all the readings, lecture notes and other material. From our perspective this presents a problem. While they may do so out of necessity, most professors do not wish to use the courses and books of others whole cloth. Rather, there are interesting elements here, and useful directions there, that faculty would like to incorporate into their courses. Unfortunately, copyright permissions can be expensive. Even where major publishers have streamlined the process, the articles in question are most often directed towards an audience of professionals in the field - not towards the undergraduates who must learn from them.
With online syllabi the material available is usually orientated to its position within that course. Complicating matters, courses are often listed by subject matter and year. This can make searching and then revamping open courseware material quite labor intensive. Finally, in all such projects, there is a paucity of material on liberty. The Center for Liberty Studies intends to fill this gap.
Our materials will focus on the individual classroom meeting , developing 1-3 hour modules appropriate for use in multiple courses throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Professors may use our modules for exegesis or as foils to other elements within their class, either way our format will make it easier to incorporate into existing courses. As the project progresses, professors will be able to assemble entire courses from our modules providing a cost effective and intellectual alternative to currently available material.
Our materials will be directed toward the undergraduate student, providing intellectually challenging material commensurate with its place in the curriculum.
To facilitate its use our module library will be searchable by author and subject. For example, philosophers and political scientists alike will be able to search directly for Locke without having to scour every class in every discipline where Locke potentially may appear.
Our modular format is not yet set and will require research, time and effort. We simply are not sure whether we can develop one core modular format that will serve all the humanities, whether we must develop distinct modules for different disciplines or some hybrid. This research proceeds with an open mind guided only, in the end, by what we find that actually works.
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