U Nebraska-Lincoln To Co-Develop Digital Econ Course
- By Mike Hohenbrink
- 02/14/12
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will co-develop a new digital economics course with publisher McGraw-Hill Higher Education. The organizations described the all-digital offering as the first of its kind.
All elements for the class are being developed specifically for the digital format, part of a so-called "digital first" strategy that McGraw-Hill reported it will use as the basis for developing similar offerings in other course areas down the road.
The class will be offered on Connect, the McGraw-Hill course management platform, and on other commercially available learning platforms, and the class will be available on a subscription basis.
Students taking the class will be assessed through adaptive learning tools built into the offering in order to determine strengths and weaknesses for individual students.
Features of the class include:
- Multimedia elements, such as videos;
- Online assessments;
- Capabilities that will support adaptive learning;
- Digital workbooks; and
- Compatibility with mobile devices through a special app.
The course will be organized around learning objectives, and the curriculum will be offered in both English and Spanish. The organizational framework is designed to allow instructors to teach the material in a variety of ways and in an order best suited to the their individual situations.
The course was authored by Roger Butters and Carlos Asarta, who are both professors of economics at the UNL College of Business Administration, home to 3,500 of the UNL's 25,000 total students.
"Through our partnership with McGraw-Hill, we have a terrific opportunity to provide students with an extremely engaging introduction to college-level economics," said Butters. "Understanding the basic principles of economics is critical for every student today, regardless of their future plans. This all-digital curriculum will ensure that each student is successfully grounded in those principles."