Monday, September 10, 2012
FIX University (OCW )Open Course Ware @ newsRus.com
Dear FIX,
As I write this letter, there are nearly 70,000 of you enrolled in this course, and you come from all corners of the globe. This will be a great experiment in learning about the history of the world in a global format. So, I look forward to learning alongside you and everyone else.
This letter is meant to outline the basic mechanics of the course, some of the principles of learning that I hope we can share across the borders that divide us, and what we can all look forward to.
You are welcome to enter the course site and start familiarizing yourself.
https://class.coursera.org/wh1300-2012-001/class/index
There are three fundamental components to the course, and then a list of ancillary components.
First, �A History of the World since 1300� will include two lectures per week. Each lecture will last about one hour and will be segmented into parts with short quizzes that enable you to apply material and concepts you will have just learned and to check your understanding. The pair of weekly lectures will be posted on the Coursera platform every Sunday evening 6:00 Eastern Time (that is, Princeton time). They will be viewable for the duration of the course, until January, 2013. The list of updated lecture titles is included in the syllabus.
Additionally, the course will feature a �Global Dialogue� almost every week. These events are opportunities for students who are taking the course at Princeton to engage in a classroom conversation about themes and perspectives in world history with a distinguished historian, and in some cases pairs of scholars, most of whom are members of the Princeton University faculty. These class discussions will be recorded and supplement the lectures and readings here on Coursera. Accordingly, they will provide Coursera students with an opportunity to participate in the classroom activity at Princeton. In advance of each Dialogue, we will invite students enrolled on Coursera to submit queries on that week�s Dialogue theme or perspective via the Coursera platform. I will select from among these to pose to students and guests as part of the Global Dialogues held in class. Once the Dialogues have been recorded and edited, they will be posted on Coursera and you will be notified of their availability. A provisional list of the dates and guests is posted on the weekly schedule of Global Dialogues. These too will remain on the site until January, 2013.
Finally, student work for this course includes six short, 750-word, essays. Every two weeks, starting at the beginning of the third week of the course, we will post three questions; choose one of these to write your essay. The lectures, dialogues, and the textbook chapters aligning with each week�s lectures are all you need to compose your essays. Once you have submitted your essay, you will in turn receive five essays from other students enrolled in the course. You are asked to evaluate these essays according to guidelines that I have posted on the site just as other students will use them to evaluate your work. This is an important aspect of the global learning component of the course � that you share your views with each other and teach each other to craft historical essays. This is fundamental to the purpose of experimenting in global learning. The calendar for posting the questions, submitting your essays, and submitting your evaluations of others will be posted on the site.
In addition, there will be multiple Discussion Forums on the course site. Some aim to create a space for you to resolve technical problems related to the course. Some are focused on the lectures and dialogues. Within these forums, you are invited to initiate and participate in discussions. These forums aim to create spaces for you to exchange views and learn from each other.
This is a real university-level course. It is free and not for Princeton University credit, but we have designed it to offer comparable rigor and detail to an in-person class. We hope you will treat it, and each other, in this spirit.
Peer Assessments
As I noted, we will not be offering any grades or certificates for this course. But you will be assessed by each other. The peer assessments are an important element of the course and apply to the essay components where you are asked to engage with the content and arguments of the lectures and textbook. I believe that practicing the craft of history is an effective way of learning about history. For additional details on the calendar and format of the essays and the assessments, please consult the course site.
If you do not submit a peer-assessed written assignment, you will not receive any papers to assess; nor will you receive any assessments.
Please take note of the deadlines. Because of the nature of this course, there is no flexibility on deadlines for either the essays or the assessments. You will be unable to submit assignments or peer assessments after the deadlines. If you must miss an assignment there are no make-ups, but you are able to continue with the course and submit future assignments.
Plagiarism
You have agreed to the Coursera Honor Code as part of your enrollment for this course. All in-lecture quizzes and essay assignments must be your own work.
Your submissions for the written assignments must be your own work, not copied from another student or an online resource such as Wikipedia. If a substantial portion of a submission is copied without attribution from another source, that is considered plagiarism. Any plagiarized work will be rejected.
The essence of plagiarism is to claim someone else�s work as your own. You may include summaries or quote from outside materials on the written assignments, so long as you provide clear attribution of the source.
Readings
This is a university course, not just a series of lectures. To get the full learning experience � write effective papers, participate in the forums, and get the most from the dialogues � you are expected to read. This Princeton University course has a book associated with it � inspired by years of teaching this course. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, V. 2, 3rd edition is what we expect all enrolled Princeton students to read alongside the lectures and discussions. The syllabus will give a weekly breakdown of which chapters to read.
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart V.2, 3rd edition is available in a number of different formats at different prices, including more inexpensive ebook versions. I understand that a hard copy can be restrictively expensive, particularly for international students, so I have been working with the publisher to create a more inexpensive ebook version for international students. The electronic version for international students will have � due to copyright restrictions in various jurisdictions � extensive amounts of graphic and documentary material removed; but the fundamental text written by the authors will remain. Here is how to preview Worlds Together, Worlds Apart and to purchase a print or electronic copy of the book:
Preview for Free Electronically:
The free preview will be available through September 21st.
Direct Link: http://www.wwnorton.com/ebooklite/worlds3/welcome.asp
Norton Print Book:
Availability: North America, Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart is organized around major world history stories and themes: the emergence of cities, the building of the Silk Road, the spread of major religions, the spread of the Black Death, the Age of Exploration, alternatives to 19th-century capitalism, the rise of modern nation-states and empires, and more. In the Third Edition, the text has been compressed and streamlined to heighten emphasis on world history stories and themes throughout.
Direct Link:
http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=17839
Direct Link: http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Together-Apart-History-Present/dp/0393934942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346874828&sr=1-1&keywords=Tignor
Norton ebook:
Availability: North America
Description: An affordable and convenient alternative, Norton ebooks retain the content and design of the print book and allow students to highlight and take notes with ease, print chapters as needed, and search the text. Norton ebooks are available online and as downloadable PDFs. They can be purchased directly from the Norton website. A version for tablet users is also available at this site.
Direct Link:
http://books.wwnorton.com/nortonebooks/buychoice.aspx?siteId=wtwa3v2_ebook
Ebooks.com
Availability: Worldwide, excluding North America
Description: Available for PDF download to students outside of North America, this edition of Worlds Together, Worlds Apart features the full text of the print book and 72 full-color maps. Due to territory limitations, however, some permissive material�including all of the �Primary Source� features and most of the images�do not appear in this edition of the e-book.
Direct Link:
http://www.ebooks.com/1020944/worlds-together-worlds-apart/tignor-robert-adelman-jeremy-aron-stephen-kotkin-s/
This is an experiment in global learning. Not only is the format a technological innovation; it also creates an opportunity for us to learn about the globe and its history from many perspectives. A strong theme of the course is that there is no single narrative, no one story, that all peoples of the earth share even as we share this earth. Understanding the multiple perspectives is what I hope this new platform allows us to explore. In a sense, we will all be explorers in the past. I am looking forward to joining you on this voyage.
Jeremy Adelman and A History of the World since 1300 Course Staff
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