It seems the goal is still to build a course, essentially, from scratch. Obviously, the work load is now the big issue. What ways can this get accomplished?
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Originally Posted by antoniseb
I was imagining each textbook chapter as a mini-course. Originally, I visualized it as a thread per course, starting with a post linking to a web-page, and a set of homework assignments. The thread was open for Q&A and help on specific homework questions.
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That sounds logical. Would a dedicated and locked thread work for each chapter in lieu of a separate web page? Other chapter threads could serve for discussion purposes.
Perhaps it is just my excitement about this class that makes me ask if we could not elicit students to write much of the text themselves, where two or more instructors will edit and augment their work for any given chapter? Other students and instructors could be working on subsequent chapters at the same time.
Using the ideas from others above, suppose you had 20 subtopics in a chapter. If the instructors posted all 20 then students, could select the ones they wanted and the instructors could assign them. Any subtopic without a volunteer(s) would be given to an instructor or given to class "consultants" [
]. I am confident there will be several highly qualified participants that will pitch-in with this effort but are, due to work loads, not able to commit to being an instructor. [Added: Hopefully, two students would work together on a couple of subtopics to help minimize editing by an instructor, as well as, improve on the content itself.]
This plan, or another of your choice, could be implemented and the material reviewed to see how well the plan is working. I would assume the first chapter would need completed and the second chapter at least half completed before setting the offical class start date. If there are hiccups or unfair burdens on individuals in the plan, then we simply revise and postpone the [announcement of the] official class start.
[Added: Assuming a dozen chapters, that would equate to about 300 to 400 pages for a textbook, which seems about right.]