Ron Strickland 4/12/98

Proposal to Offer English 395: Introduction to Marxist Cultural Theory

as an Internet-based Distance Learning Course for Spring 1998

Introduction:

English 389: Marxist Cultural Theory is a "problems" or "special topics" course that can be taken by both graduate and undergraduate students, but will be most attractive to graduate students. The last time I taught the course (Spring, 1997) there were 10 students enrolled, all graduate students. There is a consistent interest in Marxist theory among our residential students, but the course would also aim to enroll at-large students not in our degree program. We would recruit at-large students from other graduate programs in the humanities nationwide, and among high school teachers seeking in-service courses for certification and advancement. Marxist theory is a prominent force in contemporary literary and cultural studies, but most graduate programs do not offer a regular course in Marxist theory. Interested students often pick up a background in Marxism through independent study courses or working closely with a Marxist faculty member on their thesis or dissertation committees. The most widely recognized institutional site for the encouragement and mentoring of graduate students interested in Marxist cultural analysis is the Marxist Literary Group, an affiliated organization of the Modern Language Association, and the leading professional organization for Marxist cultural scholars in the U. S. and the U. K. The MLG holds with its annual conference, the "Institute on Culture and Society" and its scholarly journal Mediations (which is published at Illinois State and of which I am the editor). The Marxist Literary Group

This course would seek to fill the vacuum of courses on Marxist theory in most programs nationwide by combining the resources of Illinois State's technological resources and the Marxist Literary Group's established reputation as a place where graduate students can find training and mentoring in Marxist theory.

Why an internet-based distance learning course now?

We want to develop distance learning options because we see this kind of service as the wave of the future. We see ENG 395 (DL) as an experiment to learn how best to do distance learning. It is expected that several faculty in the department will “sit in” on the course electronically, and that the practical experience gained from this prototype will be used subsequently to develop other courses in our department, and, perhaps, other departments.

We think there are a significant number of potential non-traditional students who are prevented from taking our graduate courses by long distances and busy schedules. Many of these people now have the necessary computer equipment in their homes and would eagerly take advantage of this opportunity.

Internet technologies and our level of mastery of them have become sufficiently dependable and accessible that such a course can be offered with reasonable assurance that it won’t end in disaster as a result of technical breakdown.

The internet technologies that we will be using for the course (IRC-“Chat”, bulletin board, email and web pages) are relatively long-established, widely available, unobtrusive and simple to use. I have long experience using these technologies in traditional class settings, and high quality commercial software for internet-based distance learning courses is now available.

And why English 329?:

ENG 329 is a good place to start because:

It is a traditional offering with wide appeal.

It fulfills degree requirements for both the M. A. and Ph. D.

There is a vast body of material related to the course topic on the internet.

I have already been using the internet to enhance my Renaissance courses for several years, so I have the experience and the electronic archive materials necessary to offer such a course.

Further Advantages and Goals for English 329 (DL):

It will provide extra course options for our in-service graduate students who now only take courses in the summer. These students will be able to finish their course work in much shorter times if the English department can develop distance learning offerings.

It will be an outreach mechanism for our graduate program, making it more convenient for non-traditional students to explore graduate study in English.

It will bring more non-traditional students into our program, thus enhancing the intellectual diversity of our graduate courses.

Some Administrative and Technical Support Concerns for ENG 329 (DL):

We need a site licence for the course-based software tools package WEB-CT. This course design software offers an attractive and simple to use point of access for an internet-based DL course, and, perhaps most importantly, it offers the best IRC-Chat apparatus from within a web environment that I’ve seen. An accessible and dependable IRC apparatus is an absolute requirement for offering the course. For examples of courses using the software package WEB-CT see the following sites:

I need summer funding (one month salary) to design, adapt and test the course delivery mechanisms and prepare the content materials in electronic form.

We need to have a server for WEB-CT set up in LILT or some other location.

We need a telephone in STV 211A, so that if a remote student is having problems, he or she could call me in the classroom.

We need a technical support person to help me set up, trouble-shoot, and manage the network systems and to help students solve their computer problems during the course. I think we need someone for about five hours per week during the fall semester to prepare for the course and continuing for at least five hours per week in the spring semester while the course is in process. This technical person should be in the class room during the monthly in-person meetings, and should also be available at specific times for students to come in or call in with problems. For example, we would develop a plan for giving students ISU’s itools software on cd for them to load at home or for students to bring in their cpu’s so that the technical assistant could load and trouble-shoot the itools software for students who live close enough to ISU for them to use our internet dial-up access.

We need a bank of modems set aside with a special phone number for the class period, so that remote students who are near ISU can have stable dial-up access. For some students long-distance fees will prohibit using ISU internet dial-up access. This presents some potential problems, because it is important that all students who will be telnetting from remote sites have the exact same screen before them as the local students in 221A to whatever extent possible. However, the WEB-CT produced course access point, accessible through Netscape, will enable us to offer a uniform screen for all of the actual course activities.

We need a concerted advertising/outreach campaign coordinated by the English Graduate Program to publicize this course in high schools state-wide and also in Bloomington-Normal and nearby communities.