ICPSR has announced the beta launch of its Online Learning Center (OLC). The press release is reproduced below. If you would like to learn more about this, contact Paula or me.
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ICPSR is pleased to announce the beta launch of the Online Learning Center (OLC). The site is located at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/OLC/ and can be found under the Courses & Learning Tools tab on the ICPSR main page.
The OLC is the result of discussions with teaching faculty about using data in their classrooms and the challenges such undertakings can entail. Instructors directed ICPSR to develop tools that would: 1) quickly locate relevant data that are easy to work with and that nicely demonstrate the concept(s), and 2) enable the instructor to customize the materials to their own teaching approach and syllabus.
To that end, Data-driven Learning Guides, a core element of the OLC, were created for the express purpose of making ICPSR data more user-friendly for classroom exercises. The guides are designed for faculty to use for in-class demonstrations or to assign as supplemental activities for giving students greater exposure to concepts.
Note: This launch is a beta launch of the OLC. More topics, guides, and tools will continue to be added over the coming weeks and months. The purpose of the beta launch is to go live and allow instructors to use the site while encouraging their feedback and watching for any potential bugs in the site’s use. A more widely-publicized full launch is expected in Summer 2008.