The University of Baltimore (UB) is working with Pulitzer-prize winning historian Taylor Branch and the USMCAI to offer the course “Citizenship and Freedom: The Civil Rights Era” in an innovative, online, for-credit format. Unlike MOOCs, this course is based on a seminar format that promises synchronous interactivity. Also unlike MOOCs, this course features a blend of lecture, panels, and real-time Q&A with the virtual audience. For the Spring 2014 pilot, UB entered into agreements with a handful of schools in the system and outside of Maryland to see how the course might be utilized for a number of different purposes in a number of different contexts. We believe that our work with Taylor’s course not only will offer useful data on good pedagogy in online environments, but also help us understand how to make unique course content available in different formats.

Visit course website: http://www.freedomclass.org/