Teaching at Hogeschool Zuyd

A faculty exchange experiment

Typically, it proves near impossible to exchange faculty members from one university to another, particularly from one country to another. Yet, that is excactly what I am engaged in here: a faculty exchange.

Our students have been attending each others schools (Hogeschool Zuyd, in Heerlen, Netherlands, and Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri) for years. This time a faculty exchange has been arranged since both uinversities have new, and very similar, degree programs for Internet-oriented students. Zuyd offers a Communication and Multimedia Design degree, and Northwest offers an Interactive Digital Media degree. (Note: to reach the CMD degree program information in the link in this paragraph, you'll have to click on the "Communication and Multimedia Design" link.)

Sylvia Pisters, who teaches Web Usability and Interactive Writing, currently sits at my desk in Maryville, while I sit at her desk in Heerlen.

This is a two-week experiment. Sylvia and I have exchanged many details about our respective coursework, and each of us is trying to integrate our lecture materials into the other's classes. This is not too much of a problem, since we teach a course that is nearly idential. For her, it is titled "Usability," and for me it is titled "Introduction to Web Publishing," in which I focus on Usability. Both of us use as an instruction guide, Jakob Nielsen's book, Designing Web Usasbility.

posted by J. Lamer @ 10:43 PM