Austen University

I'm floating a trial balloon on this now, and am getting good early returns. It's discussed in a private conference now. More news to come.

Paul, Sounds like there could be a great match. Gregory, our team's main contact with b&n, is currently in NYC with them talking about upcoming course ideas, etc. He'll be out all week, but he or someone from the curriculum team will be in contact soon. Thanks, Kathy -----Original Message----- From: Paul Terry Walhus [mailto:paul_walhus@notharvard.com] Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 10:16 AM To: teach@notharvard.com; terry@spring.net; terry@austen.com Cc: gregory_kallenberg@notharvard.com; judy_bitterli@notharvard.com; regan_brown@notharvard.com; jan_davidson@notharvard.com; stacie_herrington@notharvard.com; kurt_huffman@notharvard.com; claire_huie@notharvard.com; shannon_ingram@notharvard.com; kathy_kitayama@notharvard.com; katie_kratzig@notharvard.com; shelly_lance@notharvard.com; shelly_leuzinger@notharvard.com; john_ratliff@notharvard.com; eric_roach@notharvard.com; tim_ziegler@notharvard.com Subject: Austen University - a Content & Course Suggestion I am currently working as a system administrator contractor at notharvard.com, working on building the Solaris platform for the next generation of notHarvard.com servers. But I have also spent the last ten years developing several successful websites (austen.com, spring.net, firth.com etc.) that have become heavily populated virtual communities. I have an idea for a series of courses based on a popular website I own called http://www.austen.com. It is the main Internet portal for the works (books, movie adaptations, television adaptations) of Jane Austen. It receives several hundred thousand hits a month, as does it's sister site where Jane Austen discussion forums are held at http://www.spring.net. The website has a fervent following, to say the least. Donations and contributions sometimes are several thousand dollars a month, and the membership is growing rapidly. I get about 40,000 unique individuals a month visiting both spring.net and austen.com, comprised of a highly literate, well educated audience who are into studying the works of Jane Austen and doing literary adaptations of these works. The "Derbyshire Writers Guild" is a unique educational area where anyone can put up a story based on the writings of Jane Austen. See http://www.austen.com/derby/contrib.htm for the Derbyshire Writers Guild. I would like to meet with someone at notharvard.com about the potential for writing a series of courses on the works of Jane Austen as part of BarnesandNobleUniversity.com or some other notHarvard.com venue. I could enlist the support of this loyal austen.com community in putting these courses together and would draw participants from the community. The educommerce potential, I believe, would be enormous considering that this is a well established and highly literature, book buying virtual community. I also feel like the spring.net community as a whole could develop other course opportunities that would be supported by the conferencing structure I have developed at spring.net. Will you please help me to evalute the potential merits of developing Jane Austen courses that would be coupled with online discussion forums and see if this has potential merit as an offering of notHarvard.com? Thanks, Paul Terry Walhus -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=- Paul Walhus http://www.notharvard.com paul_walhus@notharvard.com 512-682-3321 221 W 6th 11th floor Austin, TX 78701 alternate email: terry@spring.net cellphone: 512-699-4000 (also text pager) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-

And from another member of the content team: Paul, Thanks so much for your input. The recruiting and curriculum team (Gregory, Adrienne, Ben, Tom and I) will certainly discuss this more, but B&N is very keen on literature courses. Gregory's out of town this week, but maybe we can all sit down next week to discuss your ideas further. Of course, Gregory will determine all of this since he's the big boss man... Thanks, Jan

Great idea, Terry. waiting to hear more while I wait to hear in what way I might be of help...

You can help by identifying who might want to participate in this project.

The ante is upped on this project. We need ideas in all sorts of course areas. We need to know how many courses we can develop based on Spring conference topics and who can assist in developing these courses. How important is this? It's the most important project we've ever done and make a huge difference in the quality and direction we take in the future, not to mention that it can be a great source of revenue for the participants who help develop courseware and teach courses and run topics/conferences in conjunction with these courses.

I posted course topic suggestions from Geo. I tried to access B&N university but have not logged in and cannot find it from the B&N.com page. Suggestions?

http://www.barnesandnobleuniversity.com Also look at http://www.talkcity.com in the section called "free courses" And follow the links on http://www.notharvard.com And on the main page of http://www.barnesandnoble.com there's a yellow box to the right middle of the page that says Also on the Way... Free online courses at Barnes & Noble University Follow this if all else fails.

I'd like to get some course ideas from as many folks as possible and I'm waiting to hear from Ann if she's game to mock up a page for Friday's presentation. I'd like to get a couple of dozen ideas for courses based on Jane Austen, geo, and other hot areas of the Spring and put them on a mock up page for discussion on Friday. I left a voicemail for Ann last night.

I put a list elsewhere, but add Basic Astronomy - The Night Sky

Where'd you put the list?

It was inner 50.18 but here it is copied: Basic Rockhounding Leylines and E lines - Earth energy Volcanoes - introduction Plate tectonics - Introduction GeoArchaeology (any of my topics actually)

The Night Sky - Basic Astronomy

Alright, great. These are for Ann to include in mock up page of courses we could offer. Do you have any ideas for courses that other folks could teach, What courses and who could teach them? Maybe we could lure Ray back to teach something, maybe a cooking class, etc.

Hiatus Man to do anything!!! Cooking, webpage design... There is much he can contribute including trail blazing and other outdoor things. Problem here is he hasn't the time. There are many talented people here but with little time.....

Amy Bellinger wrote me some suggestions and she mentioned a possible alliance that I am going to follow up on.

Let us know of your success. I am still working on the recruiting-for-Spring level(success with the Seismology student from Tehran) and trying to think of something constructive add to your mix.

Amy just launched a major project at http://www.webfaucet.com, no wonder she's been so back in the woodwork for the past couple of years.

Just looked....Wow!

This isn't just a weekends work.

Just a little clarification about WebFaucet...it's actually a portion of my thesis for the graduate program I just completed at NYU. Amy isn't involved in it, though I wish she were ;-)

You Go, Girl!! Terry is right - that was no weekend endeavor. Brava Nan! Hugs, too!

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