Overview of connexions and timea

What is connexions?

Connexions is an online repository and set of software tools for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, andquickly publishing educational content. The Content Commons contains educational modules that can be grouped together into larger courses . You may freely use and reuse content under the Creative Commons "attribution" license , which requires only that you cite the source. By making all content open, Connexions encouragescollaboration and community-building, as scholars work together to create and use educational resources. Whereas a traditionaltextbook presents ideas in a fixed sequence, typically from a single discipline, Connexions allows instructors to break knowledgeup into“chunks”that can be rearranged. Modules can contain links to related concepts both inside and outside of the Connexionsenvironment, enabling students to see the relationship among ideas. Instructors can create their own custom courses drawing from theConnexions Content Commons.

Connexions advances three core principles :

1)“Content should be modular and non-linear”

We learn by building on what we already know, linking together old and new knowledge. Therefore Connexions’modules focus on a key concept and can be organized in different ways, illustrating the relationships among ideas.

2)“Sharing is good”

Connexions enables authors to share their work and receive attribution for it by adopting the Creative Commons open-content licenses. Connexions is built on Open Source technologies and uses XML to ensure that content can be exchanged and used on differentplatforms.

3)“ Collaboration is encouraged”

Through its workgroup and communication tools, Connexions makes it easy for people to author modules jointly,suggest edits, or adapt modules for their own purposes.

Connexions serves three categories of users:

• Students, who use Connexions materials. (Of course,“students”need not be enrolled in a specific course.)
• Authors, who create Connexions modules
• Instructors, who construct courses that contain modules arranged in a particular order

Connexions has an international audience of over one million people from more than 150 countries. As of August,2006, Connexions contains over 3000 modules and 170 courses covering topics from music to computer science to history. TheTIMEA community in Connexions has contributed over 25 modules and has built 5 courses covering topics such as conducting historicalresearch and analyzing visual culture.

For more information about Connexions, see (External Link)

What is timea?

The Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA) is a digital archive that focuses on Western interactionswith the Middle East, particularly travel to Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. TIMEA bringstogether: