Course Awards
2020
El-Farrah has created a podcast-like experience with the high quality narrated audio lectures on pages containing music examples, video performances and interviews to best mimic the live-lecture experience. He’s using a mixture of freely available content and resources from the UTSA Libraries-which are either low-cost or no additional cost for his students.
More from El-Farrah:
“Before I created the online course, I made purchasing the textbook optional and covered material through lectures supplemented by articles accessed through the library website. This limited the scope of what I could teach and I didn't want to ask students to purchase a book if it wasn't entirely necessary.
The online lectures are more concise than I would give in person and the ability to answer immediate questions is a bit hindered. Because of this I decided it's necessary to have more thorough reading assignments and written critiques which made the book an essential part of the course materials. If this book is free students wouldn't have to pay for any other materials beyond the minimum needed to complete an online course.
As a musician having open source/free material removes barriers to creativity and access to the arts, using open educational resources in the same context exposes our students to the course material without penalizing those who may not have access resources and have chosen online learning specifically for that purpose.”