Discussing History in a Massive, Open, Online Environment

One of our goals when designing History of the Slave South was to foster a global debate on questions of slavery, race, capitalism, and democracy in the United States. Provided that we had to include thousands of students in the conversation, we created weekly discussion forums where Professor McCurry would post a question dealing with the week’s content. The students not only had the opportunity to reply to the question but also could read the posts of their peers and engage in meaningful conversations.

Managing the forums proved to be an interesting experience especially because the participants are not always contented to stick to the course materials. Personal experiences, political opinions, and ingrained beliefs emerge much more often than they would if we were at an academic seminar. My goal here is to discuss how to manage a virtual forum which should constantly remind the students of scholarly rules but, at the same time, must respect their positions and try to keep them interested on the debate.