Digital Islam Website Launches

Digital Islam Website Launches

Digital Islam Website Launches

Feb 2, 2016, 13:36 PM

Digital Islam

The Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) is pleased to announce its new website, digitalislam.umich.edu. DISC is a collaborative initiative that aims to enhance the collective Islamic studies curricula of Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) member universities, which include the Big Ten athletic conference and the University of Chicago. The program is hosted by the University of Michigan Islamic Studies Program with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. DISC aims to deepen and broaden global Islamic studies to make it more accessible to undergraduate students at participating universities.

The CIC has an established synchronous-learning infrastructure that makes DISC possible by allowing Islamic studies courses to be taught on multiple campuses at once. Professors can teach in real time to a local classroom while broadcasting to a partner university. Students are able to interact with the instructor and classmates through video-conferencing technology, allowing a new community of students and scholars to develop.

The first DISC course was taught in Fall 2015, and three courses have been taught or are currently underway at the University of Michigan, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Illinois, with host institutions Michigan State University, University of Iowa, and University of Minnesota. As the initiative continues, additional courses will be taught each semester, and the network of courses and knowledge will expand.

For more information about DISC, visit digitalislam.umich.edu.