This site was developed as an open educational resource (OER) for the CUNY / Brooklyn College course, ARTD 3105 The Development of the Silk Road, taught by Professors Jennifer L. Ball and Shuming Lu.
The Brooklyn College Open Educational Resource Project began in 2014-2015, and was designed to encourage faculty experimentation and innovation using open and/or library licensed resources for their course materials.
The project supported faculty writing their own content, curating openly available scholarly digital content, and library assistance with resource identification, online publishing, creative commons licensing, and copyright compliance.
This alternative to print textbooks addresses multiple learning styles and pedagogies through customizable, interactive, multimedia content, and may result in greater student learning and lowering student costs. Approximately 5,000 Brooklyn College students will be served yearly by the completed projects. Moreover, the resources are accessible to a global audience.