by Kerry Magruder

On Monday morning Janux, OU’s new digital course platform, launches with the following courses, all of which offer free public enrollment:

• Native Peoples of Oklahoma
• Practical Importance of Human Evolution
• Chemistry of Beer
• Understanding and Detecting Deception
• Power and Elegance of Computational Thinking
• Introduction to Computer Programming
• Administration of Adult and Higher Education
• Introduction to Water
• Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Resources
• Physical Geology for Science and Engineering Majors
• History of Science to the Age of Newton
• Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
• Introduction to Sociology

Go on over to the janux.ou.edu site and take a look. Sign up for any that interest you. On Monday morning, join thousands of other people around the world who will interact together as they explore these courses.

The Janux platform offers numerous features tailored to promote engaging learning opportunities, including text annotations, student interaction through forum discussions, and high-impact videos including interviews and on-location documentaries. Courses range the gamut across the sciences and humanities, offering anyone around the world access, without charge, to the intellectual resources of the University of Oklahoma.

One reason posting to this blog has lagged in recent months is because the Janux platform will include my own course, History of Science to the Age of Newton. But the truth is that this course no longer seems really my own: It began with the interested support of Dean Rick Luce and my colleagues in the Department of the History of Science, who encouraged me to engage the platform even during a time when we have other significant, large-scale digital initiatives afoot. It has been produced by a team of remarkable people with whom I have been privileged to work, whose skill and graciousness have inspired me. My debts to them are inestimable: Angie Calton, course design assistant; Grey Allman and the programming team, who have slaved away many late nights to implement new platform features to support high-quality online pedagogy; and Chris Kalinsky and the rest of the videography team (Meleah, Pat, Matt, Darren, & Jaynan), who are artists of light and shadow and have invested extended hours in filming the books – those treasures from the vault – on location in the History of Science Collections. Without their insight, initiative, skill, dogged labors, teamwork, collegiality and perseverance, my course would not be included in that list.

The launch of Janux is an exciting time for OU and for all of those involved. My hat is off to everyone who made it possible, and now the countdown to Monday morning begins…