THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 19, Fall 2000
William A. McEachern, Editor
Grapevine
Here are some ideas found in my survey of several dozen course Web sites. Note that some of these ideas are relevant whether or not you utilize the Internet in your courses.
Most course pages explain the grade structure and composition, but I came across only one that spells out the probable outcome. On the home page for his MBA course, Understanding the World Macroeconomy (http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/MACRO3.HTM), Nouriel Roubini of New York University notes "Although sections may vary somewhat, the Economics Department suggests [the following] grade distribution: 20%-25% in the A/A- range, 55%-70% in the B range, and 10%-15% C and below. This distribution is intended to make standards comparable across sections, as required by the school."
Mark Walbert of Illinois State asks students to give him feedback after each lecture by e-mailing him answers to the following questions: "What's the most important thing you learned in class today? What is the muddiest point still remaining at the end of today's class?" (http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/Mark_Walbert/ECO240/240Main.html)
Barry Haworth of the University of Louisville provides Web material for six courses altogether (http://econpage.com/). The collection of exams he makes available to students is quite extensive. For the Principles of Macroeconomics course, he provides "old exams," "practice exams," "interactive exams," and "current exams."
Several Web sites play accompanying music. For example, the home page of Carole Scott's Money and Banking course (http://www.westga.edu/~cscott/bank/) at the State University of West Georgia plays the theme music to what years ago was Alfred Hitchcock's mystery TV series.
Speaking of music, Barry Keating of Notre Dame has an audio button on his two course sites that plays the school's fight song. He also holds weekly office hours online (http://www.nd.edu/~keating/localhome.html).
Office hours for the courses surveyed range from two to nine hours a week, with most falling in the three-to-four hour range. Alfred Lorn Norman of the University of Texas at Austin specifies unique office hours for each course. For example, students in his Micro Honors class get an hour a week, those in his Micro Principles course get a different hour, and his Information Society students get their own two-hour slot (http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Norman/info.html).
In one of the most transparent home pages I found on the Web, Richard Hannah of Middle Tennessee State University (http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/homepage.html) offers a clear description of his expectations of students in his courses. For example, he advises students that he follows the syllabus closely; expects proficiency with financial calculators, spreadsheet software, and the Internet; and expects papers to be "of professional quality" (and he spells out what that means). With regard to exams, "Good answers to questions require logical reasoning, applied technical skills, an understanding of economic principles, and clear writing and illustrations." He also lists results from his student evaluations dating back to 1992, totaling 22 classes.
Thomas Cook at North Seattle Community College bills himself as a "coach" rather than an instructor. He appears on his home page as a coach, in baseball cap with whistle, holding up a clipboard as if diagramming a play (http://www.sccd.ctc.edu/~thomcook/). On that clipboard is a supply-demand diagram. Two-dozen links on his home page take students to sites with many more links.
Rick Nelson of Lansing Community College in Michigan provides on his course page some tongue-in-cheek feedback from students. In a section headed "Read what former students have to say about the course," he offers the following quotes. From J. M. Cains: "This course really multiplied my economic knowledge." From Eve Smith: "I learned a lot. The process was practically invisible." And From T.R. Malthus: "Want to be part of the informed population? Then take this course!" He also offers three buttons purportedly offering students the opportunity to "Hear what other students say about the course." But when you play the audio, you hear someone crying, someone snoring, and someone screaming. It's all pretty clever (http://vcollege.lansing.cc.mi.us/econ201/index.html).
Putting myself in an inquisitive student's shoes, if I could register for just one course out of the dozens that I reviewed, I think it might be "The Political Economy of European Integration," offered by David L. Cleeton of Oberlin. Great required readings, good links, and attractive pages make for a nice balance of course content and visual appeal. The final half hour of each week involves a class discussion of events in Europe; that discussion counts 10% of the course grade. Each student must choose a different EU country on which to report, answering a series of questions specified in the syllabus. These reports count for 20% of the course grade. To see the promise of the medium, take a look at his home page at http://www.oberlin.edu/~dcleeton/SYLL_225.HTM.