We are pleased to announce the first two projects funded by the Tisch Affordable Course Materials Awards for the 2022-2023 academic year. Congratulations to Steven Bell (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Mark Kachanov (Mechanical Engineering)!
Professor Bell & Professor Kachanov will both be creating alternatives to traditional textbooks for their courses. These resources will be more closely aligned with course concepts & goals than existing textbooks, and will also ensure that students don't have to buy an expensive text for the class.
The awards program provides financial support for faculty and instructors in the Schools of Arts, Sciences, & Engineering who would like to reduce costs for their students by identifying no-cost course materials to incorporate into their syllabus. We are currently accepting applications on a rolling basis from faculty & instructions of Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 courses.
Project details:
Steven Bell. Course: EN1, Engineering in the Kitchen
Project: A concise digital textbook for the foundational topics in the course, including circuit analysis, Python programming, microcontroller I/O using MicroPython, and computer networking. Because there isn’t any book that adequately covers the broad range of course concepts at a level appropriate for first-semester students, using existing resources would require students to buy multiple textbooks. This newly-created text will be an authoritative and accessible reference for many topics in the course and will help to bridge gaps in the range of experience levels that students come into the course with. It will be made available on the Runestone Academy platform.
Mark Kachanov. Course: ME120, Solid Mechanics
Project: A set of comprehensive lecture notes with exercises to replace the assigned textbook for this course. The lecture notes will be more closely aligned with the material covered in the course than the existing textbook and will be a resource that better meets the needs of students in the class who are coming in with a wide range of previous knowledge and experience. Additionally, this alternative to a traditional textbook will come at a critical time, as there is a forthcoming new edition of the existing course textbook, which would nullify students' ability to purchase cheaper used copies of the book.
