Templates for Use in the Strategic Studies School

This is a brief discussion of the organization of the Strategic Studies School that contains Templates for use with each of the different types of pages used here. Templates are not monolithic constructs, but it is encouraged that they be adhered to in spirit in order to maintain a sense of continuity with students of the School.

Degree Program

A Degree Program is a series of Courses designed to grant the student enough understanding of a discipline that they might be awarded a degree. Since Wikiversity is not yet a Degree Granting institution (and may never be), this concept is simply meant as a guide for the amount of learning that should be contained in a Degree Program. Degree Programs are made to stretch over a hypothetical period of four "years." Each "year" a student is expected to take 10 Courses. There are Core and Elective Courses. All Core Courses must be studied in order to complete the Degree Program. Since there are not enough Core Courses to make a full degree, students take Electives to round out the number of Courses they take in each year.

Course

A Course is here defined as a series of Classes on a given subject matter. The standard Course is 30 hours of hypothetical instruction time (not including readings and assignments). In this template, the Course is divided into ten units, each with three (one-hour) Classes. This organization is entirely flexible. Instructors do not need to group Classes into units, but if they notice that Classes within their Course outline share similar themes, this organization is encouraged.

Any course which forms part of the Strategic Studies curriculum should have, at the very top of the page, this template: {{SSC}} This ensures that the course is clearly marked as part of Strategic Studies, as well as providing an easy navigation back to the School's Portal.

Class

A Class is the basic building block of the Course. It contains lecture material, readings, Projects, etc. These are all geared towards the achievement of a learning objective that pertains to the subject of the Course. A Class is hypothetically one hour long, but this is only for the purposes of planning. Since an instructor is free to choose how many Classes are in a Course, he or she may use their 30 hypothetical hours of Course time in any way they see fit.

Project

Projects make up parts of Classes. They are student activities that asisst them in the understanding of the subject matter of a Class. This is a hands-on activity, and - according to the philosophy of Wikiversity - should emphasize "learning by doing." An example might be to research and edit a Wikipedia article, or to build a catapult.

Topic

Topic in the Strategic Studies School contain piles of reference material and links for the purpose of assisting research on a given subject matter. These are exercises in data mining, and should be filled to the brim with useful reference information and commentary to aid students in developing their ideas for Classes and Projects.