The CORE Project
DIGITAL CURRICULUM EBOOK
Is a digital open-source curriculum developed to provide current and relevant content and teaching methodology to undergraduate economics students across the world.
Is a digital open-source curriculum developed to provide current and relevant content and teaching methodology to undergraduate economics students across the world.
The CORE (Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics) project was conceptualized after the global financial crisis in 2012, when students, faculty, employers and policy makers realized that the existing curriculum for Economics taught an outdated and even incorrect version of the subject. The CORE project was conceptualized with the aim of providing a relevant economics curriculum to undergraduate students.
The CORE project funded by INET (Institute for New Economic Thinking, founded by George Soros) embarked on the journey with Twist Open UX and 22 doyens of economics from across the world. Twist Open UX is responsible for the user experience and interaction design of The Economy eBook.
In 2013, ebooks were not yet a medium for education. We had no references except to deep dive into the project and understand how a subject like Economics could be made interactive, engaging and relevant digitally for students and teachers. As designers, we had to understand the intent of the author, gauge where in the lesson a student might want to ask a question or where a teacher could run a quick assessment.
.png)
In order to make the economics experience interactive we spent time understanding and designing the data-visualizations. We worked with 22 economists (from across the world) who contributed chapters to the curriculum to see where we could break down information and simplify them through appropriate bar graphs or click throughs that a student could interact with to further simplify and understand the context.
.png)
.png)
We provided UX and interaction design support in the creation of the curriculum, working closely with authors, economists, editors, publishing consultants and film makers. The project radically transformed the CORE economics curriculum at the undergraduate level with better economic understanding to a wider audience. The Economy eBook is taught in 56 countries, across 320 universities in multiple languages, making knowledge freely available on a global scale.
.jpg)