From Mummies to Microchips: A Case-Study in Effective Online Teaching Developed at the University of Manchester

This volume offers a detailed case study of the internationally acclaimed online programmes in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, UK. It distils over a decade of online teaching experience and student feedback, providing guidance for instructors developing their own online offerings.

Today, many universities are actively encouraging their teaching staff towards the development of:

• online programmes (programmes to be taught entirely online) and/or

• online units (units to be incorporated into “blended” programmes taught partially online and partially face-to-face).

Unfortunately, the staff tasked with the development of online learning rarely have access to the expertise that they need to help them utilise their teaching skills to their full potential. Technical assistance may be provided by the university e-learning department, but pedagogical and practical help – the support of colleagues with many years’ experience teaching online – is lacking.

Written by experts, the book provides an invaluable guide for those wishing – or being compelled – to establish their own online courses within the humanities.

Joyce Tyldesley is Reader in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, where she teaches a suite of online courses including the world’s first online MA in Egyptology. She wrote the highly successful MOOC “Ancient Egypt: A History on Six Objects”. Joyce studied the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean at Liverpool University, then obtained a D.Phil in prehistoric archaeology from Oxford University. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton. She is a research associate of the Manchester Museum and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Joyce has published more than 20 books and many articles, including three television tie-in books and Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt, which was a Radio 4 “Book of the Week”. She has published three books for children, and her play for children, The Lost Scroll, premiered at Kendal Museum in April 2011. Tutankhamenʼs Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian King (US title Tutankhamen ) won the Felicia A. Holton Book Award from the Archaeological Institute of America. Her most recent book is Nefertitiʼs Face: The Creation of an Icon.

Nicky Nielsen is Lecturer in Online Egyptology at the University of Manchester, teaching on the Certificate, Diploma, Short Courses and MA Egyptology programmes. Originally from Denmark, Nicky was awarded an AHRC Block Grant to undertake PhD research at the University of Liverpool investigating subsistence strategies and craft production at the Ramesside fortress site of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. He has excavated in Europe, Turkey and Egypt and is currently field director of the University of Liverpool Tell Nabasha Survey Project. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Alongside a series of scholarly papers, Nicky has recently published Pharaoh Seti I: Father of Egyptian Greatness.