A new interactive e-learning tool designed to help university students get to grips with economic analysis will be formally unveiled next week. Academics and journalists will gather at Cass Business School on Tuesday 6 June for London’s first public demonstration of LiveEcon as part of an event to mark the release of a new report, The Future of Economics Education.
LiveEcon has been developed by The Enterprise Library, an independent provider of learning development tools which support the higher education sector. It currently focuses on the teaching and learning of economics and works with academics in the economics departments of some of the UK’s top universities. The first volume of LiveEcon – Macroeconomics Principles, which covers the standard first year syllabus – is now available. A second volume, Macroeconomics Intermediate, will follow shortly.
Charles Jordan, Chief Executive of The Enterprise Library, said that LiveEcon had been developed to help bring the study of economics to life. “LiveEcon is not designed to replace textbooks – it is here to support the teaching and learning of economics and, above all, make it more dynamic and interactive,” he said. LiveEcon’s major strength lies in its ‘U-Drive-It!’ sections, Mr Jordan explained. “These allow students, through the use of scroll bars, to run experiments on key economic variables such as output, consumption, taxation, government spending and investment – and immediately see the effects in graphs and tables on screen.” Students are also guided through moving tutorials accompanied by explanatory text covering all the main issues of economic theory, before testing their understanding through interactive question-and-answer sessions at the end of each chapter.
Delegates at the lunchtime event will hear the key findings of a report gathering the views of lecturers and students about how economics is currently taught in universities. It focuses particularly on innovations such as e-learning and personalisation of courses. Mr Jordan believes that LiveEcon is well placed to help universities make economics more appealing to today’s young people. “E-learning must play a huge role in the future of economics education because it makes this subject more interesting to today’s young people,” he said. “There is nothing to equal LiveEcon’s combination of introductory texts, step-by-step tuition, and hands-on manipulation of complex economic models.”
LiveEcon’s authors include Chris Taylor, former Chief Adviser at the Bank of England, Dr Jochen Runde, Reader in Economics at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and Dr W David McCausland, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Aberdeen. It has been extensively trialled at the University of Aberdeen and the Judge Business School.
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