Di Luo, Chu-Niblack Assistant Professor of Art History and Architectural Studies, in collaboration with her students across several courses, first published Asian Art and Architecture: An Open Educational Resource in 2021. The image database continues to grow with each iteration of Luo’s courses.
The database consists primarily of thematic mini-exhibitions authored by students in Luo’s Introduction to Asian Art, Japanese Art & Architecture, and Chinese Art & Architecture courses. Each exhibition includes a thematic essay, labels and descriptions for a related set of curated images, and a bibliography. The exhibitions cover a wide range of topics and geography, from ancient ceramics and bronzes in India, traditional Buddhist statuary in Pakistan, Nepal, and Tibet, to Chinese landscape paintings, 19th to 20th-century Japanese woodblock prints, and contemporary architecture, urban design, gardens, glassware, photography, and art installations in and beyond Asia.
Luo identifies several objectives underpinning the project: to utilize open pedagogy practices to engage students meaningfully in the process of knowledge creation, to highlight the collections of Asian art and artifacts at Connecticut College and the adjacent Lyman Allyn Art Museum, and to provide free, academic-quality learning materials for Asian art and architecture to college students, educators, and any interested individuals. To that end, the website offers advice for adoption of the OER, such as adapting any virtual exhibition as a 75-minute lecture on Asian art and architecture with assigned readings listed in the bibliography at the end of the exhibition post, or incorporating individual images and related content into lesson plans and course materials.
The project was supported by CT State Open Educational Resources (OER) Impact Grant and the Digital Scholarship & Curriculum Center.
The Profiles in Open series highlights the important and innovative work of Connecticut College faculty in the areas of open educational resources, open pedagogy, and open-access publishing.