Journal of Financial and Strategic Decisions Special Issue,   Winter 1999 AN HONORS COURSE IN ECONOMIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT Douglas Dotterweich East Tennessee State University Paper Presented at Teaching Economics Ninth Annual Conference, Robert Morris College Abstract Economic policy can not be crafted in the absence of one's individual values. This honors course in economics is built upon the premise that understanding one's view of the world is a necessary prerequisite to selecting an economic system and policy prescriptions which are consistent with that perspective. This is accomplished by emphasizing that moral philosophy is the foundation for the development of sound economic policy. The background material for the course consists of readily available Internet resources as well as small, inexpensive economics issues/readings books. The course is structured around lectures, class discussions, classroom policy debates, economic issue papers, and student presentations. Teaching in this environment forces each student to evaluate several policy alternatives and to determine for themselves those choices they might find to be acceptable or unacceptable based on their view of the world. This course outline is certainly not traditional and is rather labor intensive. However, both the instructor and students can take great satisfaction in realizing that strong course performance requires more than just memorization and recitation of economic concepts or theory examinations.

Journal of Financial and Strategic Decisions Special Issue,   Winter 1999 USING THE WEB IN THE CLASSROOM Pamela P. Peterson Florida State University INTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to convey how I use the Web in my classroom and what I learned along the way. I have used the Web as a supplement to my class since Fall term, 1995 and have gained a great deal of experience since then in both Web-assisted and on-line instruction. This paper is organized in the following way. In Section 1 I describe the courses I teach and how I came to use the web in my courses. I detail several innovations in the site in Section 2. I offer ideas on future plans in using the Web in my classroom in Section 3. In Section 4 I make a comparison of my experience of teaching an on-line course with a Web-assisted course. I provide summary remarks in Section 6.

Journal of Financial and Strategic Decisions Special Issue,   Winter 1999 RESPONDING TO STAKEHOLDERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AND THE IMPACT ON COURSE DESIGN Sharon H. Garrison Florida Gulf Coast University Dan Borgia Florida Gulf Coast University INTRODUCTION Florida Gulf Coast University, the tenth university in the Florida State University System, opened its doors in August, 1997. As part of the mission of the university, departments were mandated to deliver distance courses to 25% of enrolled students. The finance department accepted this challenge, yet realized that there would be significant barriers to overcome in teaching effective finance classes in a distance setting. Finance as a discipline relies heavily on theoretical concepts, which must somehow be imparted to students, and also on technique-oriented applications. Another difficulty in designing finance courses had to do with the fact that the whole field of finance changes rapidly as market conditions change. A further challenge was the fact that many of the students at Florida Gulf Coast University come from a variety of backgrounds. Some students are quite skilled in math and in accounting principles, yet some are lacking in these backgrounds. All in all, the challenges were great, so the department decided to seek input from stakeholders.

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