Sometimes the classroom setting could be described as wild, but now a new class will actually take place in the wilds of Africa.

Jill Pruetz, associate professor of anthropology, is going to teach a WebCT class this spring. However, Pruetz is not going to be on campus. She is not even going to be in the country. Pruetz is teaching the class from her chimpanzee research site in Senegal, Africa.

The course is called Primate Behavior, and is designated as Anthr 350x/550x. Pruetz will be teaching it on the exact site where she has done much of her research on chimpanzees. The class will be taught with live and uploaded videos of the chimps themselves.

“I have never heard of a class that tries to do this. There may be some somewhere, but I haven’t heard of them,” said Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science. “It’s wonderful that she is willing to try it because it is going to be challenging. And if her class works, then we can do other classes with professors that go to very interesting places and teach their classes from there.”

Schmidt, who teaches several of his classes on WebCT, including a new class on the Iowa caucuses, helped Pruetz put together the idea and helped plan her class.

“[Schmidt] and a graduate student basically approached me with an idea,” Pruetz said. “I didn’t know anything about distance ed; it never occurred to me that it would be appropriate.”

In January, Pruetz is going to go back to Senegal for research. In March, she will start teaching her course online. A graduate student or another assistant will help her film live video and upload videos to the Internet. They do not have Internet access at the site, but there is Internet access at a nearby town and they will hopefully have satellite uplink as well.

Pruetz said her materials will be similar to a normal class, but out on the field. She said she will “basically do the same sort of lecture that I do in the class, but with an example right there.”

The students will receive information and examples on how to conduct field research as well as assignments that ask them to identify different chimps and behaviors from the videos.

Pruetz hopes it will be available noncredit eventually so anyone interested can take it.

Schmidt does not think this type of class will become commonplace, because it is just too much work for the instructor.

“It’s much harder to teach like this on the Web, and create a really complicated and interesting class than just go into a classroom and just teach face to face,” Schmidt said.

However, he believes that Pruetz’s class will work for her because she is willing to take the challenge.

“She’s a very innovative teacher and is really excited about trying new and difficult teaching tools,” he said. “And if you have adventurous spirit then you are going to succeed because you are going to try all these cool things that you can embed in your classes.”