4. Autonomous Syllabus: An open access curriculum for eco-social design practice

Published by: Innovative Practice in Higher Education

Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Year: 2025

Author (s): Anna Schlimm University of the Arts London, Ella Britton University of the Arts London

Corresponding author: Anna a.schlimm@lcc.arts.ac.uk or e.britton@lcc.arts.ac.uk

Abstract: The cost of accessing higher education is increasingly prohibitive. But central to our course ethos is the belief that finding answers to complex global questions cannot be in the hands of the privileged few. To enable the co-construction of new possibilities for the future and create a space for collective imagination (brown, 2017), we created an open access version of our curriculum in September 2023 called the Autonomous Syllabus.

Our intention was to ensure that the creative tools and knowledges for social and ecological justice covered on our course are accessible to everyone. To do so for different audiences, we developed three strategies:

1.An online resource to share our curriculum every week to reach a global audience (Swartz & Lessig, 2016).

2.A local knowledge exchange initiative with organisations in the London borough of Southwark, to grow more mutualistic networks (Kimmerer, 2013) where our campus is based.

3.A living archive (Mattern, 2022) built by students to share resources and projects over time within and beyond the UAL community of practice.