Students can choose a focus among the social, cultural, economic, environmental, ethical, or political aspects of the case study.
Students meet in classrooms at their respective institutions once a week.
They cover one case in three weeks, and every other week, all of the institutions participate in a 90-minute videoconference. Students form discussion groups of 8 to 10 that include representatives from each institution. A television monitor, divided into quadrants, transmits live video of each classroom, rotating among classrooms every five minutes. The sessions are available live on the Web and are archived on the course's Blackboard Web site. Students also communicate with one another in computer labs equipped with cameras and headphones that allow audio and video interaction through NetMeeting software.