During the COVID crisis, the DH programs were able to maintain a robust level of activity on all projects while integrating remote instruction on the Democracy in Africa project with Professor Evan Lieberman. Over Spring 2020 and Summer 2020, our UROP students successfully completed work on two interactive learning modules which will allow students in both residential and EdX versions of Lieberman’s course “Democracy and Development: Perspectives from Africa” hands-on experience of the implications of policy decisions on the lives of African people.

The first module, #FeesMustFall, is a work of interactive fiction, which puts you into the life of a South African university student during the #FeesMustFall movement (2015–2016). By engaging with the difficult choices that student participants in this movement had to make, the player gains a visceral understanding of the movement and the stakes for its participants

The second simulation is the Campaign Game. In this game, you are a politician running for office. Using information given about the needs of citizens from the selected country, the user designs a political campaign, choosing to focus on different issues (such as education, job creation, and fighting corruption) to appeal to a majority of voters.

Simulations empower students by providing hands-on engagement with concepts that are otherwise abstract or theoretical. Researchers and policymakers can use simulations to understand how models play out under a variety of starting conditions.

Code for these modules is entirely open source and both will be integrated into Lieberman’s courses starting in Fall 2020.