One of the oldest education institutions in London has teamed up with the Tate Modern to develop a ground-breaking adult learning course on CD-Rom.
Students in the new visual art course will stroll in virtual form through Tate Modern's galleries, moving through individual pieces of art, and will be able to view the building both inside and out.
Jean Kerrigan, the visual art course tutor at City Lit, designed the course with Tate Modern curator Sylvia Lehav and City Lit specialist Mac Campeanu, who also took the photographs.
Ms Kerrigan said: "This is a pilot course and we hope to build other courses based on this experience. In many ways, the visual arts subject was the most difficult to produce. We spent a lot of time sorting out the copyright issues."
The flexible eight-week course, funded by the City Lit, took ten months to develop. Seven projects with a landscape theme include study of works by Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali and Frank Auerbach, with web links to the collections of other museums and galleries. Students pay £75 (£50 concessions) for a CD-Rom, online tutors and a Tate Modern handbook.
Contact with City Lit tutors is through email and group discussions take place in private and public internet chat rooms, using the First Class application. Institutions that have shown an interest in the course include colleges, hospitals and prisons and it is expected students from a variety of places and backgrounds will want to enrol.
The course content includes British Sign Language elements for deaf students.
Ms Kerrigan said that the course aimed to broaden knowledge of the visual arts and to strengthen online and computer literacy skills.
Details: inquiries and enrolments can be made through the City Lit Enrolment Department on 020-7831 7831. The January course reference is EB154 and the April course is EB155. City Lit prospectuses are available by telephoning 020 7404 6825