Core Technology Tracking and Transfer: Florida State will provide a core level of effort to support technology transfer, user outreach, and long-range leadership on issues of technology, tools, and techniques related to PET Training and Educational needs. Technologies of interest include, but are not limited to, synchronous and asynchronous web/Internet-based distance education tools, electronic repositories of training materials, etc.
Florida State will work closely with the on-site Training team at the ERDC MSRC to understand the needs and use of training technology at the MSRC in the context of the changing technology base. This requirement analysis will be complemented by a survey of current and emerging tools which we will classify in terms of the concept of a "collaborative portal" which will underlie our research efforts at Florida State and capture the lessons from the PET and other efforts funded at Syracuse over the last few years. A technology of clear importance is XML to either describe Mathematics or Graphics or to define the overall component structure of a portal. We will recommend tools and standards that will enable authoring of training material that can best be re-used as the underlying technology base shifts. We will complete an initial survey by the mid-year review and document with reports and presentations. We will select and support some key tools for user experimentation and evaluation in the second half of year 5.
Florida State will continue to select and attend focused conferences and other meetings that have high payoff and contribute directly to providing leadership on training technology issues. We expect this effort to position the MSRC to be able to make innovative use of emerging training technology and standards and continue its leadership position in year 6 and beyond.
User Outreach: We will conduct a specialized requirements analysis basing survey on capabilities of common tools such as Syracuse's VPL (Virtual Programming Laboratory) for computing instruction, WebCT and PowerPoint for authoring, TangoInteractive for synchronous Instruction, Blackboard for database support. We will analyze these in the collaborative portal concept using common Web Information Portals as an initial motivator. We will cover both MSRC and HBCU users.
Training: As part of our effort to support the use of distance training tools within the PET program, we plan to offer a Distance Training Workshop covering approaches for both synchronous and asynchronous modes of delivery. We will include a tutorial on base technologies, especially XML, covering the use of the Object web in all areas of relevance to the MSRC. We will include those tools selected as part of our mid-year report.