Subject: Educ ITR words Resent-Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:42:06 -0500 Resent-From: Geoffrey Fox Resent-To: p_gcf@npac.syr.edu Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 09:20:56 -0600 (CST) From: Joe Thompson To: gcf@npac.syr.edu CC: joe@erc.msstate.edu Here're my words related to the Educ ITR pre-proposal. Use as you see fit. The stuff above the ***** is aligned with what you and I have talked about in regard to this, and therefore is probably useful. The stuff below the ***** is related to open-source courseware, and may or may not be useful: may not fit with what you're thinking of. You should be the judge on this - take it in the direction you want. And some of the stuff below the *** might be useful (perhaps the APPROACH words there) even if you don't want to go with the open source stuff. Let me know if you need more from me now. And do you want me to send this one in to NSF when we get it done, or do you want to do that? Or maybe have JSU send it in? CONCEPT words ------------- A networked Computer and Computational Science courseware delivery system across all HBCUs, to supplement on-campus CS curricula at HBCUs with CS courses from other HBCUs and from CS departments at other universities. The intent would be threefold: * To enhance CS curricula at HBCUs by making courses available from major CS departments around the country over the Internet. * To enable HBCUs to offer courses to other universities via the Internet. * To advance technology for the development and delivery of courses over the Internet. RATIONALE words --------------- Under the Programming Environment & Training (PET) effort of the DoD Major Shared Resource Centers program - led by the NSF ERC at Mississippi State - Syracuse has been conducting regular semester undergraduate and graduate Syracuse CS courses at Jackson State (an HBCU) in Mississippi over the Internet, using technology developed at Syracuse. Jackson State now is using this technology to teachJackson State CS courses at Morgan State (another HBCU) in Maryland (?) over the Internet. Since Jackson State produces more African-American undergraduate degrees in CS than any other university (of any kind) in the country, this effort is having a significant effect on the pipeline of minority CS graduates, enhancing the quality of their education and also serving to increase the attraction factor. This current effort between Syracuse and Jackson State has shown the potential to be expected from enlarged effort across all the HBCUs, as well as the potential for involving CS faculty at HBCUs both in the practice and enhancement of the underlying information technology. STRUCTURE words --------------- Jackson State would lead a coalition of HBCUs, with Syracuse and Mississippi State, to acquire, develop, evaluate, and implement web-based technology for conducing CS courses over the Internet throughout the coalition of HBCUs. These courses would be regular CS courses at Syracuse, Mississippi State, Jackson State, other HBCUs, and other universities as appropriate. The coalition of HBCUs would initially consist of a few selected for the potential of quick interaction, but would be expanded during the course of the effort to include all HBCUs. Further expansion to MIs, and even a high school compenent, would be possible. OPERATION words --------------- The effort of this virtual center would be composed of four fundamental elements: * Research * Evaluation * Application * Practice The Research element would conduct research into innovative use of IT in course development and delivery. This element would also develop new courseware components for assembly into courses. The Evaluation element would continually evaluate emerging developments in the use of IT in course development and delivery from outside the center, as well as from the inside. The Application element would assemble courseware components into complete courses for use by the universities in the center. The Practice element would actually deliver the courses in the universities. These four fundamental elements would continually interact in a feedback mode to enhance the courseware and its delivery. Thus, the Evaluation element would operate to evaluate developments as they emerge from the Research unit, to provide new developments from outside to both the Research unit and the Application unit, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the courses implemented by the Practice unit. ****************************************************************************** GENERAL ARGUMENT words ---------------------- The rapid profusion of commercial efforts in IT-enabled course development and delivery poses a danger of lock-in to less-than-optimal proprietary systems that gain some monopoly status by virtue of widespread availability and use, as has occurred for operating systems and office systems. But higher education courses, by their very nature need to be dynamic: continually changing and adapting to incorporate new content and modes of presentation, as well as more effective pedagogy. OPEN SOURCE COURSEWARE words ---------------------------- Universities moving separately with the development of IT-enabled courses is inefficient and duplicative. Rather, a concerted effort is needed to marshall expertise and innovation across a coherent and logical group of universities to develop the body of IT-enabled courseware. By courseware is meant content in a suitable software infrastructure. Both the content and the software infrastructure would be addressed in this effort. And this courseware should be open source - continually accumulating enhancements and improvements as it is applied within the group. A recent Chronicle article (back page of the October 29 issue) argued for open source in general in terms of the traditional open nature of universities: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i10/10a09201.htm Another Chronicle article (November 5 issue) also addresses open source from the open nature of universities standpoint, but more focused on scientific software: http://chronicle.com/free/v46/i11/11a05101.htm CONCEPT words ------------- A virtual center of the HBCU/MIs and supporting universities would be formed to develop and apply open-source courseware in undergraduate and graduate education in computer and computational science, both in on-campus courses and in distance learning - for regular students and in continuing education. This courseware could ultimately extend across the entire curricula of these universities. This virtual center would also continually evaluate emerging delivery and administration systems, promulgating standards for use across the HBCU/MIs and other universities. APPROACH words -------------- The fundamental technical approach of this virtual center would be to develop object-oriented modular courseware components assembled into complete IT-enabled courses, as well as for use as components in otherwise conventional courses. These modules would be composed of four basic object classes, each of which may incorporate audio and video objects: * Text * Graphics * Animation * Simulation These modular objects would be written using XML, with standard DTDs for the various disciplines and course types. Animations and simulations would incorporate Java applets. There would also be hierarchial discipline (subject) classes, with invokable sub-classes. A course would be made up of topics, each of which would be treated in a module (object) for the topic. These topical modules would be made up of various text, graphics, animation, and simulation objects forming explanatory content, examples and homework problems, and with associated quiz questions. This modular approach would allow components to be combined into courses at different levels. Thus some of the same components could be used with differing other components to assemble a freshman physics course for majors and a general science course for non-majors. The open-source nature of this effort would allow component modules to be adapted for use beyond that originally conceived.