Subject: EDUC ITR Resent-Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 13:27:35 -0500 Resent-From: Geoffrey Fox Resent-To: p_gcf@npac.syr.edu Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 10:32:54 -0600 (CST) From: Joe Thompson To: gcf@npac.syr.edu CC: joe@erc.msstate.edu Geoffrey, Florida State and Mississippi State are both members of SURA: Southeastern Universities Research Association. This will give us yet another avenue of collaboration. The thing below is a White Paper that I put to SURA in October about a possible SURA-wide distance learning effort. SURA has agreed to host a workshop to explore this idea, probably in DC in February. This relates to you in a couple of ways: First, participation in the workshop - in fact, with you at FSU, I'd like to make this a joint effort between us rather that just me putting it on. But second, feel free to use any of this now in the ITR proposal that involves JSU. I'm not sure any of it is useful there, but you are welcome to any of it that is. I'm about to send this around to potential workshop attendees, but have not done so yet. Your comments are welcome. Joe *** Folks, Recall that we started bounding around ideas about a SURA education initiative for DoE's SSI thing earlier this year. SSI didn't make it through Congress, but the idea of the SURA education initiative is worth hanging onto. So here's another stab at that. With the proliferation of commercial outfits bent on doing distance learning for us, maybe we in SURA might consider a collective coordinated effort to develop and share courses via open-source courseware. With that in mind, here's a concept brief to float with you. Nothing special about these ideas or words - just wanted to get something down that others might work on if it makes any sense. This spins off some stuff already going on in SURA universities, e.g. VPI's Math Emporium, Virginia's Advanced Technologies for Engineering Education, and of course the use of SREC to spread course info and access. There's other stuff also. The idea would be to put together a mix of Federal, SURA, and institutional funding to do a major coordinated project. No implication of MSU leading: just wanted to get the idea around for comment. So sound off. Thanks. Joe *** A SURA Virtual Center for Open-Source Courseware ================================================ Concept ------- A virtual center, composed of SURA universities, for the development, evaluation, application, and practice of open-source information technology enabled courseware. Rationale --------- 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. Several relevant efforts are already in progress at SURA universities, e.g. VPI's Math Emporium in the October 8 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. But, as noted in that article, courseware development is time-consuming. SURA also has relevant effort in progress on course delivery systems, i.e. the multi-institutional Video Development Initiative (ViDe). 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 SURA, with its strong collection of expertise in IT and its broad range of courses, is a geographically and intellectually cohesive entity appropriate to mount such an initiative. Further, since the SURA region encompasses most of the nation's HBCUs, this effort can also serve to enhance and extend the course offerings and opportunities at these institutions. Approach -------- A virtual center of the SURA universities would be formed to develop and apply open-source courseware in undergraduate and graduate education, both in on-campus courses and in distance learning - for regular students and in continuing education. This courseware would 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 SURA universities and HBCUs in the SURA region. Elements -------- 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. Structure -------- This virtual center would operate with a matrix structure, bringing together IT specialists and content developers in the various disciplines in the universities in multi-disciplinary interaction within each of the four fundamental elements of the center. Disciplinary Content _________________________ | | Information | | Technology | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_______________________| Technical Approach ------------------ 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. Implementation -------------- The matrix structure would be implemented by placing specific universities in charge of the various Disciplinary Content and Information Technology elements of the matrix, with faculty from various universities composing these matrix elements. In this way, specific universities would lead the development of different classes of course modules, the assembly of modules into complete courses, and assistance with the conduct of courses. Funding ------- NSF might logically fund the Research and Application elements, while the universities and SURA fund the Evaluation and Practice elements. Different Federal agencies might fund effort targeted at certain disciplines appropriate to agency mission. Thus NASA might fund Research and Application efforts in the aeronautical and space sciences, DoE might fund efforts related to climate prediction and combustion as well as high energy physics, DoD might fund in material sciences. And funding from NEH and NEA might be directed at courseware in the humanities and the arts.