DRAFT — 3 November 1996
Geoffrey Fox
Marvin Goldberg
Edward Lipson
We propose that a joint Center be set up between the two colleges of Engineering and Computer Science and Arts and Sciences. The goal of this Center is to exploit the rapid evolution of information technology in order to develop new curricula and new ways of delivering existing courses at Syracuse University. The Center would conduct world-class research in educational technologies with the expectation of attracting significant external funding. This Center builds on and integrates together several highly regarded curriculum and technology activities now at the University. The Center would support and encourage new courses whose value would be enhanced by use of new information technology such as that used in the Web based courses Phy105/106 Science for the 21st Century, Phy307/308 Science and Computers in A&S and ECS400/CPS616 Introduction to Web Technologies, CPS615 Introduction to Computational Science in ECS. Further, it will support and encourage new educational degree offerings such as the proposed "Masters in Multimedia" and "Certificate in Internet Engineering." All such degree programs would be Centered in existing academic units.
We anticipate great student interest in new minors and certificates that focus on the latest Internet and Web technologies and that can be taken by students in essentially any existing program. Further, we see that the growing interest in lifelong learning and the tremendous demand from employers for Web technology expertise together suggest that there is great opportunity for increased offerings through DCESS of degrees and certificates in the latest information technologies. We propose that the Center partner with DCESS in developing such offerings. The technologies in which the Center would specialize are expected to be central in a trend towards "Virtual Education" and, in particular the "Virtual University". The time scale and impact of this is not clear but a world class activity in this area must be useful and prudent for the University. We expect that CITE would work with other University units including DCESS, School of Education, and IST in various distance education projects which will help position Syracuse to be a leader in whatever emerges as the Virtual University.
Director: Marv Goldberg
Technology Lead: NPAC (Geoffrey Fox)
The Center would have some administrative and systems staff including some personnel transferred from NPAC. It will build (based on initial NPAC and perhaps ECS infrastructure) resources to support proposed education initiatives. This will include high speed networks (ATM) and video servers. Note that CITE would work with existing academic Faculty Computing and Media Services so that CITE offers leading edge services outside the current scope of base University activity. As concepts and services "mature," both infrastructure and consulting services would move to Computing and Media Services. In this sense, one could view one role of CITE as being a "research unit" of CMS.
We have analyzed a business model for CITE (see appendix for long description of CITE) where we envision CITE hiring instructors who can help teach courses (with a typical load of four assignments per semester) and partnering with the academic units to teach conventional and distance education courses. We also assume that CITE's innovative role will attract substantial external support from government and foundations. The combined business plan leads to a viable business model (FBOH of 80% including IDC) in the third year after foundation.
There is an obvious "chicken and egg" problem, and so we propose that the concept of setting up CITE be agreed "now" with the approximate budget below. CITE will be set up as soon as possible but not funded until July 1,1997. The fast set up will remove a lot of certainty of future of participants, allow real discussions with partners (see below), and allow federal and foundation funding to be sought immediately. We propose initial approval be for a three-year time period with an extensive review at the beginning of the third year.
Like most new initiatives, CITE will need start up funds which we propose in annual amounts:
In addition we expect that units such as NPAC and CASE will bring significant
resources to project.
We have had detailed discussions of work of this type with:
The issues have been briefly discussed with: