Academic Computing

As noted in the Foreword, in this report we focus particularly on the digital domain of SUL /AIR, represented in large part by Academic Information Resources. AIR is comprised of Academic Computing, the Humanities Digital Information Service, and the Social Sciences Data Service. The largest of these divisions, Academic Computing (http://acomp.stanford.edu), supports the use of technology in teaching, learning, and student community life. It offers Stanford faculty and students a wide range of services and resources: consulting and training in the use of technology and information resources; computer labs, computing support and network services for Stanford's 10,000 housed students via its Residential Computing unit; desktop and public computers and support in the Stanford University Libraries; public computer clusters, labs, and technology-equipped classrooms; fee-for-service Web development via its Media Solutions unit; and development of software applications that are used by faculty and students in the pursuit of learning, teaching,and information discovery.

Academic Computing's guiding principlethe way technology enhances the pursuit of learning and teaching is more important than technology itselfis considered not only as it provides reliable computers, support, and infrastructure services, but also as it develops innovative and relevant technology and learning spaces; leads, collaborates, and participates in initiatives that enable academic pursuits; disseminates knowledge through teaching and consulting programs; and advocates the needs of the academic community to other service providers.

A description of Academic Computing's current initiatives offers specific examples of focus, as follows.

CourseWork and the Open Knowledge Initiative

Academic Computing's CourseWork Project (http://coursework.stanford.edu) is part of the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) in which MIT, Stanford and other lead institutions are creating, testing, and distributing open source learning management tools. The goal of the project, which was partially funded with an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, is to create a technical framework and set of applications to support courses.

First released in January 2002, CourseWork, a course management system, now hosts over twelve thousand students and faculty, and about 350 courses. Using CourseWork simplifies many tasks involved in teaching a course, particularly the time-consuming bookkeeping and communication tasks. Once instructors set up a CourseWork Web site for a course, they have access to the Registrar's listing of students for that course, and they can quickly and easily make a syllabus, schedule, and other course materials available to students; make and collect assignments; administer and grade quizzes and problem sets; and monitor the students' progress in the course. For their part, students are able to sign up for sections, get assignments and grades, access course materials, take quizzes, submit papers, and engage in online discussions.

One of CourseWork's major strengths lies in its flexibility. The system is designed for both faculty with little Web experience, who wish to develop their course Web site quickly, as well as for expert Web-users, who can use it to organize complex, Web-based materials and link them to Web communication tools. CourseWork tools can be turned "on" or "off," allowing instructors to adopt only those that meet their teaching needs.

This modularity means that instructors do not have to use the complete system, and it gives technologically sophisticated users full flexibility to incorporate CourseWork's complex features into their own Web sites. For example, Victoria Szabo, the academic technology specialist for Stanford's Introduction to the Humanities Program (a freshman year sequence of three required courses), is showing instructors how they can add the CourseWork Announcements and Grades Tools to their handcrafted Web sites. With the Announcements Tool, instructors can quickly post announcements and send emails. With the Grades Tool, instructors can post grades from tests and assignments on the Web so that each student can view his/her own grades.

CourseWork has generated keen interest at Stanford, and Academic Computing has received many requests for customization that will support individual teaching and learning needs. For example, the Stanford Language Center, a department within the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, asked about using CourseWork to deliver their Standard Oral Proficiency Interviews (SOPI), an evaluation tool that assesses a student's ability to read, understand, and speak a language. CourseWork was extended with a special SOPI module that allows students to view digital video, listen to spoken questions, and respond verbally and in writing. Instructors can then read and listen to the students' responses to evaluate their proficiency.

CourseWork 2.0, released in September 2002, has many enhancements and upgrades, including support for students who are blind or have limited vision. This version is integrated with Stanford's course registration system, so that when a student registers for a class, he or she is automatically given access to the CourseWork Web site for that class. Enhancements to the system are continuing, as faculty and student users provide feedback. In addition, CourseWork was licensed to several other universities in the fall of 2002. For more information about CourseWork see the Web at http://aboutcoursework.stanford.edu.

Distance Education and Media Solutions

Academic Computing has also developed courses for alumni audiences for the Alliance for Lifelong Learning, a new, not-for-profit "distance learning" venture among Oxford, Stanford, and Yale Universities. The Alliance's mission is to provide online courses and other educational offerings in the arts and sciences. Initially, the programs are being offered to the combined alumni, family, and friends of the three universities. In recognizing the potential appeal of this educational opportunity, the Alliance plans to make its offerings available to a wider audience in the future. See http://www.alllearn.org/ for more information.

Media Solutions (http://mediasolutions.stanford.edu/), Stanford's Web development group (and part of Academic Computing), has worked with faculty to develop several courses for the Alliance. The courses use rich multimedia experiences to complement the professor's lectures and text, stimulate the discussions of an online community, and allow learners to explore the specific subject in depth.

Examples of these courses include: Encountering Homer's Odyssey, which combines readings of the text with visual imagery to create a captivating experience, and World War II and the World it Made, which offers interactive maps of the European and Pacific Theaters that illustrate the changing political climate and progress of the war. Several new courses are under development for the 2002/2003 academic year, including The Would-Be Gentleman, a simulation game set in seventeenth-century France, and Beethoven in Five Sonatas, studying works by the composer.

Media Solutions is a fee-for-service group that offers support for the Stanford community's multimedia communication needs. In addition to their award-winning Web design and development, they offer a full range of services with expertise in a variety of areas including information design, instructional design, and graphic design.

On the Farm

While the work with the Alliance is innovative and engaging, most of Academic Computing's efforts are closer to home. Our Residential Computing group supports Stanford's ten thousand housed students in the seventy-five student residences, and Meyer Library, where much of our work is centered, hosts facilities and services that support the undergraduate curriculum and students with disabilities.

Residential Computing

When Residential Computing (http://rescomp.stanford.edu) was founded many years ago, the focus was to assure that students had access to computers and that the student residences were network-enabled. Since undergraduate computer ownership has topped ninety-five percent, Residential Computing has expanded its focus to include support for the students' use of technology in learning, community life, and individual discovery. Here are a few examples of innovative programs underway in the student residences.

Resident Computer Coordinators (RCCs) live in each student residence, where they help other students use their computers more effectively. As students' proficiency with technology has increased, the role of the RCC has shifted from technical support to that of educator. Instead of helping a student to recover a term paper from a crashed computer, an RCC may

show the student how to locate information that will help with a term paper, or demonstrate how to create a Web page for a class project. RCCs are increasingly engaged in the educational programs in the residences as well. For example, in the Freshman/Sophomore College dorms (Adams and Schiff), RCC Tom Whitnah has developed a Web site that helps coordinate community and educational activities in the residence (http://frosoco.stanford.edu). He also assists with the oral communication and presentation skills class taught in the residence.

Each student residence has a computer cluster where students can do their homework, print files, and scan images. The clusters are typically isolated in rooms that allow no other activities; students work individually at a computer station to complete work that must be done there, and then leave to use their own computer or to work on group projects.

In Toyon Hall a new model is proving successful. A large, sunny room offers computers equipped with a wide collection of software, sofas and chairs for group discussions, and network ports for laptop users. Students can gather for individual and group work using computers, rearranging the furniture to fit the moment's needs. This multipurpose study facility allows students to use it for individual and group study, or to work quietly but not in isolation. This idea for multipurpose space was originally introduced in the first floor lobby of Meyer Library, and has proven immensely popular with students.

Undergraduate Computing Facilities

The first two floors of Meyer Library house computing facilities and services that are operated by Academic Computing and designed to support the undergraduate learning needs. Here are several examples:

Language teachers frequently use audio and video clips to allow students to hear a variety of speaking voices, accents and dialects, both in classroom sessions and as study exercises. Students can use the Digital Language Lab (http://thelab.stanford.edu) to review media clips and to practice their speaking and reading skills. The computers there are configured for a variety of languages that use roman and character based fonts, including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and others.

Instructors who are interested in using technology in their courses may visit the Academic Technology Lab (http://acomp.stanford.edu/atl/) to create multimedia materials, develop a course Web site, and build digital study sets for students to use.

The Program in Writing and Rhetoric teaches students to use imagery to support written ideas, for example, by incorporating photographs into writing assignments. Students can create and edit images, and produce sound and video for their coursework in the Multimedia Studio (http://acomp. stanford.edu/studio). Regular workshops help students master new skills. A pilot program started in Fall 2002 collocates writing tutors, reference librarians and technology consultants, offering students one place where they can get help with improving their research skills and expressing their ideas.

Students with disabilities can choose from a variety of technology options to help them access course materials and participate in courses. The Assistive Learning Technology Center offers computers and other electronic devices, as well as assistance, to students who can benefit from this technology. For example, document cameras allow students with low vision to zoom in on text and display it in large format on a screen. Small versions of these cameras can be taken into classrooms so that students with low vision can see what is written on the whiteboard during class. Additionally, course materials are created in formats that are accessible to all students. Materials are produced in Braille, or printed materials can be scanned into the computer to be "read" aloud by the computer to the student.

Computers in the Meyer Library clusters have programming software used by students in computer science classes. Teaching assistants hold "office hours" in the clusters to help these students complete course assignments.

The computing labs and classrooms in Meyer Library are configured for multiple purposes: instructors teaching workshops, as well as individuals and groups studying together can all make use of the same spaces. This flexibility of space helps assure that students are able to learn in a variety of ways.

Wireless network technology in Meyer allows students who own laptops to work with study groups and complete their homework near the expertsteaching assistants, librarians, tutors, and computer consultants. Wireless access also allows students with disabilities who own laptops to bring their specially configured computers into group study sessions, allowing them to participate more fully in learning activities.

Technology Support for Faculty

Academic Computing also works with faculty to help them use technology more effectively. One of its most widely acclaimed efforts, the Academic Technology Specialists Program, places staff in departments with experience in the use of technology and in the academic discipline of their assigned department. The Academic Technology Specialists' projects, which are as varied as the academic disciplines in which they work, are well demonstrated by these examples:

Matthew Jockers, English, created a resource guide for faculty entitled Technology and the Study of Literature. He guides faculty through the types of options available to them, including technology for delivery methods that address different learning styles, and technology for communication, course management, and content distribution, offering suggestions about whether such technology is appropriate for in-class use or is better suited to supplement classes.

Peter Chen, Math, Science, and Engineering, has worked with the Human Biology Core program to create tests and quizzes that more effectively assess whether students have grasped course concepts. The Human Biology Core program relies on a group of instructors and course assistants who collaboratively work to provide instruction to over 200 students each quarter. Because of the delegated nature of teaching these courses, it becomes necessary for all instructional staff to work together to develop thoughtful material for examinations.

Chen developed a Web-based, collaborative exam-writing system (which uses a FileMaker database) so the instructional staff can write and contribute potential questions to a shared pool at any time, and allow others to comment and edit. An instructor can submit a question from a Web browser whenever inspiration strikes. The questions are categorized based on style (True-False, Multiple-Choice, and Short-Answer), topic, difficulty, and knowledge type. Following the editing process, the instructors can select the specific questions that they wish to use on an exam and export them to a Microsoft Word document for proper formatting. Post-exam, they can enter more data into the database about the quality of the question, the number of students who responded correctly, and so on.

Claudia Engel, Education, has worked with the Stanford Teacher Education Program to fulfill accreditation requirements for technology literacy. Her infusion of innovative technology into the program has helped the students bridge the gap between technology and the learning process so that they can apply the same techniques in their own teaching once they enter the professional world. Specifically, Engel has helped to revise the year-long program and to recommend appropriate technologies, has contributed to the redesign of the curriculum, and has provided course support and training for the students in the program.

Michael Gonzalez, Overseas Studies Program, worked with professors teaching Film History and Criticism in Florence and Berlin. Using software and equipment to capture precise segments of a film work from tape makes explaining film theory and history more efficient, lends to the reuse of materials, and allows for explanatory detail and ease of review. The captured clips are mounted in PowerPoint or on a desktop player and projected to a large screen (instead of television). This freedom from rigid media formats adds value to students and teachers wanting to explore the rich history of film in Italy and Germany.

Charles Weiland, Earth Sciences, created MARVE, the Marine Virtual Explorer, to allow students to experience oceanographic research through their Web browsers. MARVE is a simulation of a research dive in the Alvin submersible to a hydrothermal vent field on the East Pacific Rise.
The East Pacific Rise is part of the global mid-ocean ridge system. Mid-ocean ridges are volcanic and, of course, underwater. This interaction of heat and water results in spectacular hydrothermal activity. MARVE combines real oceanographic data with 3-D computer modeling to represent a real place on the earth (though it is not an exact representation).
Students can discover a fascinating world where deep-sea animals thrive on super-heated water in a rugged volcanic landscape. They can go to twenty different locations in the model and, at each location, look in all directions. Students can create maps and collect water samples as they explore the underwater terrain. They can investigate the area and find out what is there, just as the research oceanographers did who first explored the East Pacific Rise.

These are just a few examples of the many projects completed by Academic Technology Specialists. In the 2002/2003 academic year, Academic Technology Specialists will work in the departments of Art and Art History, Drama, Psychology, Political Science, Cultural and Social Anthropology, English, Anthropological Sciences, Sociology, Communication, the Disability Resource Center, the Language Center, the schools of Earth Sciences and Law, and the Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Core program.