AT News - November/December 2004
Academic Technologies (AT) is a department of Information Technology Services (ITS). AT News is a periodic newsletter about academic technology events and issues of interest to instructors and researchers.
To learn more about AT, visit our web site: http://at.its.uiowa.edu/
News Items
- Selection of Enterprise Course Management System Nearly Complete
- Teaching the Etymology of Greek and Latin
- Online@Iowa
- New AT Website
- ATRS sponsors exhibit at Supercomputing 2004 in Pittsburgh
- Dimension SST 3-Dimensional Printer
- HP ScanJet Flatbed Scanner
- WebSurveyor
- Turnitin Available to All UI Instructors
Events
News items
Selection of Enterprise Course Management System Nearly Complete
Following a recommendation from the Fall 2003 E-Learning Assessment, a University-wide committee has been pursing adoption of a single, enterprise course management system for the University. Three vendors responded to the July 2004 Request for Proposal - Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and WebCT - and we have recently concluded an extensive evaluation of these products. The Core Group, with unanimous support from the Advisory Committee, has recommended the University adopt Desire2Learn. We are currently negotiating a contract with the company and expect to conclude that process in early December.
We are already planning the implementation, which we expect to be a 2-year project. Beginning in Spring 05, Desire2Learn will host a test system for us, where we can try out the new system, develop documentation and training materials, and test moving course content. We plan to have a locally hosted implementation in the Summer of 05, available for early adopters, and a full implementation in Fall 05, open to all who are interested. Moving courses to the new system will occur over Fall 05 and Spring 06. The Blackboard and WebCT services will be closed down by the beginning of Fall 06 semester.
For more information about the project, point your browser to http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/elearning/index.shtml or contact any member of the E-Learning Core Group:
- Molly Langstaff, ITS-Academic Technologies, Chair
- Jim Duncan, Hardin Library of Health Sciences
- Maggie Jesse, Henry B. Tippie College of Business
- Tom Rocklin, College of Education
- Lisa Troyer, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Teaching the Etymology of Greek and Latin
The U of I Classics Department is using software developed by Academic Technologies to teach the etymology of Greek and Latin. Etymology is a method of learning words by associating them with their histories. The software presents a collection of words, sequencing the student through the problem-solving process of deriving each word's meaning from its parts. As depicted in the following screen shot, after students have identified and defined each of the elements in a word, they are asked for the word's part of speech and then its definition.
The software can actually be used to teach the etymology of any language that uses prefixes, stems, and suffixes in ways similar to Greek and Latin. The vocabulary used in the drill is defined by simple files so instructors create their own drill vocabulary. The software's user interaction is a "rich interaction" - the word parts and their relationship to the word are represented graphically. Since it was developed in the Macromedia Flash programming language and development environment, it will execute within any "recent" browser on any computer or operating system. For more information, contact Steve Wessels (steve-wessels@uiowa.edu, 335-5469).
What should UI students know about technology on campus? Or, what tutorials should we include in Online@Iowa?
We're nearing completion of the first session using the new Online@Iowa course created by Academic Technologies and the Provost's Office. More than 2300 students will complete the course by the Fall Break. As we begin planning for next year's version, we'd like to know what technology skills and information you would like included in the course, so that students will be better prepared for classes and you can spend less class time teaching these skills. If you have ideas or would like to discuss the content of the course, please contact Tsvetomir ("Alex") Ross-Lazarov (t-lazarov@uiowa.edu, 335-5543).
This year's content consisted of activity-based tutorials addressing such topics as: HawkID, Library Tools, ISIS, Security, Blackboard, WebCT, etc. View Online@Iowa tutorials here at http://www.uiowa.edu/~online/sitemap/sitemap.html.
New AT Website
The Academic Technologies website has had an address change and a facelift. The new web address for the AT site is http://at.its.uiowa.edu/. Our aim with the new site is to make it easier for you to find the information you need. Check it out. We welcome your feedback.
ATRS sponsors exhibit at Supercomputing 2004 in Pittsburgh
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The IEEE/ACM Supercomputing conference is held annually in November. This conference features events surrounding state-of-the-art computing technologies including networking, storage, parallel computing, visualization and collaborative environments. The conference features a scientific/technical program with peer-reviewed presentations and keynote speakers and a technical/research exhibits featuring both academic and vendor booths.
This year's conference, SC2004, was held in Pittsburgh and had over 8,000 people in attendance (for the technical/research exhibits). Academic Technologies Research Services (ATRS) sponsored an exhibit featuring presentations of over forty computationally-enabled research projects from around campus. This was the third year ATRS has sponsored an exhibit and this year's booth was the best attended with over 400 people visiting our booth, talking with our staff and receiving materials regarding computational research at the University of Iowa.
Six staff from ATRS were able to attend (see picture) and interacted with colleagues at peer institutions, funding agency officials and potential UI students. ATRS staff attended two meetings of the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computing (www.casc.org) an organization the University of Iowa joined this past summer. One computer science undergraduate student, Spencer Kuhl, attended the conference as a volunteer (receiving room and board and free conference tuition).
Next year's Supercomputing conference is in Seattle (http://sc05.supercomputing.org/) from November 12-18, 2005.
Dimension SST 3-Dimensional Printer
With funding from the Innovations in Instructional Computing Awards and the Department of Art & Art History, the department has purchased a 3-D printer capable of creating physical objects from strands of ABS plastic.
The department is making the new device available to all UI faculty, staff and students, and it will be used for numerous projects throughout campus. For more information, go to http://at.its.uiowa.edu/rs/projects/DimensionSST3-DPrinter.shtml.
To submit a model for printing, go to: http://at.its.uiowa.edu/rs/collab/SubmissionProcedure.shtmlNew HP ScanJet Flatbed Scanner Available in Studio 107
Studio 107 has added a new HP ScanJet flatbed scanner to its inventory. This scanner has several unique features, including the ability to auto-feed a stack of papers (including dual-sided documents) and can convert printed pages into editable text through its optical character recognition (OCR) software. The document feeder is capable of handling up to 50 sheets at a time, but a more practical limit is 30 to 35 sheets.
The scanner was added in response to frequent requests by faculty, so please stop by Studio 107 to try it out. Your feedback is welcome.
The ScanJet will complement the Studio's existing scanners, which include a Nikon Coolscan film scanner (with a slide auto-feeder) and Epson Expression photo flatbed scanners. The Studio also has several Agfa scanners for general-purpose scanning.
For more information, contact Mike Jenn (mike-jenn@uiowa.edu, 335-5130).
WebSurveyor
WebSurveyor is a web-based survey program capable of collecting, analyzing and graphing your data. We have recently enhanced our license to increase the number of concurrent active surveys. If you would like to discuss a survey, contact Daniel Langstraat (daniel-langstraat@uiowa.edu, 335-5596). For more information or to get an account, go to: http://at.its.uiowa.edu/rs/services/WebSurveyor.shtml
Turnitin Available to All UI Instructors
What is Turnitin? Turnitin (http://www.turnitin.com/) is a plagiarism detection service. An instructor can register a course and give all students in that course a course-specific login and password to the service so that they can submit papers directly through the service. The University of Iowa has licensed Turnitin and we invite all interested instructors to utilize this tool.
How do you get started? If you are an instructor, send a request to turnitin@uiowa.edu and visit the support area for instructors: http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/plagiarism/turnitin/.
If you are a student, there is a support area for you at the site listed above. If you have any questions, contact Ken Clinkenbeard (ken-clinkenbeard@uiowa.edu, 335-6043).
Events
NExTT Workshops Coming up (January 10-12)
NExTT stands for "New Experiences with Teaching Technology." This series of workshops is held in January and August for instructors and instructional support staff. Participants can choose to register for only those sessions they wish to attend. Sessions cover many topics, including...
- The use of WebCT and/or Blackboard
- An overview of collaborative tools
- An introduction to the new course management system that will eventually replace WebCT and Blackboard
- Creating/maintaining web sites with Dreamweaver
- Digital images with Fireworks
- Item writing for tests and quizzes
To register or learn more about the NExTT workshops on the web: http://at.its.uiowa.edu/nextt/. If you have further questions, contact Ken Clinkenbeard (ken-clinkenbeard@uiowa.edu, 335-6043).
Please let us know what you think about this newsletter.
Email your comments and suggestions to: its-academic@uiowa.edu.
