EDUCAUSE 2001

EDUCAUSE 2001

with contributions by five authors

This medley of conference reports by five contributors shares different insights about this conference which had as its theme "An EDU Odyssey" when it convened in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 28-31, 2001. An overview of the full schedule of conference events is posted at www.educause.edu/conference/e2001/program.asp. Over 6,000 attendees registered, reflecting a range of interests and backgrounds associated with technology applications in higher education. The program layout includes a group of three invited keynote group session speakers, nine featured speakers, poster sessions, seminars, roundtables and group networking opportunities. The seven tracks reflecting membership interests is where the majority of programming takes place:

1. 1.

   Library.

2. 2.

   Support and training.

3. 3.

   IT management.

4. 4.

   Teaching and learning.

5. 5.

   Information systems and e-business.

6. 6.

   Emerging technologies.

7. 7.

   Infrastructure, networking and security.

Our four contributors include Barbara Cohen, Director of HumaniTech, in the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine and she shares some insights and gleanings of favorite sessions this year.

Dr Joel A. Cohen, the Associate Vice President for Library and Information Services at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York shares some notes and observations of sessions he attended at this year's conference in Library and Teaching and Learning Tracks and from the poster sessions.

Paul Gray is the Dean of Libraries at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California. He attended several sessions in the Library track and offers his "take" on the content and presentations.

Tiffany Anderson is the Instructional Technology Librarian at the Duke University Medical Center Library, and writes her impressions about two sessions that provoke comments from the Library and Teaching and Learning tracks.

Cheryl Kester is the Director of Web Services at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and provides reports on different issues of Web development and management.

Barbara Cohen

My Impressions

The highlight of the conference for me was keynoter, Neil Gershenfeld's talk on "Bits and Atoms: Universities that Think." Professor Gershenfeld is the Director of the Physics and Media Group at the famous MIT Media Lab. He described some of the Lab's ongoing projects to exemplify the enabling technology of the present digital information age. Even when "invisible," much of present intelligence and information is technology driven. Videos of projects such as the "Hole in the Wall" computer for New Delhi's street children, the interactive aesthetics of a recent Museum of Modern Art architecture exhibit, and an MIT student's "scream body" were presented. These projects make evident the links between science and humanity in a dramatic way.

Another keynote speaker, John Seely Brown, chief scientist of Xerox and chief innovative officer of 12-Entrepreneuring www.12.com/ talked of "The Social Life of Information: Learning in the Digital Age." He sees the dynamics of the digital age as a function of four laws: Moore's law (computing); fiber law (communication); disk law (storage); and community law (content). It is content and communication that are moving fastest and are key to future digital power. Social and educational bodies, including libraries, need to understand this and make necessary changes to keep apace. Dr Brown contends that "the way ahead is, paradoxically, not to look ahead, but to look around." Interested readers may want to consult Brown's most recent book written with Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

A few glances here and there at EDUCAUSE on e-books revealed general confidence that there is still strong potential for e-books, even though the market for them is presently disappointing. For example, Adobe Systems continues its research and development into e-book software, with indications that the future will produce a greater interest in e-books than there is presently. Lacking up to now has been an understanding of the best uses of e-books.

Favorite Conference Quote

Regarding the much-discussed digital divide, a scientist in India, creator of "The Hole in the Wall" project with the MIT Media Lab, said that he hopes it will be an issue not of the haves and have-nots but of the knows and know-nots. "Haves and have-nots create war. But knows and know-nots create peace. The know-nots want to make friends with the knows."

Barbara Cohen(blcohen@uci.edu) is Director, HumaniTech at the University of California, Irvine, Irvine California.

Joel A. Cohen

Notes from a Variety of Sessions

In the session, "A Picture Is Worth a ...", Dr Jerry Niebaum, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Services at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, used various compression techniques, starting with jpeg, to make the point that new wave-based compression techniques enable the exploration of images rather than mere viewing. Using DjVu and MrSid, two proprietary programs from Lizardtech http://www.lizardtech.com/, the presenter more than drove his point home. Jpeg images were certainly good enough to get an appreciation of the original image over the Web. With DjVu and MrSid, spectacular detail and resolution are available, even when the image is magnified beyond the size of the original image. Showing magnification of late 19th century images of bicycles, Dr Niebaum showed that the bicycles used balloon tires and had a braking mechanism.

The original images were 5 x 7 black and white photographs. These were scanned into Photoshop with an inexpensive 300dpi scanner and saved both as jpeg and tiff files. The tiff file was processed through Lizardtech's programs to result in a very modest-sized file ­- smaller than jpeg. Lizardtech has a plug-in, free to educators when the talk was delivered, that enables browsers to display the image. Various magnifications are possible without reloading the file in the browser. Since the magnified images are often bigger than the screen, the plug-in enables "grabbing" the image and viewing different portions.

There is standardization work going on in this area. Jpeg 2000 is a standards-based wave compression technique. Additional standards information is available at http://www.jpeg2000info.com/. No browser plug-ins are available yet for the new standard.

Additional information and links to the photographs used in the presentation may be found at http://people.ku.edu/~niebaum/EDUCAUSE2001/.

I believe these techniques have direct applicability for archives material at Canisius. In fact, Dr Niebaum was trying to provide digital imagery for photographs that were rarely viewed in their original state ­ a situation all too familiar to Canisius despite the relative accessibility of our archives.

The Internet Cafe

James Stewart and Thomas Wilding presented a poster session, "Library/IT Collaborative: A Joint Venture of the Office of Information Technology and the University of Texas at Arlington Library." Rehabilitating space in the library to serve as a computer lab/Internet Cafe substantially increased library traffic and use. The furniture is arranged in freestanding pods with four computers arranged in a cloverleaf arrangement. The space was previously used for offices and study carrels. A help desk is also included in the space. Food is allowed both inside and outside this area. Additional information may be found at http://www.uta.edu/library/.

"Internet and Face to Face Go Head to Head." Presenters at this session were Thomas J. Keefe, Associate Professor of Business Administration, David Rainbolt, ILTE Technology Coordinator, and Katy Wigley, Instructional Design and Technology Specialist from Indiana University Southeast.

Dr Keefe presented a study that seems to fly in the face of much of the literature about the effectiveness of distance education: controlling for many variables, face-to-face instruction is more effective than asynchronous distance education over the network.

Dr Keefe compared classes taught with both face-to-face and Internet instruction with classes taught exclusively with Internet instruction. From a pedagogical perspective, the hybrid approach is desirable. The instructor may use the Internet to cover content so that the instructor has the time in class to do more interesting and productive things. Students benefit and are able to perform better.

The study consisted of three years of testing Internet, face-to-face, and hybrid class sections. Students took a full complement of psychological and behavioral measures as well as pre-tests and post-tests. Controls included gender and work status. Students were junior-level business students enrolled in a non-traditional program and otherwise had little experience in distance education. All testing was done face to face.

Those in the hybrid courses scored 5-8 percent higher in post-tests. Students liked the oncourse learning environment, particularly the e-mail component. They also gained confidence using the courseware during the semester.

Joel A. Cohen(cohen@canisius.edu) is an Associate Vice President for Library & Information Services at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

Paul Gray

Four Sessions from the Library Track

Many of the sessions assigned to the Library track concerned the management of images. Software that was introduced included DjVu Software, MrSID and Mason DVD. Jerry Niebaum, Assistant Vice Chancellor, University of Kansas, demonstrated DjVu software and how it is being used to manage old photographs. He used a simple and inexpensive scanner in creating .tif files, from which they created a thumbnail and a full-size image of 300dpsi. In jpeg format, he demonstrated how DjVu would take files of several megabytes and compress them into files of only a few hundred thousand bytes. DjVu had features: assigned title to an image was linked to the bibliographic or metadata and each image had a link from the term "explore" that allowed the user with the mouse to pan and enlarge the image. Information was advertised as being available on his Web site, but as of the date of sending in this information, it was not yet posted. The site it advertised was http://people.ku.edu/~niebaum/educause2001/. Jerry spent very little time in talking about MrSID. His only comment was that he preferred DjVu primarily because MrSID did not pan as well. He reported that jpeg2000 was now recognized as an international standard at http://www.jpeg2000info.com, but that it was not yet available in browsers.

Sharon Pitt, Director, Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, and Christina Updike, Curator, Visual Resources Center, of James Madison University, shared the development and success of Madison DID (Madison Digital Image Database). Their session was entitled, "Integrating an Image Library into an Internet-based Teaching Tool for Art, Architecture, and Beyond." The catalyst for developing this software was the increase in student enrollment that occurred at the same time general studies was revised that added multiple sessions of introductory art classes. Slides used by faculty for these courses were limited, changing colors through use, and had limited access by students. They reported that the success of the software led them to attempt to commercialize the product. This failed, however, primarily because of legal issues, so the institution decided to make it available free without support. It can be found at http://cit.jmu.edu .

The software has multiple components that are password protected. Components include an image or slide-show viewer, a slide-show builder, a catalog editor, and administrative tools. Faculty use the slide-show builder to select, sort, and arrange the images into a show of up to 50 images. Faculty can add comments and notes to each image. Students view the shows and are also able to take self-tests on each show. Each image is found in a thumbnail for quick viewing and sorting, a half-frame size for display to students, and a full-image size for faculty use and showing in class. The veracity of the metadata is kept by a librarian. The system sits on a server and requires some administration for accounts, passwords, etc. The system creates distribution lists for e-mail. Sharon reported that it was also necessary to provide high-resolution video projectors for the art classrooms. They also change the passwords each semester.

Features of the system include split screen where two images can be compared either vertically or horizontally. Panning allows for viewing three-dimensional images from different angles. Faculty has convenient drop down menus for searching the collection including the medium, culture, country, period, style, keywords, etc. Faculty give a title to their show and also have the option of archiving the show. An annotation feature allows faculty to insert class notes or other text to every image that appears in a box with a scroll bar.

The collection at James Madison University includes collections of slides owned by faculty, the slides in the library media collection, and commercial libraries such as AMICO. They secure the permissions for the images.

Ellen J. Waite-Franzen, VP Information Services, and James Rettig, University Librarian, of the University of Richmond conducted a "show and tell" session entitled, "It's 2011: Do You Know Where Your Information Is?" Waite-Franzen and Rettig reported on how their approach to developing new/renovated library space was different. From the usual kinds of planning activities, they identified assumptions and visions that would guide the development of these new spaces, including:

• •

  Uncertainty of new technologies and how these would change campus behavior of students and faculty.

• •

  Print would not leave (they surmised that departmental libraries/collections would spring up, if suddenly the campus library were eliminated).

• •

  Higher education is moving toward independent learning and also collaborative learning.

• •

  The goal of higher education is exploration and discovery of knowledge.

• •

  The library should be a place of technology convergence.

• •

  The library should be a place for student-to-student and faculty-to-student interaction.

• •

  The library should be a student's office (much like Kinko's is for the self-employed).

• •

  The library needs to have quiet study spaces as well as active learning spaces for group interaction.

• •

  The library needs to provide the highest end of technologies.

• •

  The library should be the interdisciplinary commons for the university community.

• •

  The library must be a social place of seeing and being seen.

Retig reported several important applications to new library spaces, including:

• •

  Consolidate service points instead of offering today's multiple boutique service points (i.e. circulation, interlibrary loan, reference, media, etc.)

• •

  Create permeable rather than fortress-like space (i.e. single entrance, subterranean, "creepy" areas, etc.)

• •

  Diminishing space for print collections and additional space for extensive networking.

• •

  Flexible spaces for students, faculty, librarians, and staff.

• •

  The library needs to continue to be the symbol of the university's highest aspirations.

What was unique about their process was the use of scenarios. It was reported that they looked for a way to involve students and their Board of Trustees. They decided to use students to develop a scenario of the future. They asked students to create a videotape of a day in the life of a student and a professor in the year ad 2011. They gave complete freedom to the students. The full video was shown. The greatest surprise was the lack of the presence of the library and librarians. Information and knowledge management were visible throughout, but because of the technology, they were in the background.

James W. Marcum, Professor and Chief Librarian, College of Staten Island/CUNY, provided a treatise for conversation concerning information literacy entitled, "Rethinking Information Literacy." The first half of the session was spent reviewing the historical development of information literacy that has led to the definition, goals, and pedagogy that we find in most programs. He reported information literacy as being developed primarily in the 1980s and 1990s because of advances in technology. Basic assumptions were that information literacy needed to be grounded in technology, based on knowledge, with the result of learning source tools. He pointed out anomalies. Information is not knowledge (i.e. information is clear and discrete; knowledge is contextual and ambiguous). Gathering more information does not mean obtaining more knowledge; in fact, it can mean more confusion. Language is not signals, but thought itself.

He repeated five levels of information literacy:

1. 1.

   Level I ­ Ability to read and write.

2. 2.

   Level II ­ Fluency in a second language (could be computer).

3. 3.

   Level III ­ Visual literacy.

4. 4.

   Level IV ­ Technology literacy (computer).

5. 5.

   Level V ­ Advanced Literacy- (networked, interactive, social).

Marcum made an appeal of not leaving out workplace literacy that includes lifelong learning, personal and social skills and engagement, technological function in a specific workplace, and experience in practice and not just theory, all of which provide a context. He subscribed to the definition that information literacy is achieved when the individual is articulate, can synthesize information and reformulate knowledge effectively in order to apply it effectively. He saw information literacy today as being too narrow and still oriented to primarily print and to the individual. He also thought we need to refocus to a "socio-technical" fluency.

Paul Gray(pgray@apu.edu) is Dean of Libraries at Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California.

Tiffany Anderson

And More Observations...

In the session, "MyDatabase: A Generic Tool for Image Collections," Caroline Beebe, Head, Digital Library Initiatives, North Carolina State University described a procedure used at North Carolina State University's library to help faculty organize their images in a database. The idea is to create some degree of standardization, especially for those who anticipate adding their images to a potential future campus-wide collection of images.

Ms Beebe and her organization were looking for ways to help faculty with this process, but faced staffing problems ­ including the fact that the library was not equipped as a "production" service group. They needed to develop a format for creating a database that faculty could use themselves.

A lot of this plan focused on used controlled vocabulary for each image added to the database. The library staff worked with faculty to teach them how to develop a controlled vocabulary for images in their discipline. For many of them, vocabularies to be used as a starting point already existed within indexes and library databases. These preexisting vocabularies needed to be trimmed down, and lists of local terms often needed to be added.

The other important key was teaching faculty how to describe the items ­ physically, conceptually, and contextually ­ using this controlled vocabulary. The physical description might vary from field to field; for instance, in Veterinary Medicine, a database of animal images might include such physical description categories as breed, species, sex, age, and owner/researcher. In a different discipline and different database, these categories would obviously be different.

The conceptual description of the object would include a detailed description of what the picture is "of" and what the picture is "about." For instance, a picture of a set of stairs leading down might portray one image (of a set of stairs) that is actually about something much deeper (for instance, the underworld).

Finally, the faculty is guided to describe the image contextually as well. This would be a free-form field where the user could include any important information that did not fit into the physical or conceptual descriptions. Common information to add to this field might include the course(s) the image is used in and the source it came from.

Ms Beebe emphasized the need for the library to provide broader training than just the use of a particular database program. They emphasized some traditional "library" skills that faculty needed to learn ­ such as basic cataloging, selectivity, and awareness of copyright issues.

The library staff found that this was a challenging undertaking, involving training a number of library staffers in new skills. A lot of questions that were raised are still being discussed, such as use of middleware to Web-enable these databases. However, on the whole, they found that this was a successful project that empowered librarians and faculty alike.

To find out more about the project, go to http://lts.ncsu.edu/about/summer_institute/SI_2001/resources.html.

The Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) is a project described in the session, "Open Knowledge Initiative Summit: Do Current Learning Management Systems Promote Good Pedagogy?" by Charles Kerns, Education Technology Manager, Stanford University and Phillip D. Long, Senior Strategies for the Academic Computing Enterprise, MIT and spearheaded at those institutions.

The goal, as stated by the group, is to "create the infrastructure to develop pedagogical applications that promote the management of learning content. Through this foundation, we intend OKI to become a community, a process, and an evolving open-source toolset." Their final product will be an architectural platform that can be applied to various situations.

One way they tried to work toward this goal was to hold a Learning Management System (LMS) Summit. The goals of the summit were to envision online learning systems for the new millennium, and to identify principles of teaching and learning that an LMS should proactively encourage. Seventy-two people, including instructional designers, librarians, faculty, system developers, and technology support personnel, participated in the summit.

In the summit, the participants looked at various constituencies who would have a vested interest in creating a new LMS. These constituencies included educational researchers, early adopters of new technology, faculty, instructional designers, and system support staff.

Additionally, the summit participants looked at a number of themes, and how an LMS might address each of those themes for the various constituent groups. Some of the themes were constructivist learning, collaborative learning, concept mapping, assessment, reusability, individualized learning, and system design.

For each of these themes, the group developed a list of principles that an LMS should adhere to, in order to meet that goal. Next, for each of the principles, they listed a design plan for achieving the goal described in the principle. For example, one principle they listed for constructivist learning was that "Students ought to engage in activities that build metacognition." For that principle, they wrote the following design statement: "Students are able to comment on their own or others' artifacts of learning."

The project is much more involved than is reflected in this summary ­ the session only described one aspect of the process. To find out more about the project, go to http://web.mit.edu/oki/

Tiffany Anderson(tiffany.anderson@duke.edu) is an Instructional Technology Librarian at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.

Cheryl Kester

Challenges of the Web

Howard Strauss, Manager of Academic Applications at Princeton, is always a dynamic speaker, and his presentations are designed to get his audience thinking. In his 50-minute session, "Web Portals: What They Are, What They Do, Why You Need One," Strauss attempted to cover a lot of ground.

He first introduced the audience to the concept of Web "portals." To the uninitiated, a Web portal may just appear to be a collection of links. According to Strauss, the key is personalization. A portal allows the viewer to personalize what information he or she sees when the site loads.

Strauss argues that it is this personalization, this ability of the user to pick what information she is most interested in and ignore the rest of the information clutter, that will completely change the way people use the Web. It is the difference between browsing to the New York Times online each day so you can check on the Mets' scores and having your Web browser automatically displaying that information for you in a window on your screen if the Mets have had a game since you last checked in. It is "smart Web" v lengthy browsing.

Next, since this talk was aimed at a higher education audience, Strauss explained why colleges and universities need their own portals. Campuses using software such as Blackboard already have a site that resembles a portal that they offer to their students, even if they have not implemented the portal functions that come with the software (at present it costs much more to add those features). This software typically displays announcements and other information regarding courses in which the student is enrolled and for which there is a Blackboard site.

However, Strauss urges campuses to look beyond traditional course management software and to think of the portal as the Web interface to the world. The concept (that any vendor is happy to explain to you) is that you capture students while you still have them. Brand your portal with your university's identity and content, allow students to personalize their view and to add external content, and you will have a built-in base of future customers in your alumni. If your students get used to checking "myuniversity.edu" every day for the information that is important to them, they are sure to continue using that Web site once they graduate, if you make it easy for them to do so.

There are several steps along the path to offering a "real portal," and Strauss urges higher education to start taking steps soon. At the beginning is the traditional, existing institutional Web page. Then follow:

• •

  Special Web pages for students, faculty, alumni, or other special constituencies.

• •

  Web pages for a constituency in context (e.g. students during finals, staff during budget planning).

• •

  Web pages for each person.

• •

  A "real portal".

In fact, Strauss argues, colleges should replace traditional home pages with a portal page that immediately "files" visitors ­ prospective students, current staff, parents, alumni, or visitors ­ and shuffles them off to the portal site designed to be of use to them.

Those of us in IT roles know just how massive such a recommendation is. The enormous work that would have to take place to make all of that data available ­ for a single sign-on! ­ is absolutely overwhelming. Clearly smaller institutions would not have the resources to roll out their campus-wide portal tomorrow. In fact, there apparently are not any large institutions that have taken the portal vision quite as far as Strauss recommends.

However, it is difficult to imagine that the Web portal model would not be the future of how we will all use the Web. Strauss has the vision. Someone, somewhere will create the tools to make it happen.

A team from Wright State University, including Michelle Frisque, Web Manager/Reference Librarian; Donna Hamilton, Web Site Administrator, and Jerry Hensley, Desktop Software Specialist, addressed the issue of how to make Web pages accessible to persons with disabilities in their session, "Web Accessibility: What Is It and How Do We Get It?" First, they offered a helpful background on relevant federal legislation that affects most institutions of higher education.

They then demonstrated how most Web pages appear to people with visual impairments. Issues such as typeface and font size, color contrast and links too close together affect legibility and are important to those who experience some visual problems. However, for the visitor to your Web site whose vision is seriously impaired, who may rely on some sort of text recognition technology to read the page aloud to them, the experience is almost always disastrous.

So what did Wright State do to make their pages more accessible?

They developed Web page guidelines, educated Web content providers, created an easy-to-use checklist for Web page creators, and checked and checked source code.

They have done an excellent job of coordinating all of this information and making it available on their Web site for other interested parties to use. The university's guidelines, links to relevant legislation, and a resource list are all available at: http://www.wright.edu/access/

"Implementing Web Content Management Systems: Strategies for Success", by Brian W. Brown, Director, Electronic Student Services, Appalachian State University focused on the planning and preparation necessary for implementing any system for managing Web content.

Basically, a Web Content Management System (CMS) is a system of software, education, and policies that allows content providers to update their own pages. Webmasters usually cringe when they hear that, at least the ones who are fighting the battle for visual consistency and quality design.

The reality, however, is that most of us do not have the time to make every single change to a Web site. The key, according to Brown, is to identify Web content providers with enough skill and give them a tool that is easy to use to update content that meets the Webmaster's specifications.

Brown did not recommend any specific product for accomplishing this task. The systems currently available range from the free, open-source solution Brown was involved in creating, to off-the-shelf products that are, in his words, "extraordinarily expensive." Of course, the trade-off when using open-source software is that one usually needs extraordinary time and human resources to make the product work.

The primary benefit to a well-designed CMS, regardless of its origin, is that it separates content (which resides in a database) from design issues (which reside in templates). This allows self-service authoring for non-technical individuals who, for example, may just need to change the date of an event appearing in the campus calendar.

Other benefits, according to Brown, include being able to reuse content in many places on the Web site, making content more "accessible" (for Web site visitors with impairments), and achieving standards compliance.

Whatever solution is chosen, Brown warns of several possible pitfalls if the project and people's expectations are not carefully managed. Those in management tend to suffer from "magic pixie dust syndrome," says Brown, expecting the content management solution to solve all problems. Technical staff may have preconceived notions about the abilities or intelligence of content providers. And content providers may fear using a potentially complex system when they are used to just handing over their content to someone else to worry about.

It is of value to remind Web managers, and any of us technical people, to not just focus on the technology solution but to spend serious effort addressing the "people" issues. The project may be a work of technological genius, but if it does not have management buy-in or if end users are turned off, the project will ultimately fail.

Since Brown had done an excellent job of convincing his audience of higher education technology managers that a CMS was a wise investment, he disappointed them by not offering specific recommendations regarding how to evaluate CMS products. There was not even a list of what products are available. He directed participants to the exhibit hall and encouraged them to speak directly to vendors.

Cheryl Kester(cherylk@jbu.edu ) is Director of Web Services at John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

EDUCAUSE 2002 will be held October 1-4 in Atlanta.