ITAC Briefing

1
ITAC Briefing

• Academic Support

January 2002
2
Overview

• University Strategic Plan
• Organizational Structure
• Teaching and Learning Support
• Research Support
• Classroom Technology
• Technology Training
• Outreach
• Collaborations
• Recognition
• In the Works
• Challenges

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Relationship to University Strategic Plan

• INITIATIVE ONE Continue to elevate the quality
  of undergraduate education in order to provide
  all students an enriched and challenging
  educational experience.
• 3. Systematically integrate the use of
  information technology into our instructional
  programs, so that all faculty and students can
  fully exploit new technology as an essential tool
  in teaching and learning.
• Expand training and support services to help
  faculty with curricular redesign, educationally
  sound pedagogical practices, and the development
  and deployment of information technology based
  courseware.
• Bring all students to a level of information
  technology proficiency appropriate to their
  disciplinary needs. Establish information
  technology fluency and information literacy
  requirements for all undergraduates.
• Strongly encourage all students to have access to
  a networked personal computer, and require
  computer ownership for students in selected
  disciplines.
• Bring every classroom up to an established
  minimum standard for information technology
  capability and create special purpose information
  technology enhanced classrooms and laboratories
  as required.

4
Academic Support Organization

• Ellen Borkowski
• Director

Teaching and Learning Support Paulette Robinson
Research Support Chip Denman
Classroom Technology Support Sue Clabaugh
Technology Training Services Deb Mateik
Outreach Academic Technology Coordinators
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Teaching and Learning Support

• People
• Instructional Designers - help faculty with
  curricular redesign and provide access to
  educationally sound pedagogical practices
• Instructional Technologists - enable faculty to
  use both online technologies and classroom
  technologies
• Online Resources
• Caprina - Innovative access to large collections
  of high-quality digitized images for educational
  purposes
• OTAL Web Server - Instructional web server for
  support of instructional or research work.
• Media Server - Streaming media web server for
  support of instructional or research work.
• WebIQ - Supports collaboration and consensus
  building. With this tool you can have your
  students or participants brainstorm ideas,
  comment on them, and rate, rank and/or vote on
  them.

Paulette Robinson
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Teaching and Learning Support

• Online Resources
• WebChat - A multimedia asynchronous chat tool
  that allows students to include pictures, sound,
  or video with their comments. Links to other web
  sites can also be embedded in their comments.
• Hypernews - Cross between the hypermedia of the
  WWW and Usenet News. Readers can browse through
  the messages written by other people and reply to
  those messages. A forum (also called a base
  article) holds a tree of these messages,
  displayed as an indented outline that shows how
  the messages are related (i.e. all replies to a
  message are listed under it and indented).
• WebCT_at_Maryland - Integrated online course
  environment for providing access to static course
  content (syllabi, schedules, announcements,
  lecture notes) and interactive tools (discussion
  groups, live chats, online assessments).

Paulette Robinson
7
WebCT Student Seats
Spr 01 7,598 unique students Fall 01 10,477
unique students
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WebCT Course Sections
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Research Support

• Stat Lab
• A joint venture between the Statistics Program in
  the Mathematics Department and OIT
• Provides extensive expertise in statistical
  consulting and data analysis
• Assists in the uses of mainframe and
  microcomputer statistical software, such as SAS,
  SPSS and S-plus.
• Assists faculty, graduate students, and other
  consultees in designing research protocols,
  formulating statistical models, choosing the
  appropriate methodology, analyzing data, and
  interpreting the results

Chip Denman
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Research Support

• Visualization and Presentation Lab (VPL)
• Provides leadership in visualization and computer
  graphics technology, in partnership with the
  university research community
• Actively pursues joint projects and grant
  proposals with researchers to develop
  visualization tools for their particular
  requirements.
• Support and training opportunities for selected
  high-end visualization, animation, and 3D design
  software packages, and for video production.
• Works with educators on and off campus to
  incorporate visualization and presentation
  techniques into the teaching of specific
  disciplines. It further supports educators
  designing and teaching courses in visualization,
  scientific computing, video production, and color
  graphic publishing.

Chip Denman
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Classroom Technology

• Technology Classrooms
• 54 Technology Classrooms
• Equipped to make it easier for faculty to use
  technology in their classes.
• Located throughout the campus
• From 25 to 506 seats
• Support
• Daily operations
• Staffed Classroom Technology Office in Plant
  Sciences
• Maintenance of equipment in existing classrooms
• Instructional Facilities Design
• Work with departments to design classrooms,
  training rooms, distance learning rooms, computer
  labs, and other educational facilities
• Help users determine needs, developing and
  reviewing specifications and design documents,
  and oversee installation of technology
• Ongoing maintenance for departmental facilities

Sue Clabaugh
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Classroom Technology

• Classroom Technology Pilot Project
• Collaboration between ARHU, BSOS, MATH, Office of
  Information Technology, Operations and
  Maintenance, Scheduling Office
• Developed and supported by the Teaching
  Facilities Committee
• Create a system for the maintenance and support
  of University of Maryland College Park lecture
  halls and general-purpose classrooms
• Classrooms supported by Pilot Project
• 14 lecture halls
• 16 classrooms in Tydings
• 7 classrooms in Art-Soc
• 30 classrooms in Math
• Teaching Facilities Committtee
• Minimum IT Standards committee

Sue Clabaugh
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Classroom Technology

• Teaching Theaters
• Transform the teaching/learning process, changing
  it from its traditional unidirectional
  information flow to a more collaborative venture
• ATT Teaching Theater
• Opened Fall 1991
• 20 Pentium-based stations, 40 students
• IBM-TQ Teaching Theater
• Opened Fall 1993
• 20 Pentium-based stations, 40 students
• OIT Teaching Theater
• Opened Fall 1997
• 24 Macintosh stations, 48 students
• Plant Sciences Teaching Theater
• Opened Fall 2000
• 36 Pentium-based stations, 36 students

Paulette Robinson
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Classroom Technology

• Faculty Technology Center
• 30 seat Pentium-based computer training facility
• Instructional WAM Labs
• Configured for training
• 3 - 20 seat training facility and student WAM lab
• Windows, Macintosh and Unix operating systems

Paulette Robinson
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Technology Training Services

• Institute for Instructional Technology
• Co-sponsored by OIT and Center for Teaching
  Excellence
• Provides skills training and peer mentoring to
  faculty wishing to explore the ways in which
  technology can be integrated into their course
  curricula
• Provides hands-on, interactive training,
  instructional design guidance, product
  development advice, and pedagogical discussion
  and debate

1815 enrollees since inception (Summer
1995) Current fiscal year 310
Deb Mateik
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Technology Training Services

• Peer Training
• Instructors are computer-experienced students
  trained by OIT
• Non-credit classes for new and experienced
  personal computer and network users
• Features a slate of 19 different courses
• Academic Discipline support - Math
• Mathematica - introduction and intermediate
• MATLAB - introduction and intermediate

11,282 enrollees since Summer 1995 Current fiscal
year 458
Deb Mateik
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Technology Training Services

• Short Courses
• Non-credit computer training classes for the
  College Park administrative, instructional, and
  research communities
• Combination of vendor-led training and OIT
  staff-led training
• Subject offerings range from introductory through
  advanced coverage of popular applications like
  the Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Photoshop,
  HTML, FileMaker Pro, Dreamweaver, Corporate Time
  and more operating systems statistics and
  applications that are unique to academic and
  administrative computing at the University of
  Maryland

1339 enrollees last fiscal year Current fiscal
year 395
Deb Mateik
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Technology Training Services

• Web Designer Developer
• Provides skills training and mentored workshops
  in the design, development, and maintenance of
  web sites to College Park faculty, staff and
  students

185 trained since inception (January
1999) Current fiscal year 20
Deb Mateik
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Outreach

• Academic Technology Coordinators (formerly known
  as CCAs)
• Academically-focused CCAs
• Work directly with faculty and others to promote
  academic use of information technologies in the
  colleges
• Colleges Schools AGNR, ARCH, ARHU, BMGT, BSOS,
  CLIS, EDUC, HLHP, ICONS Project, JOUR, LFSC,
  PUAF
• Technology-focused CCAs ENGR, CMPS
• Technology Associates
• Provide technical services in other
  academic-support units on campus

Not funded by OIT
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Collaborations

• Center for Teaching Excellence
• Institute for Instructional Technology
• UM Innovation in Teaching with Technology Award
• Teaching with Technology Conference
• Office of Continuing and Extended Education
• E-learning program
• Masters of Life Sciences
• Masters of Ethnomusicology
• Tek.Xam
• provide a means to assess problem-solving skills
  within the information technology environment,
  particularly for college students in the liberal
  arts
• Train-the-Trainer program

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Collaborations

• ARHU/Libraries
• Maryland Institute for Technology in the
  Humanities (MITH)
• AGNR/LFSC
• Undergraduate Technology Apprenticeship Program
  (UTAP) - targets sophomores and juniors with a
  "B" average or better to receive two credits
  while being trained to support faculty within
  their collegial disciplines with the integration
  of technology into instruction
• College Park Scholars
• Undergraduate Research Day
• Working with students to enhance presentations
• Generating poster presentations
• NFSC
• Dietetic Internship

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Collaborations

• MATH
• Stat Lab
• BSOS/ARHU/MATH
• Classroom Technology Pilot Project
• Shady Grove
• Classroom technology support
• Instructional facilities design for Shady Grove
  III
• R. H. Smith School of Business
• Classroom technology support

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Collaborations

• Institutional
• Member of Campus Assessment Working Group (CAWG)
• Technology Fluency Working Group
• Academic affiliations
• Honors course
• Honors Advisory Council
• CLIS course

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Recognition

• Teaching with Technology Conference
• Annual spring conference
• College Park faculty share their experiences,
  research, and the tools they have developed with
  campus and other invited peers
• UM Innovation in Teaching with Technology Award
• Co-sponsored by OIT and the Office of
  Undergraduate Studies
• Award seeks to recognize innovative uses of
  technology in the teaching/learning process at
  the University of Maryland
• Past awardees (both individuals and teams) came
  from a variety of disciplines and addressed very
  different areas and constituencies

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In the works

• Teaching and Learning Advisory Committee
• Chaired by Jim Greenberg, Center for Teaching
  Excellence
• Still identifying membership across the
  University
• Research Advisory Committee
• Discussions with John Townshend, Geography
• Collaborate with NTS in providing support to the
  research community

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In the works

• Teaching and Learning Technology Center
• Hornbake Library shared space with Non-Print
  Media, Digital Library Project, and Electronic
  Text and Imaging Center (ETIC)
• Faculty development center which will house
  higher end equipment for creating digital course
  materials
• Staffed by instructional designers and Academic
  Technology Coordinators
• Access for both faculty and students
• Access Grid production room
• Multi-channel videoconferencing via Internet2

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Challenges

• Campus support for Technology Classrooms
• Number of Technology Classrooms continues to
  increase with each new building, but resources to
  support those rooms do not
• By Fall 02 18 additional Technology Classrooms
  will be online
• Support requires 1 technician per 10 rooms
• Life cycle and operational costs are inadequate
• ExampleComputer Science Instructional Center
  (CSIC)
• Meeting the needs of the research community
• Defining where OIT can help