A Virtual Biomedical Learning Environment

Preparing for the 21st Century Digital Pathway

In the current, fast moving technology driven environment, few chnologies have changed education like the Internet and telecommunications. The use of the World Wide Web (WWW) has exploded the opportunities for accessing digital knowledge from here-to-fore unimagined sources. A user can browse a digital knowledge base (e.g. multimedia images) that is accessible on the the world wide web (WWW) and other Internet resources. The traditional constraints of place and time may not be limiting when Internet based virtual learning resources are designed and made avaialable to be accessed from anywhere and at any time. Students, scholars and scientists can communicate and share information via news groups and list servers. The traditional classroom has been expanded into virtual classrooms without physical boundaries; the only limit being the reach of one's technologic capability and imagination. Therefore, harnessing and exploiting the Internet and information technology (IT) in advancing veterinary medical education is critical for the biomedical education enterprise.

TUSVM considers Information technology (IT) as an investment in its future and in this regard, our vision is to use distributed IT resources and services to enrich the teaching/learning, research and outreach activities and build on the traditions of academic excellence. This investment will assist in meeting the technological and multicultural needs of the global society which TUSVM serves. The mission is to use IT creatively:

a) in education to advance excellence in teaching and learning;

b) in research to create and expand the knowledge base in the sciences; and,

c) in service and outreach to share and transfer information and knowledge to society and promote the spirit of the "learning society". In a globally competitive work force, Tuskegee graduates must skillfully use information technologies to continuously improve their productivity and increase their knowledge through lifelong learning.

The objectives in the next phase of a new Title III project will be to:

a) enable educational improvement and advancement by using Internet and Multimedia educational resources;

b) promote collaborative learning/teaching and information dissemination;

c) enable access to digital information (where and when desired) via the Internet. It is critical to interdigitate Internet and IT based educational resources within the curriculum to advance veterinary scholarly and professional activities; and to provide IT services and outreach to share and transfer information and knowledge to society and promote the spirit of the "leaury Digital Pathway"

Introduction

In the current, fast moving technology driven environment, few te learning. Developing the infrastructure for the Internet and Multimedia learning resources will provide TUSVM with a the competitive advantage that it needs to prepare for higher quality veterinary medical education in the 21st century.

b) The development of Interactive Hypermedia Resources that is coupled with Internet Based Veterinary Medical Education is important to strengthening and advancing veterinary education.

c) Mobile computing and the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in veterinary medical education is a critical technology that needs to be fully integrated in the teaching/learning as well as health care delivery activities.

With this in mind, we plan to change the traditional teaching/learning paradigm of passive involvement within the triad of student - teacher - textbook, with an active learning/teaching environment. The emphasis will be on interactive learning using multimedia resources. The learner will be empowered to become an active and interactive participant in this enterprise by having access to two critical IT resources; the Internet and Multimedia based teaching/learning resources as shown in figure 1.

This design is critical in advancing the educational enterprise at TUSVM. Via previous Title III and other grants, the TUSVM has created some of the major components of IT infrastructure (e.g. fiberoptic/ethernet based local area network, multimedia based technology resources etc.). We will now add the most critical component that of the Internet into this mix of enriched and interactive learning/teaching enterprise.

TUSVM will continue to offer a systematic faculty/staff development and training plan to transform the faculty to become stake holders of IT. Faculty will be expected to integrate IT and total quality teaching/learning activities in the four year curriculum with the goal that by the Year 2000, 100% of TUSVM graduates will be competent in using the scholarly technologies.

A comprehensive proposal for such a new approach to the use of the Internet and IT resources in strengthening the veterinary curriculum as well as for lifelong learning and continued higher education activities will be developed for submission for the new Phase of the next Title III project.

The vision is to use the TU Virtual Educational Community resources and services to enrich the teaching/learning, research and outreach activities and build on the traditions of academic excellence of Tuskegee University. This investment will assist in meeting the technological and multicultural needs of the global society which TU serves.The mission with respect to IT at TU and its immediate community, is to use it creatively: a) in education to advance excellence in teaching and learning; b) in research to create and expand the knowledge base in the sciences, the arts and humanities and, c) in service and outreach to share and transfer information and knowledge to society and promote the spirit of the "learning society" .

The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) has exploded the opportunities for accessing digital knowledge from here-to-fore unimagined sources. A user can browse a digital knowledge base (e.g. multimedia images) that is accessible on the the WWW or other Internet resources such as Gopher from anywhere and at any time without the constraints of time and place. Students communicate with their teachers and other colleagues via e-mail and bulletin boards. Scholars and educators communicate and share information via news groups and list servers. The traditional classroom has been expanded into virtual classrooms without physical boundaries; the only limit being the reach of one's technologic capability and imagination. Harnessing and exploiting the Internet and information technology (IT) will be critical to strengthening the Learning/Teaching Resources of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health (CVMNAH).

Yet many of the challenges for harnessing and exploiting this technology revolves around people and the creative administration and management of organizational resources targeted to empower individual creativity balanced with well articulated mission and vision statements and goals. The goal in this project is to focus on the Internet and the WWW to build a high quality educational program with a set of electronically accessible hypermedia systems designed to reinforce and strengthen scientific and technological skills while emphasizing the fundamental link between education and its immediate community.

The key strategy and challenge is to engage IT educators, scientists and experts to develop skills and support needed to create hypermedia academic and outreach programs; leading to the development of a set of instructional programs that will be the core to virtual learning centers and the virtual university.Tuskegee University, a unique institution with legacies of educational and scientific excellence has a resourceful, diverse, multidisciplinary faculty, staff and students. Since TU has a special commitment and experience in working with minority students and underserved populations, the university's strategic plan calls for a long term commitment to technology-based education. The proposed integration of IT based education and outreach is expected to enhance the flow of young minds that are tuned to serve the nation in science and technology fields. Objectives The specific objectives of the project are:

to develop IT infrastructure and resources designed to strengthen and advance science and technology education; promote collaborative learning/teaching and information dissemination; and enable access to digital information (where and when desired) via the Internet's World Wide Web (WWW) and related resources.

to develop and interdigitate Internet and WWW based multimedia and interactive educational resources to support and strenghten education.

to develop systems that will assist in the evaluation of the value added benefits which will result from technology based learning/teaching approaches.

1) to develop virtual BT and IT based educational resources designed to strengthen and advance science and technology education; promote collaborative learning/teaching and information dissemination; and enable access to digital biotechnology information (where and when desired) via the Internet's World Wide Web (WWW) and related resources.

2) to interdigitate BT and IT based resources within the curriculum in order to advance scholarly and professional activities;

3) to use the VBRC to strengthen and advance research and development in BT and IT. Two areas of research of interest to the Army biodegradation and remediation and biodetection) will be emphasized.

4) to expand outreach activities and lifelong learning opportunities to attract and provide opportunities to the underserved populations in rural Alabama and the Black Belt counties of the Southeast. The focus in this case will be on Distance Education as well as mobile technological resources so as to bring technologies in direcrning society".

The conceptual framework for this idea is shown in figure 1. It rests on these premises:

a) The Internet is a critical technology for educational advancement both for residential veterinary education as well as for life long tegic plan for the future:

Tuskegee University, an institution of unique heritage with distinguished science leadership is paused to embark on the 21st century with a strong tradition of academic excellence combined with tactically and strategically well positioned planning efforts. TU considers information technology (IT) as an investment in its future. In a globally competitive work force, university graduates must skillfully use information technologies to continuously improve their productivity and increase their knowledge through lifelong learning.

Since information technology holds a critical position in dealing with these challenges, there must be well crafted plans to use it to improve the quality of the academic enterprise. TU is now developing strategic plans to fundamentally restructure and position IT resources and systems to support quality teaching/learning in undergraduate and graduate education, continued education/lifelong learning and outreach. With that in mind four of the ten Key Strategic Directions of the University for the next 5 - 10 years rely on IT. The first two and the last two key strategic Directions are listed below: Recommendation 1 (on IT)

Recommendation 2 (on outreach)
Recommendation 3 (on teaching/learning)
Recommendation 4 (on graduate education)

Information Technology at CVMNAH

Strength in Information Technology: The Biomedical Information Management Systems (BIMS) is composed of a multidisciplinary team of scientists and experts composed of epidemiologists, mathematics and statistics, molecular sciences/immunology, public health, engineering (electrical and mechanical), computer scientists, network specialists, multimedia/hypermedia experts, agriculture and computer based education experts.

For detailed review of the BIMS and CCE activities on the WWW, you can browse our http site at: http://svmc107.tusk.edu.. In the past, we have developed numerous innovative approaches to instruction; one of which is the Biomedical Information Management System (BIMS) project. The BIMS project has been involved in development and research in such areas as computer modelling, decision support systems, artificial intelligence, information systems and videodisc technology. BIMS competed for and received over $5 million from the U.S. Department of Education, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Culpepper Foundation, the National Science Foundation(NSF), the Dodge Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Pew National Veterinary education Program (PNVEP) and the USDA/CSREES. The BIMS team has published and/or presented over 100 papers in national and international forums. BIMS personnel have provided consultation and demonstrations in Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and of course the USA. BIMS is currently supported by a staff of over 15 scientists and professionals. Three visiting scientists (NIH Fogarty Fellow, Fulbright Scholar), have participated in these efforts.

In the area of research, the Center for Computational Epidemiology (CCE), within the past several years have received research and development grants and our research team has acquired extensive experience in Computational Epidemiology. During a period of about ten years, we published over 100 papers in 8 different Journals and Proceedings; and we have made over 100 presentations in international and national conferences. In 1993 alone, we published nine papers in the Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing and presented seven papers at International conferences.

The principal investigator has presented lectures and papers (by invitation) at the University of Glasgow, England; Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; International Center in Insect Physiology and Ecology, Kenya; Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; University of Ibadan, Nigeria; Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania; World Veterinary Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and at several US and Canadian Institutions.

Our research and development efforts has received grants from the Department of Education, The Dodge Foundation, The United States Department of Agriculture, The National Science Foundation (NSF/RIMI), The National Institutes of Health (NIH/RCMI), the Pew National Veterinary Education Program and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

We have also sponsored three distinguished visiting scientists: one Fulbright Fellow, one Fogarty International Fellow and a third who spent his sabbatical leave working on our modelling research. The Principal Investigator has served as a member of editorial boards of Journals; member of national scientific review committees; chaired national review committees; member of scientific site review committees; member of organizing committees of international conferences; and chaired sessions at international conferences.

Most significantly, we have provided research and educational environment for about 19 graduate students (epidemiology, electrical engineering, biology), 30 undergraduates, 23 high school students and about 12 scientists. Since 1990, three of our graduate students have applied modelling methods in three different areas of science. One graduate student, developed a computer model for anaplasmosis, a vector-borne animal disease. He received his Master's degree in May of 1992. A second graduate student applied the modelling methodology in studying diseases in fish populations. Another graduate student applied the methodology to study reproduction in goats.

Concurrently, we have provided training to staff, students and faculty, to further expand the use of the concepts and methodologies in computer modelling. During scheduled one month intensive training sessions on veterinary scholar workstation computing that have been conducted annually by the BIMS staff in June of 1989 - 1995, staff from the RIMI/NSF computer modelling project provided workshops on modelling to interested faculty. Scientists from Engineering, Agriculture, Biology and Veterinary Medicine attended these sessions.

The training is extended to undergraduate students and even high school students. In support of a reach-out high school summer program, we have provided a research environment where high school students spend 1-2 months along with one of our research associates. During 1989 - 1995, at least four students per summer have received training at our Center.

Due to this infrastructure and experience, we have been successful in establishing a strong track record of productivity. We now submit this proposal to advance our research in Computational Epidemiology, Information Technology and Biotechnology.

However, during the past two years, Internet based technology, especially the World Wide Web (WWW), exploded onto the scene as the key technological initiative. Internet technology is revolutionizing every facet of life including biomedical education. It is vital to our educational enterprise and the benefits and opportunities to advance education, lifelong learning and personal advancement are simply compelling. Therefore, it is vital for TU to strengthen this area of its technological infrastructure and capacity to serve as a Center for Excellence in Technology Based Education.

A Campus Network consisting of a fiber optic backbone presently connects 19 buildings to the central node in Kresge Center. The network topology is ethernet, with the capability to migrate to higher speed technology when needed. Nine additional buildings are programmed for fiber connection within the next 6 months, resulting in direct network access for most departments and offices. Functions in buildings without a fiber connection are served by asynchronous communications. The network hub also serves as the gateway to the Alabama Supercomputer Network and the Internet, using a 1.544 Mbps T1 communications channel. In the Administrative computing area, as a result of recent re-engineering efforts of the Administrative Information System (AIS), TU is implementing an advanced client - server architecture with structured query language capability. High speed access to the Internet is provided via a dedicated T1 line through a cooperative agreement with the Alabama Supercomputing Center. This provides faculty, staff and students with high speed and state of the art access to the Internet and other digital information resources nationally and internationally. TU's Web server can be accessed at our URL address of: http://compepid.tuskegee.edu.

A unique and state of the art Conference and Hotel Center (The Kellogg Conference Center) with advanced electronic technology resources for hands-on training is available. The Center can accommodate a large number of conference and workshop attendees. It also has cutting edge technology resources from interactive electronic classrooms to satellite uplink/downlink capabilities for distance learning. Internet access is available in every meeting room and conference rooms. Interactive electronic classrooms are available in several schools and colleges to provide hands-on training for participants. Two of these interactive electronic classrooms each have 20 networked PowerMac and/or Mac Quadra workstations, with ceiling mounted large screen projectors. At least six electronic classrooms are available in the university with capabilities for both MSDOS/WINDOWS and Macintosh systems.

Satellite uplink/downlink capability, TU has a unique video capability that enables both satellite downlink and uplink. This is vital to distance learning activities that can be put to maximal use as the technology and TU's satellite based resources increase in size.

Advances in microprocessors and hardware technologies including the convergence of computing and communications, local area and wide area networks, television and HDTV (high- definition television), satellites, cable, fiber optics, cellular communications, wireless communications, optical scanning devices and others are overwhelming but also exciting. On the software side, knowledge management systems and decision support systems including those that rely on computer modelling, expert and intelligent agents and systems, neural networking and other analytic methods will be critical for coping with such a torrent of data. The digitization of virtually all knowledge will change the nature of life as it is experienced.

TU recognizes that expertise in exploiting digital technology is critical in today's society and is going to be even more crucial as we prepare to embark on the 21st century. Since there exists a dearth of empirical studies in the field on the benefits of Internet and IT based education, TU could play a significant role in adding to the empirical data on the qualitative value added by the infusion of IT. In the past two years, the explosion of the Internet's WWW has made it imperative that we address this technological leap with due care and urgency. TU will focus on the specific area of developing IT resources which can enrich and strengthen the performance of students and attract students with excellent credentials who can be persuaded to feel the science and technology pool of minority experts. More significantly too, the results from this project will have far greater applicability to serve as a model for learners of the information age of comparable socieconomic and geographical positions.

Although several significant advances have been made at TU, ongoing challenges and problems must still be addressed. Information is diverse and massive. The massive nature of information is further exacerbated by its exponential growth and fragmentation. The information is located at diverse sites, on different operating systems and/or hardware. Often, it is inaccessible and/or undecipherable. Simply stated, there is an on-going need to develop appropriate and rational, integrated information management systems to access, harness and fully exploit the use of these electronic resources.

The key strategy is the "empowerment" of its students and other users in its immediate and/or virtual communities to develop lifelong learning technologic competence. The people uniquely affected by the technology bug (and other users) will then continue to expand the use of IT and spread its benefits both directly and indirectly.

However, IT changes and advances literally by leaps and bounds, with short life cycles.

Methodology
A Strategic Plan for success: TU's approach is to bring together IT resources and relevant content material in selected areas of science and technology, in a rational and integrated manner. TU will bring faculty and technical experts in the following areas to work cooperatively as a team on this project. TU has invested extensively in a high level strategic planning process (with the President of the university as chair of the strategic planning committee). One of the co-principal investigators served as chairperson of the IT Design Team for the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC).

As part of its strategic plan, TU will establish an IT Leadership Team to plan and lead the transformation of IT at TU. The goals will be to develop IT skills and competencies and focus IT on learners and customers. In the area of IT, TU will advance and implement concepts (and philosophy) of IT as: a) enabling and empowering to promote educational improvement and advancement; b) promoting collaborative learning and teaching; c) enabling information dissemination and sharing; d) enabling distributed computing (client/server framework) to access relevant personal data; e) access to digital information (where and when desired) for all students, staff and faculty. This will involve the use of scholar workstations, electronic classrooms, digital technology based learning/teaching resources, clusters of scholar workstations strategically located at various sites, access to the TU Systems (with appropriate levels of security), the Library Systems and full access to e-mail and the Internet.

TU will develop a systematic faculty/staff development and training plan to transform the faculty to become stake holders in this transformation. Faculty will be expected to integrate IT and total quality teaching/learning activities in the curriculum with the goal that by the Year 2000, at least 50% of Macon county school system graduates will be competent in using information technologies. One of the key initiatives of TU is to improve the quality of education of the local public schools by integrating creative technologies in the learning environment. By using distance education and the Internet and related mobile IT resources as part of its continued education/lifelong learning and outreach activity, TU plans to create new possibilities for extending the time, the place and resources for learning and information sharing with its immediate community. The same approach will be extended to its wider and larger stake-holders both nationally and internationally. With a strategic focus on stimulating innovation in the use of IT in learning, TU is committed to develop IT bridges to ensure access to the information superhighway for under-served populations. TU will strive to develop the tools and resources that will enable Macon county and black belt county citizens and under-served populations to have appropriate access to the information superhighway.

The overall implementation plan for the project is shown in figure 1. The first phase is to create an infrastructure of information technology resources geared to strengthen and undergird science and technology education; promote collaborative learning/teaching and information dissemination; enable access to digital information and expand outreach activities to attract and provide opportunities to underserved populations.

The implementation will proceed in two Phases. During Phase I, the major emphasis will be on creating the infrastructure of IT resources. Once this is in place, using that resource, the subsequent objectives will be pursued in Phase II. A rigorous evaluation and assessment component will be developed to assess the impact of IT at TU and in the target counties. The university plans to systematically interdigitate the use IT in the educational programs and collect data over five years to evaluate the impact on education and the science/technology pipeline for strengthening the nation's technological and science workforce.

Strategic partnership for excellence

TU will develop plans and implement this strategic venture in partnership with government agencies, foundations, business, industry and higher education.The partnerships with other government agencvies include leveraging and linking the current project with related activities currently supported by the NSF/RIMI, the NIH/RCMI, Title III from the DED, NASA and SofSec of Kellogg Foundation.

Creating the Virtual Information Technology Resources

The goal is to create an education focussed virtual (digital) information technology infrastructure and resources so that TU can serve as a clearing house for the most current information in educational technology. The task for creating the Virtual Information Technology Resources will consist of: a) acquiring, creating and/or developing WWW and other Internet resources, b) acquiring and installing the appropriate hardware and network resources to enable anytime anywhere computing, c) identifying and categorizing and creating the appropriate science and technology subject matter content that will be used in the project.

Building and expanding the computational and networking infrastructure:

The objective is to create an environment that promotes anywhere anytime computing, including wired and wireless communication resources. Creating an environment for anytime anywhere, access to the Internet and the WWW, Client -server computing and mobile computing (personal digital assistants or PDAs, notebook/powerbooks and other mobile computing technologies) will be exploited.

The most significant infrastructiral requirement to get on the ramp to access the Information SuperHighway is to lay fiberoptic network backbone to link selected education and community related sites within Macon County to the fiberoptic backbone of Tuskegee University. Creating a t1 Internet access for each of the schools and related centers within Macon County will be the first strategic step that will have lastin value to bring the county into the information age. Eventually, advancing the local area network of the university to handle digital data transmission will also be of priority need. The use of wired as well as wireless networking will be examined. Network based video conferencing and team-based electronic activities will be expanded. The migration towards the fast ethernet capability (ATM or other alternatives) for transmitting data at about 100 megabits per second or better may be evaluated.

The functionality and security of the local area network will be enhanced. The Local Area Network which is now fully functional provides among other things: a fast, efficient means of exchanging information through a vast variety of computer equipment already in place; resource sharing of both hardware and software; interconnectivity and communicability of Macintoshes, MS-DOS machines and VAX and electronic mail and Internet access nationally and internationally. The functionality and security of the local area network (LAN) was maintained and enhanced. The Local Area Network will provides among other things: a) a fast, efficient means of exchanging information through a vast variety of computer equipment already in place; b) resource sharing of both hardware and software; c) interconnectivity and communicability of Macintoshes, MS-DOS machines and VAX; d) electronic mail access, either locally or nationally through Internet and other available mailing systems; e) file and data transfer. Creating a WWW and Internet based environment:

TU will develop a variety of Internet based resources including Gopher Servers and the Internet capabilities including e-mail, ftp, anarchie, telnet. The core Internet technology will be the World Wide Web. Using browsers (Mosaic, Netscape) and possibly others that will soon be available and using the hypertext mark-up language (HTML) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), TU will develop an advanced and comprehensive World Wide Web server (WWW) home page for the Virtual Technology project. This Web server can be accessed with an appropriate URL (to be designated later) from anywhere and at any time. Other Internet resources that will be set up include a BBS and a ListServ. Newer and more advanced WWW scripting languages such as Java script (Sun Microsystems) and the use of Java applets will be developed. In the same way, the use of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and 3D modelling and visualization programs including the use of Audio (e.g. real Audio) and video (e. g. QuickTime) will be implemented.

Creating the Infotechnology Virtual Resource

The project faculty and staff will identify existing Internet resources and IT resources in cyberspace, or create new ones and structure these to advance IT based education. The emphasis will be on the World Wide Web using Mosaic and Netscape browsers. Organizing the Internet resources to facilitate and strengthening local and distance teaching/learning as well as lifelong learning is critical. This will involve creating access paths to virtual libraries, multimedia learning resources, and digital veterinary medical resources. Other Internet capabilities including e-mail, ftp, anarchie, telnet, and others will be made available.This database will have hyperlinks to other critical information elsewhere.

Faculty development to create the information technology learning/teaching resources:

Two key issues for success in the use of technology in education are: a) faculty development and training in an on-going manner;; and, b) changing the traditional teaching/learning paradigm of passive involvement within the triad of student - teacher - textbook, to an interactive and technology enriched learning/teaching environment. The emphasis will be on interactive and participatory learning using multimedia resources. The learner will be empowered to become an active and interactive participant in this enterprise by having access to two critical IT resources; the Internet and Multimedia based teaching/learning resources as shown in figure 6. This design is critical in advancing the educational enterprise at TU. This will involve the use of scholar workstations, electronic classrooms, digital technology based learning/teaching resources, clusters of scholar workstations strategically located at various sites, the Library Systems and full access to e-mail and the Internet.

Faculty development:

TU in collaboration with the Macon county Moard of education, the Superintendent of Macon county Schools, principals and teachers will develop a systematic faculty/staff development and training plan to transform the teachers to become stake holders in this transformation. Teachers will be expected to integrate IT and total quality teaching/learning activities in the curriculum with the goal that by the Year 2000, at least 50% of Macon county school system graduates will be competent in using information technologies.

However, to accoplish this, teachers need continuous training and support in the use of technology in education. They need to be provided computers for their use including access to computers at their own home. Notebook and PowerBook portable computers will be made avaialable so that faculty can check these out for use as needed. Faculty need to interact with other faculty on their own respective schools as wrell as with others elswhere. Access to e-mail and listservs will therefore be critical. Teachers will be provided time off to pursue a focussed training activity in the use of IT. Providing time off is extremely critical if the involvement of the faculty is to be ensured.

Once the faculty (at least a nucleus) have been well trained, using these core group, the task of development of teaching/learning resources that are based on hypermedia/multimedia will ensue. These same teachers will also serve as role models and pioneers to interdigitate the use of technology within the courses that they teach. We will use our current expertise in MacroMind Director to create Web-based hypermedia animations and related resources. Additionally, the use of current scripting technologies based on Java scripts, applets and virtual reality modelling (VRML) will be examined. These types of resources will be created in selected technology and science courses to engage and motivate learners in active and participatory types of activities.

The critical task at this stage is to interdigitate Internet and IT resources within the curriculum to enhance and advance education. Selected case study courses (Biology, Food Sciences etc.) will be identified to serve as case studies for this project. The case study courses will be infused with IT resources with the clear purpose of supplanting and/or replacing lectures or laboratories.

Fostering communication among educators and learners:

To foster effective communication among educatorsand especially those working on Challenge Grants across the country, we will set up Listserv newsgroups on the Internet. HyperMail program will be employed to facilitate threading and archival of discussions. Internet e-mail and electronic bulletin boards will be developed to enable students to communicate with their teachers and other colleagues in cyberspace. Just as importantly, TU scholars and scientists will be able to communicate and share information via news groups and list servers and the WWW. The traditional classroom will be expanded into virtual classrooms where the only limit will be one's technologic capability and imagination. Since training and workshops will be provided to faculty and students, the technologic capability will not be a limiting factor.

Creating an environment that promotes collaborative learning

Mentoring, tutoring and group study practices have been found to significantly improve learning of minority students as well as others. It is very critical to strengthen biotechnology education by promoting group study habits. In a recent study (Myles, 1989), black students ranked "poor study habits" as the second most important factor next to financial problems which contributed to their academic problems. IT resources that would minimize these problems will be encouraged. Clusters of learner workstations will be positioned in strategic locations in the university and the school system, all geared to promote and cultivate cooperative and group study habits. For those interested in individually paced independent studies, appropriate Internet and IT resources will be made available.

Evaluation

The project evaluation and assessment process will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures. Data will be gathered using questionnaires and network based automated data gathering resources.

The data will be stored in a FileMaker Pro database management system. The analysis of the data will involve descriptive/exploratory, comparative and multivariate analytic techniques. The analysis will rely on the use of SAS or StatView statistical packages.

The evaluation measures for assessing the attainment of the anticipated results will be both quantitative and qualitative and will be as follows:

In addition to concrete and quantitative, measurable outputs on impact of IT, we are also interested in the broader issues of the effect of BT and IT on society and especially those in the underserved, virgin areas where such approaches may bring about substantial changes. What is the impact on quality of life, on the education and motivation of minorities to pursue these technologies of the 21st century? A group of TU social scientists will examine Ethical, Social, Cultural and related impacts on these subpopulations.

Methods used to accomplish Objective 5 (Activities 13)

Activity 13: systematically and rigorously evaluate the value added benefits which will result from computer based learning/teaching approaches.

This activity requires data collection before rigorous analyses can be carried out. As described in our proposal, the data collection phase started in September of 1992 and is continuing. The data gathering activity continued during the 1994/95/96 academic year.

For the data gathering tasks, the following have been instituted. A password protected HyperCard front-end has been developed and installed on all student teaching/learning related Macintosh workstations in the school. For the MSDOS based workstations, TOOLBOOK and WINDOWS were used to develop a comparable type of front end designed to accomplish the same data collection task. Information on specific users, time spent on systems, and resources accessed are captured automatically by the system.

During each semester, the computer based data collection system gathers data about who used the computer, what applications/resources they used, and when and how long they used them. This information is stored in spread sheet format. From this information, each students frequency and duration on the computer, while using a:

a)specific application,

b) class of application (e.g.. Wordprocessing, Graphics, Spreadsheet, etc.),

c) use of electronic resource is computed.

• The data base for each student consists of:
• identification and registration information,
• responses to pre & post questionnaires,

duration on the computer, while using specific applications, class of applications (e.g.. Wordprocessing, Graphics, Spreadsheet, Etc.), and resources (e.g.. applications, CBE, LIS, CIS),

grades (i.e.. GPAs in all years at school to date). A code-book has been developed to identify each field in the data base.

The computer based data collection system that is described above records all student based interaction precisely and comprehensively. The precise data collected via the network based data collection system will eventually enable us to analyze the information to assess the impact of electronic technology based systems on veterinary education at TUSVM.

Assessment of the Impact of CBE

The Network based data collection system and the accumulated data were used to assess the impact of electronic technology based systems on student performance. The analyses will consist of: a) descriptive profile of the TUSVM students with emphasis on computer usage; b) comparison of computer use Vs. non-use on student performance. Some preliminary analyses of the data on incomplete data has already been done and this is presented below. Personnel and Budget

Budget narrative and justification Key personnel

T. Habtemariam, (DVM, PhD) - as Co-Principal investigator. Dr. Habtemariam will manage the Information Technology team. He has extensive experience and expertise in epidemiologic modelling research, in management and administration of information technology grants and coordinating the activities of experts from cross-disciplinary areas. He will spend at least 25% of his time (calendar year) on this project. He will serve as advisor to graduate students, and carry out the appropriate research tasks.

Peter Yu (PhD) - as mathematician and statistician. Dr. Peter Yu will assist as the co-investigator in carrying out the computational modelling research activities. He will also provide service to other scientists at TU and serve as a graduate student advisor. He will be expected to prepare manuscripts for publications and prepare research proposals for self sustaining research. Dr. Peter Yu is expected to spend 100% (calendar year) on this project.

In order to develop, maintain and advance the various VBRC implementation activities, the following technical expertise are needed:

Coordinator and Scientific visualization/hypermedia specialist: - This individual will coordinate the outreach component of the VBRC. They will also control the visual and graphic quality of digital and analog material published at the VBRC. The candidate for this position needs to have a track record of leadership that will qualify them to be the key person to lead the outreach component. The individual should have extensive experience in research, information management and information dissemination including television, radio and newspapers. Expertise in scientific visualization, advanced computer animation skills and an overall knowledge of interactive multimedia technology is pertinent. It is imperative that the individual have an extensive background in communication techniques and skills that would enable them to interact with other personnel and outreach participants of diverse backgrounds. They needs to have extensive experience in T.V., print media, visual arts, and hypermedia systems. They should be able to communicate with, and involve minority students and faculty in the project. Ms. Vinaida Robnett, BS. agriculture, meets these requirements, and will devote 100% of her time on this project, in this capacity.

.Systems analyst, networking and education specialist - This individual will be responsible for network design, installation, and maintenance. They will be responsible for providing services for designing, configuring, networking, and maintaining all the workstations and peripheral devices associated with the VBRC. They will also be responsible for providing training, and technical guidance to faculty, staff and students on the use of the computer facilities, especially the networked resources. The candidate for this position needs to have experience in developing, and maintaining a local area network. They should have extensive experience on how to install, configure, maintain, and repair/troubleshoot computers and peripheral devices, communication hardware/software, and network devices. Mr. Monday Offem, MS. engineering, fulfills these needs and will devote 100% of his time on this project.

.Information systems analyst, Internet specialist - This individual will be responsible to design, develop, install, configure and maintain a variety of Internet based resources including Gopher, WWW, FTP, Mail, and List servers. They will be responsible for developing, implementing, and managing the VBRC home page, that will serve all the resources of the center to the world at large, via the internet. They will also be responsible for training students, faculty and staff.

The ideal candidate for this position should have extensive experience in systems analysis, design, and implementation, of information systems. They should have knowledge of local and wide area networking of computer systems, systems management, development and implementation, and database management systems. They need to know how to install, configure and use e-mail, ftp, anarchie, telnet, CU-See-Me, Netscape, and other internet client software. They need to be proficient in using the hypertext mark-up language (HTML), pearle, and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Mrs. Irene Chalokwu, MBA, meets the needs of this position and will devote 100% of her time (calendar year) on this project.

Systems analyst, Database Management - This individual will be responsible to design, develop, install, configure and maintain all the databases. They will be responsible for developing, implementing, and managing the VBRC data, that will be served relationally to the world at large, via the internet. They will also be responsible for training faculty and staff. The ideal candidate for this position should have extensive experience in systems analysis, design, and implementation, of database systems. They should have knowledge of relational database systems, systems management, development and implementation.. Mrs. Gail Thomas, BS, Computer science, meets the needs of this position and will devote 100% of her time (calendar year) on this project.

Education Coordinator: An individual with Ph. D. in molecular biology will be hired to help teach the laboratory courses, conduct summer workshops on recombinant DNA technology for high school students and teachers, and assist in the biotechnology education efforts of the VBRC such as helping with curriculum redesigning and high school visits to demonstrate biotechnology experiments. This individual will spend 100% of the time on the project.

Fringe benefits: The appropriate fringe benefits for the key personnel is calculated at the rate of 16.5 % of salaries. An annual increase of 4% is reflected in the budget.

Equipment for Information Technology component

Computing hardware and networking resources, to include the following will be needed. PowerMac 6100 level scholar workstations for use by students, large screen projectors, network communication needs (file servers, routers, bridges, ATM or fast ethernet capabilities), upgrade to T3 line capability in the long run and adding of one T1 line in the short run. These will be connected to the regional super-computing center in Huntsville, AL. Related devices will also be needed for this activity. Some of these include Notebook/Powerbook computers, Personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as the Apple Newton, video conferencing resources, ISDN and modems with speeds of at least 28.8 kbs, wireless communication resources and a variety of printers, digitizers and imaging systems will be needed. These are also described under the Budget section. Since the research on modelling is computationally intensive it requires extensive computational resources and high performance workstations (Sun Microsystems, Power PC 8500 series).

The equipment budget is categorized in the following ways.

a) Computing and related hardware and

b) Networking related resources

c) Mobile Technology Teaching/Learning Outreach Resources

a) Computing related hardware includes:

Computational workstations

Desktop computers (to create learning clusters and interactive electronic classrooms),

Powerbooks/Notebooks, PDAs

Large screen projectors

External hard disks,

CDROM's, memory chips,

Computer upgrade resources.

b) Networking resources will include:

Adding ethernet faceplates to classrooms and offices

Routers and bridges

Fiberoptic backbone speed upgrade

Add one more T1 line in the short run

Advance to fast ethernet or ATM capacity

ISDN access and 56 kb access

Video conferencing resources

Wireless resources

Expand satellite uplink/downlink capabilities

Electronic security

Description of equipment needs:

The basic framework is to create advanced scholar workstations that are linked to the fiberoptic/ethernet local area network of the university. A description of the hardware requirements follows:

Macintosh Power PC: PowerMac 6100 level workstations are requested. Each workstation will be configured with at least 32 MB of RAM, color monitor, video card, memory expansion kit, at least one GigaByte of hard drive and built-in CDROM drive. The estimated budget for such an advanced workstation including its maintenance is about $2,500.00 per workstation. These Power Macintosh workstations will be used by students.

Macintosh Power PC: eight-ten PowerMac 8500-9500 workstations are requested. Each workstation will be configured with at least 64 MB of RAM, large screen (21 inches) color monitor, video card, memory expansion kit, at least one GigaByte of hard drive and built-in CDROM drive. The estimated budget for such an advanced workstation including its maintenance is about $8,000.00 per workstation. Two PowerMac 9500's will be set up as an INTERNET file server.

Laser Printer - (e.g. HP LaserJet) for high speed printing and paper handling capacities.

CDROM discs: massive storage capability will be required for this project. The large numbers of simulations will require massive storage capabilities. This can be provided at reasonable cost by exploiting erasable optical disc technology. Optical jukeboxes with about 10 GB capacity will be configured to provide storage space.

Fast ethernet cards and high speed modems: the current ethernet capability of transmitting data at 10 megabits per second is being outmoded. High speed data transmission rates of 100 megabits or much higher are now being made available. Since this project requires high volume data transmission of visual images and QuickTime movies (eg. from the Geographic Information System, satellite images etc.), a faster and larger ethernet capability as well and fast modems will be needed.

Note: A total of $800,000 is requested for equipment. It will be necessary to upgrade the workstations to keep up with advances in technology. Faster and more advanced chips will be on the market during each year of the project. Upgrades and maintenance of the computt touch with underserved students.

to develop systems that will assist in the evaluation of the value added benefits which will result from technology based learning/teaching approaches.
Rationale The TU legacof leadership and stgh school visits to demonstrate biotechnology experiments. This individual will spend 100% of the time on the project.

Software - new software applications, updates and changes are released often from information technology companies. It appears that every three months upgrades are brought out into the market. At least once a year major revisions and newer systems are released. In order to be current and to acquire cutting edge technology for use and development, an annual budget for supplies and software of $20,000 per year is requested.

F, Travel:

An average round trip air ticket of $500, a three days travel time, hotel expenses of $70.00 per day and meal and related expenses that are estimated at $1000.00 per travel per person served as the format for the travel budget. A total of two travel units (eg. two persons traveling during one year) to present papers, attend director's meeting and/or attend conferences is requested. The budget is estimated at about $15,000 per year.

Consultants:

I. Indirect Costs: The indirect cost calculation is based on 40% of: (total salaries, fringe benefits, travel, supplies). It does not include cost of equipment and participant costs.

J. Total Costs: the total budget requested for the project is $9,039,576.00. A more detailed breakdown of budget will be available when requested.