U.Va. Institutional
Readiness Criteria
November 10, 2000
(11/15 Deadline)
1. Does the institution want to control or
reduce costs and increase academic productivity?
The University of Virginia
has many valuable traditions, and sound fiscal management is one of them. Money magazine consistently ranks
the University as an educational Òbest buy,Ó and the U.S. News & World
Report ranks U.Va. as the most efficient of the top 25 institutionsÑpublic
or private. In the past decade, when state-supported institutions generally
experienced drastic reductions in state funding, U.Va. was no exception.
At the same time, student enrollments were steadily increasing, and
U.Va. will continue to grow each year for the foreseeable future. With sound fiscal management, U.Va.
will weather these stresses: controlling costs is a very high
priority.
U.Va. prides itself on its
superb undergraduate education. Money
magazine rates it a Òbest buyÓ because it balances so well the costs of administration
with the value of a superior education. U.Va. has been ranked one of the two
best public universities in the country for the last seven years.
2. Is there a demonstrated commitment on
the part of institutional leaders to use technology to achieve strategic academic
goals, a commitment that moves beyond using technology to provide general
support for all faculty and for all courses?
Six years ago, U.Va.Õs central administration made clear its
priorities: to provide universal
access to technology for faculty and students and to provide the means for faculty to innovate in the curriculum,
especially by the use of technology. This innovation would be strategic, coordinated and effectively
supported so that improvements were continuous, impediments to innovation
discovered and removed, so that
the state of technology in instruction would continually improve. In 1994, the Classroom Technology
Initiative (CTI) was established and internally funded. CTI features a comprehensive
plan for integrating technology into classrooms, together with an on-going faculty development program, called the
Teaching + Technology Initiative (TTI).
(For more information on this program, please see # 6 below.) The TTI
program evaluation was completed three years ago, resulting in its continuation
and enhancement. Funds were found
to enable a second pilot program to be launched, called the Teaching + Technology
Support Partners (TTSP) program. Currently in its second year, this program creates special Teaching Assistantships
in selected departments to disseminate
easy-to-use instructional technology tools in that TAÕs home department.
The early gains in the first year of the program have been encouraging.
In addition to these efforts,
the Provost approved an allocation of $100K per year for three years for the
enhancement of classroom teaching. These
funds are awarded competitively by the Faculty Senate for small grants (<
$5K each). The purpose of these
grants is to enable discreet, easy to implement improvements in teaching.
Now in its third year, over 70 awards have been made to support teaching
improvements in every undergraduate school at U.Va. Almost all of these projects
have involved instructional technology.
Examples include the creation of visual archives for class presentation,
such as ENGL383, History of Literature in English III; websites to provide
students with rich interactive materials, such as RUTR335, Devils and Doubles
in 19th Century Russian Literature; and web/database projects such
as Professor Ann MoniusÕ archive of
eastern religious art to support a large, team-taught survey course
in Religious Studies. Thus, the
central administration continues to enable and support innovation. The faculty
proposals and awards have shown that the most innovative and attractive improvements
to teaching incorporate significant levels of technology.
3. Is computing firmly integrated into the
campus culture?
U.Va. continues to aggressively
integrate technology into the campus culture. Yahoo selected it as one of
the nationÕs most wired campuses. Some
highlights of the University include:
|
Student ownership of
computers |
96 percent |
|
Dorm rooms with two
ethernet connections |
100 percent |
|
Annual investment in
Instructional Technology |
>$3.2 million |
|
Annual investment in
computer hardware |
~$6.4million |
|
Recommended student
ownership of computers |
yes |
|
First Year Students
with active email (1st wk. of class) |
98.7% |
Other noteworthy technology
related services at U.Va.:
|
U.Va. Instructional
Toolkit: Web tool which allows
faculty to create course web pages easily á
Upload documents (text
and image files) á
Maintain class web pages á
Dynamically use Registrar
data for: á
Current class roles á
Create email lists á
Submit final grades electronically á
Link to on-line reserves |
|
|
On-line Reserves: Library service which
scans and links course-related documents to Toolkit pages |
|
|
Leo [Library Express
On-grounds]: Library service which
delivers books and photocopies of articles to faculty offices in response
to an electronic request |
|
|
Virgo: Library service which
allows faculty and students to browse the card catalog and check availability
of library materials and access library databases from the web |
|
4. Does the institution have a mature information
technology (IT) organization(s) to support faculty integration of technology
into courses? Or does it contract with external providers to provide such
support?
U.Va.'s IT organization is
mature and extremely well organized.
All IT professionals answer to a Vice President and Chief Information
Officer. The VP and CIO, Bob
Reynolds, has significant management experience as the Vice Provost for Health
Sciences and with years of active, ongoing management of IT issues. The IT
organization, Information Technology and Communication (ITC) is proactive,
as evidenced by its annual survey of the U.Va. community. ITC's analysis of
the results of that survey serves as a vital part of its strategic and programmatic
planning. ITC coordinates and collaborates with closely related initiatives
in the University Library and the academic areas. A good example of the maturity of our IT organization and of
the collaborative atmosphere that exists here can be seen in two internationally
prominent entities:
1. Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
(IATH)
url: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/
Brief Description: IATH's
goal is to explore and expand the potential of information technology as a
tool for humanities research.
To that end, it provides an annual Fellowship program for faculty members
across the University, with consulting, technical support, applications programming,
and networked publishing facilities. IATH also cultivates partnerships and participates in humanities computing initiatives with
libraries, publishers, information technology companies, scholarly organizations,
and others interested in the intersection of computers and cultural heritage.
2. Electronic Text Center (E-Text Center)
url: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
Brief Description: Since 1992,
the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia has pursued twin
missions with equal seriousness of purpose:
á
to build and maintain an internet-accessible
collection of SGML texts and
images;
á
to build and maintain a user
community adept at the creation and use of these materials.
The Center maintains an on-line
archive of over 40, 000 encoded texts and images, and offers hardware and software suitable
for the creation and analysis of text. Through ongoing training sessions in
text encoding and image scanning that support teaching and research projects, the Center is building a diverse
user community locally, serving thousands of users globally, and providing
a model for similar humanities computing enterprises at other institutions.
In addition, there are several
other significant sources of support for faculty:
Geospatial and Statistical
Data Center (GeoStat)
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/
Special Collections Digital
Center
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/scdc/scdc.html
Research Support Center
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/center.html
Academic Computing Health
Sciences
http://www.med.virginia.edu/achs/
Internal Support and External
Contracts
As further evidence of both
the maturity of its IT organization and the proactive way it uses collaborative
energies, U.Va. has a strategic mix of internal support and contracts with
external providers. The internal
support is targeted to provide cost effective and tailored support for specific
projects.
Examples include:
|
á
Instructional Technology
Group: Formed
to offer more effective support for faculty generated instructional
technology projects |
|
|
á
Robertson Media Center: Consolidating
the services of the Library and ITC for Instructional Technology projects. |
|
|
á
Teaching Resource Center: Supports
improved teaching at U.Va. Jointly
administers the TTI and TTSP programs with the Instructional Technology
Group |
|
|
á
Division of Continuing
Education: Offers
project support for faculty offering distance education courses. In
particular, note its significant program in electronic publishing, which
includes: á
Short courses á
Summer publishing institute á
Annual conference with
the Library of Congress http://uvace.virginia.edu/cup/publishing/ |
|
The contracts with external
providers deliver low cost solutions for hardware/software and for networking.
Examples here include:
|
DCI [Desktop Computing
Initiative]: Establishes
contracts with two computer manufacturers (Apple and Dell). Provides
students, faculty and staff with computers that are pre-loaded with
the required build of software for the U.Va. environment |
|
|
ISP [Internet Service
Provider]: Establishes
contracts with preferred ISPs to allow dial-in connections for students,
faculty and staff |
|
|
Cavalier Computers: An
affiliate of the University, which, re-sells computer equipment to students,
faculty and staff at low profit margins (Will be the distribution point
for DCI equipment) |
|
|
Macrosoft: Contracted
to help students configure their machines to work in the U.Va. environment. |
|
5. Do a substantial number of the institutionÕs
faculty members have an understanding of or some experience with integrating
elements of computer-based instruction into existing courses?
Through an array of tools
and support, more than half of the faculty at U.Va. have integrated computer-based
instruction into existing courses. This integration ranges from the high end,
where deeply innovative courses have been developed (For specific examples,
please see #6 below) to the low end, where electronic office hours (in addition
to traditional face-to-face office hours), simple web sites and mailing lists
are used to bolster the communication necessary in a course and to ease the
administrative burden on the faculty of managing their courses. In the area
of simpler-to-use tools, U.Va. developed an Instructional Toolkit, which has
been extraordinarily popular. Over
the past three years, its use has grown to where more than half of the courses
uses it each semester. Other significant technology enhanced courses have
their own web sites independent of or in conjunction with the Toolkit generated
pages. Although exact numbers of these pages
are hard to quantify, there are at least 80 such sites that are developed
and maintained through the Instructional Technology Group and the LibraryÕs
Robertson Media Center. (For
more, please see # 6 below.)
6. Does the institution
have a demonstrated commitment to learner-centered instruction?
U.Va. takes great pride in
its strong undergraduate education. Our courses from the introductory to the senior-level
continue to be taught by faculty, not TAs. Students are encouraged to become active
learners. In addition, U.Va. has a long tradition of innovative uses of instructional technology
and of deeply integrating these
uses throughout the learning community. Both this history of innovation and the high standards to which
U.Va. aspires can be seen in this exerpt from a 1992 pamphlet describing the
efforts we began then (which are still ongoing) to update the vision of our
founder, Thomas Jefferson:
In
1819, Thomas Jefferson founded a new kind of university in the Commonwealth
of Virginia--a completely integrated educational environment. This environment encouraged intellectual
exchange across disciplinary boundaries, combined living and learning in a
single residential area, and
brought people together in new configurations that involved everyone in a
cooperative pursuit of knowledge. Jefferson called this environment his "Academical Village."
The
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities was established at the
University of Virginia in 1992, with a major grant from IBM and a multi-year
commitment of support from the University, as part of an effort to bring Jefferson's
educational ideals into the twenty-first century.
The
University's strong information-technology and library facilities, along with
its historical dedication to the ideal of democratizing access to information,
put it in a position to exercise national leadership in the application of
information technology to the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Source: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/iath/iath_pamphlet.html
With the Academical Village
as the context, a number of courses at U.Va. have been restructured to be
more learner centered. The innovations
range from the creation of rich and engaging web sites to profoundly innovative
courses which fully exploit the capabilities of instructional technology to
engage and challenge students.
A few examples of the latter
type of course include:
|
Professor |
Course |
Brief Description |
Ben Ray
|
RELA345/ARTH345: African
Art and the Virtual Museum url: http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~bcr/rela345_98.html |
Students build virtual
curatorial exhibits of African art on the Web |
|
Janet Horne |
History of Contemporary
French Civilization |
A rich web site provides
students with interactive materials so they can get a flavor of contemporary
French culture. |
|
Bob Ribando |
ME329 Heat Transfer url: www.people.virginia.edu/~rjr/me329 |
A series of virtual
experiments allow students to grapple with the heart of the subject,
freeing them from the tedious and routinized calculations that used
to waste precious time and attention. |
|
Kathryn Rohe |
DRAM331, 333 and 738:Costume
History and Graduate Costume Technology, respectively url: http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~kmr3c/docs/frameset.html |
Students research the
history of a garment and publish an analysis of it on the web. This article is then added to a growing
database on the Drama DepartmentÕs holdings of historic clothing. |
|
Ed Ayers and Will Thomas |
HIUS403:Digital History
and the American Civil War url: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/projects/projects.html |
Teams of undergraduate
students work on discreet projects, doing original research and publishing
results on the web. |
A separate and very noteworthy
example of a restructured program is Alan Howard's very successful American
Studies Master's program:
In addition to the above examples
U.Va. has made clear its institutional commitment by:
á
Aggressive upgrade schedule for
public machines
(2-year replacement cycle)
á
Robust technical support for
technology enhanced classrooms:
á
Phones installed in all classrooms
w/ permanently installed equipment
á
Classrooms supported 8 a.m. Ð10
p.m. Mon.ÑThurs., 8 a.m.Ñ5 p.m. Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.Ñ6 p.m.
á
Response time of 5 minutes
á
Pedagogical focus on all grant
supported course improvements
á
Faculty articulate their own
pedagogical objectives
7. Has the institution
made a commitment to learner readiness to engage in IT-based courses?
Over the last three years,
the University has done an impressive job of offering IT related training
for the community. The number
of participants in ITC training courses has grown by almost 300% over the
last five years. In addition to the training classes that are offered, U.Va.
continues to offer a highly successful computer literacy course, CS110, as
an elective course to interested students in the College of Arts & Sciences,
Nursing, Architecture and Education.
In addition, several other courses are offered to students who need
to learn discipline-specific technology-related skills (for example, Geographic
Information Systems and CAD programming.)
Currently, U.Va. offers a course as a completely reconceived version of CS110
to incoming first year students in fall 2000. This course, Media Studies 110 (MS110),
is designed to fulfil the recently published National Research Council guidelines,
created by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (April, 1999)
MS110 will provide First-Year University students with a unique, comprehensive,
and intellectually significant experience with information technology. Students will receive grounding in the skills they will need
during and beyond their academic careers at U.Va. More importantly, they will confront and engage issues that
underlie, infuse and subsume use of technology in learning. Through concept lectures by specialists
in diverse fields, they will gain an understanding of the role and influence
of technology over a broad intellectual spectrum. Through self-directed applications exercises and independent
projects, they will have the opportunity to synthesize abstract knowledge
about computers and practical skills into a relationship with technology which
is at once functional, knowledgeable, and ethically informed. This course will be demanding of both
students and faculty, for it is highly innovative and ambitious in its goals.
Its design respects and will certainly call upon the tremendous potential
U.Va. students bring to their academic endeavors.
It will also utilize the rich fund of expertise we have in information
technology among faculty and staff specialists here at the University. In envisioning what we want to provide for our students and
what we expect them to achieve in their academic careers at the University,
we have posited meaningful intellectual inquiry as a consistent basis. We believe that this course, once implemented
and scaled to serve most incoming students, will serve our common purposes
well. The target audience is the incoming 1st year students and
all new students. The course
is being designed as an ambitious combination of challenges in theoretical
and practical understanding of computing.
As has been stressed by the Computer Science and Telecommunications
Board in their recently released study, Being Fluent with Information Technology,
computer literacy is too limited a goal.
The goal must be information technology fluency.
This new course is the focus of this proposal to the Pew Trust.
8. Is there a recognition
on the campus that large-scale course redesign using information technology
involves a partnership among faculty, IT staff and administrators in both
planning and execution?
Two examples demonstrate this
understanding:
TTI (Teaching + Technology
Initiative)
When the University created
the support structure for the faculty development program TTI, it carefully
integrated the IT staff by forming the Instructional Technology Group. This group jointly administers the TTI
program with the Teaching Resource Center, supporting individual faculty projects.
A faculty committee selects the winning proposals. The faculty members who
receive these fellowships often describe the experience as the most satisfying
of their careers. And students
taking these redesigned courses often describe the learning experience as
the culmination of their dreams for the ideal course. Clearly, the partnership between faculty,
IT staff and administrators works extremely well in this case. For more information
about this program, please see the following URLs:
http://cti.itc.Virginia.EDU/tti/
http://tti.itc.Virginia.EDU/revealing/
The Provost established the
Classroom Oversight Committee to insure that integration of technology into
classrooms met the following criteria:
á
Renovations were responsive to
faculty priorities
á
Renovations were fiscally well
managed and completed on-time
á
Design and implementation were
monitored for continuous improvement
á
Upgraded classrooms were effectively
supported and responsive to faculty feedback
This committee is composed of IT staff, project managers and high level administrators. And, in addition, during each renovation project, at least three faculty members from the disciplines that would most benefit from that particular renovation are included on the project committees.
The University of Virginia's
understanding of the necessity of effective partnerships between faculty,
IT staff and administrators to accomplish the design and implementation of
innovative courses for our undergraduate students is obvious. These partnerships
illustrate the UniversityÕs vision of deeply integrating these components
into the academic learning environment.