CEMR Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies

S. Tewksbury, Director
West Virginia University

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The facilities of the Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies (LCIT) are summarized here.  LCIT was established to provide the resources needed to develop significant web content for courses and includes a mixture of both hardware and software resources.

The program was developed in collaboration with West Virginia Institute of Technology, providing a mechanism for course sharing between the two universities.  The original proposal to establish LCIT and a status report provide additional information. The program is summarized below.

This report serves as a status report on the progress of computer-based learning.

A. LCIT Facilities and Resources

A.1 The LCIT Laboratory

The LCIT web-development room is illustrated in Figure 1.  In addition to PC's for multimedia content development, a Unix workstation serves as the Web server for the courses and additional resources allow generation of CD-ROM content for distribution to students, slide/film scanning to capture images useful for web pages, and a color scanner, also to capture images for web pages.  Storage is provided for manuals, tutorials, and other material of use to faculty members using the facility.

Figure 1: LCIT Course Development Facilities.

A.2 LCIT Resources

The following summarizes the software and hardware which has been purchased as the "start-up" facilities of the CEMR Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies. Funding has been provided by the WV Chancellor's Office and the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources (CEMR). Other items which are planned for purchase are being discussed with manufacturers to obtain as deep an educational discount as possible. The software items on this list represent already discounted educational prices and further reductions were not obtained. The hardware items reflect costs following discussions with manufacturers and represent modest, though not large discounts. Together, the basic software and hardware provides the facilities needed by the college to produce competitive educational modules. The list was reviewed by the other CEMR Learning Technologies project PIs, though no changes were requested from them. Those PIs have been advised that the equipment listed below is intended to serve the entire college and will be available and accessible to the other Learning Technologies projects.

A.2a Software

• Microsoft Frontpage.  Frontpage is a highly rated (Byte, Feb 1997) authoring tool for generation of HTML pages.
  
• Microsoft Office Professional 97 . Office 97 contains WORD, EXCELL, POWERPOINT, and ACCESS. The first three, similar to earlier versions, now contain direct translation into HTML documents.
  
• Microsoft Visual J++ . Visual J++ is a JAVA authoring tool, for development of JAVA-enriched Web sites.
  
• Adobe Acrobat 3.0 . Conversion of files to PDF and reader.
  
• Adobe Pagemill 2.0 . Web Page authoring software.
  
• Adobe Pagemaker . Document publishing software with HTML conversion
  
• Adobe Illustrator. Text/graphics page development, with HTML support.
  
• Adobe Framemaker. Document software (text/graphics) with HTML/Web support.
  
• Adobe Persuasion . Web authoring software with connection to iIllustrator, etc.
  
• Adobe Premier.  Digital movie making software.
  
• Symantec Visual Cafe. JAVA development environment.
  
• Aimtech Jamba . Multimedia authoring using JAMBA, incorporating audio, animated text, etc.
  
• Corel Office Professional. Web authoring software suite, with connection to WordPerfect, etc.
  
• Corel Web Graphics Suite (Not ordered). Comprehensive Web publishing package, with graphics, animation, 3-D tools, etc.
  
• Quarterdeck WebTalk. Voice communications over internet, allowing Web-based conversations.
  
• Borland IntraBuilder . Software system for integration of relational database to Web. Interactive forms, etc. Note: Intrabuilder Prof. is a $495 higher performance system. I'll be working with Borland to obtain this instead of the lower cost version.
  
• InContext The Best of Tucows. A CD-ROM collection of various WEB-related software from the Tucow Web site. Large collection, shareware and public domain.
  
• InContext WebAnalyzer. Software to check for broken links, missing images, etc. on a Web site.
  
• O'Reilly & Assoc. PolyForm. GUI toolkit for forms that collect, process, and respond to user input on the Web.
  
• O'Reilly & Assoc.WebBoard. Conferenceing software that adds conferencing capability of Web Server (voice conferencing).
  
• WebImage. Graphics tool for Web development. Define/view transparent GIFs, create and edit image maps, create intelaced GIF and PNG images, etc.
• Virtus Corp Website Builder. VRML web authoring tool to create 3D virtual worlds without programming.
  
• Prentice Hall C/C++ Multimedia Cyber-classroom (Not ordered yet). Interactive ROM with complete C/C++ course.
  
• McAfee Assoc.WebScan (Not ordered yet).Anti-virus software for protecting Internet users from downloading infected files and e-mails. Creates temporary firewall that prevents users from downloading until download is verified as virus free.
  
• Progressive RealAudio. Streaming audio for the Web.
  
  

A.2b  Hardware

• IBM Aptiva S66 Multimedia System. S66 Computer with 16MB RAM, 3.2GB HD, 8X CD-ROM, 166 MHz Pentium wavetable sound, etc.
  
• 15" S-series multimedia monitor.
• 16 MB RAM expansion.
• 3-Com Ethernet card (thinnet).
• SCSI port for S66.
• Seagate Hawk Tape backup external (3.2GB).
  
• HP LaserJet 6MP Printer
  
• Yamaha 4X/4X CD recorder.
  
• HP ScanJet 4C scanner
  
• Nikon Super Coolscan LS-1000 35 mm slide/film scanner

B. Personnel and Management

B.1 Supporting Faculty Members

• S. Tewksbury (ECE).   Director
• H. Ammar (ECE)
• Shahab Mohaghegh (PNGE)

B.2 Supporting Graduate Students

• Arunesh Banerjee
• Navid Syed
• Abdul Mobeen Mohammad
• Veldanda Sharath Chandra
• Kishore A. Danduboina
• Radhikha Myneni
• Vijai Gandikota
• Kiran Devabatini

B.3  LCIT Management Infrastructure

Figure 2 shows the overall management infrastructure for LCIT.  This is a University-wide facility, operated and maintained by the ECE Department.

Figure 2: LCIT Management Infrastructure

C. Courses Developed

The CEMR (College of Engineering and Mineral Resources) Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies (LCIT) was established in January, 1997 as a facility for faculty training, Web-based course development process definition, and research related to new and advanced techniques for asynchronous, distance delivery of courses. A similar laboratory is located at West Virginia Tech to support a distributed learning environment.

Courses already developed (prior to LCIT) by LCIT personnel or presently under development within the LCIT are listed below. Links to a couple of examples of course material are provided. Web technologies supporting page development were rather primitive then, compared to now, but LCIT provided tools important in creating basic pages.

Course Number	Course Name	Web Course Developer
E1	Freshman Engineering	S. Mahaghegh
PNGE 391B	Computer Applications for Energy and Environmental Management	S. Mahaghegh
EE 56A	Digital Electronics (Prof. McConnell)	Kishore Danduboina
EE 56B	Digital Electronics (Prof. Cooley)	V. Sharath Chandra
EE 25A	Basic Electric Circuits Laboratory	Navid Syed
EE 25B	Basic Electric Circuits Laboratory	A. Banerjee
EE 104	Instrumentation Laboratory	Navid Syed
EE 102	Basic Electrical Laboratory	A. Mohammad
CpE 291A	Real-Time Software Enginering	Prof. H. Ammar
CpE 291B	Object-Oriented Programming in C++	Prof. H. Ammar, A.Mohammad, Kishore Danduboina
CpE 110	Microprocessor Systems	Prof. S. Tewksbury
EE 151	Semiconductor Devices/Circuits	Prof. S. Tewksbury
CpE 291C	Microelectronic Systems	Prof. S. Tewksbury
EE 291B	RF Systems I	Prof. S. Tewksbury
EE 391E	RF Systems II	Prof. L. Hornak
CpE 391C	Information Systems	Prof. S. Tewksbury
CpE 391	VLSI Systems	Prof. S. Tewksbury
CpE 491	Large-Scale Systems	Prof. S. Tewksbury

D. Web Development Software Tools

This section lists sites for downloadable software (often beta versions) for various WEB design functions. Entries are listed by the date of entry.

• April 14, 1997
• UNIX Tools for Color Images: From SunExpert Magazine (March 1996):
• Netpbm (Note: mirrow sites are displayed from this site Try, for example, Digex.): Extension of earlier "Portable Bitmap (PBM) software suite. Converts between various image formats, with various manipulations possible.
• xv: Display of raster images. X-based. Able to capture screen images and save to files in various image formats, etc. Shareware (John Bradley: $25).
• xpaint: A simple image editing program for UNIX.
• Shareware UNIX software for voice telephony overy the Web: Vat.
  
• MPEG audio encoding and decoding software for the Macintosh: see report on Kauai Media, Stramworks, and other MPEG audio solutions. By Kauai Media, Del Mar, CA.
• Progressive Networks' RealAudio streaming audio player.
• WORK: home page of Java development with various Java applets and links to others.
• VRML sites:
• Executive summary on VRML 2.0.
• VRML Architecture Group: Web Site.
• Johns Hopkins University Medical School: 3D Interactions between several molecular medels rendered in VHDL.
• Univ. Lemans (France): Crystollography: 3D visualization of inorganic crystals.
• Fermilab: VRML model of Fermilab's collider detector.
• University of Arizona: Molecular binding of ink in an ink-jet printer.
• VRML models of the crystal structures of a number of superconducting compounds.
  
• VRML Browsers:
• WebFX: Netscape's in-house brouser.
• Worldview: VRML browser developed by Tony Parisi.
• Fountain browser. Microsoft is licensing a version of Fountain for use in their Blackbird.
• VRealm: Developed by Portable Graphics and Integrated Data Systems.
• Virtus Voyager: Developed by Virtus Corporation.
  
  
• December 6, 1996
• Quinn-Curtis, Inc's Graphics Class Libraries for real-time & charting graphics. Demo software can be downloaded from Web site. Software includes Real-Time Graphics Tools for Windows to create dynamic graphical displayes for use in applications such as scientific and medical instrumentation. The Graphics Class Libraries for MFC are add-on products for the companies main software.
• Adobe Premier 4.2 software for combining video, audio, animation, and graphics (MAC and Windows). Download "tryout copy" at Web address above.
• Aimtech's Jamba, a Java applet development software environment can be downloaded for a 30 day free evaluation from site above.
• Object Design's ObjectStore PSE, an object oriented database, using a persistent engine in JAVA, can store objects and applets so that client information can be stored between sessions. The PRO version is the full commercial version. Free Java and C++ versions can be downloaded from site above.
• Asymetrix's TOOLBOX II is an authoring tol that allows conversion of an application directly into HTML and JAVA. For development of interactive learning applications and courseware of all kinds. A free trial CD can be ordered at the site above.
• Quark's QuarkImmedia is a software package for muliple media development (CDROM, Internet, etc). A free demo package can be ordered from site above.
• Innovus' Multimedia is a software evnironment for development of multimedia material. Free wrking CD is available by calling 1-800-248-ASAP.
  
  

• December 4, 1996
• SAS Institute's Data Warehousing software (OLAP, multidimensional analysis, data mining, data visualization, etc). Free CDROM available by request from Web Site above.
  
  
• November 21, 1996
• Software Future Design, Inc's Quovis Browser , a WEB browser. Demo version downloadable from above site.
• Borland's Intrabuilder, software for databases and the WEB.

• Visit Borland ) for evaluation copy.
  
  
• November 21, 1996
• Mercury Interactive Corp.
  Astra 1.0 Beta is a Web site management tool, allowing you go graphically visualize an overall Web site and analyze activities on the Web site. (PC Week, Nov. 11, 1996, p. 88)
• InContext Corp.
  WebAnalyzer 2.0beta is another Web site management tool, rated less strong by PC Week magazine than Astra 1.0 Beta above. (PC Week, Nov. 11, 1996, p. 88)
• Symantec Corp.
  Visual Cafe "Preview 2 beta is an upgrade of the Visual Cafe JAVA development system. (PC Week, Nov. 11, 1996, p. 77).
• Adobe Systems, Inc.
  Adobe Acrobat Reader is a must and should be a basic component of your browser (and PC system in general) in order to read the popular acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) files.
• Americal Online Corp
  AOLpress is a Web editor, given high marks in PC Week (Nov. 11, 1996).
• WinZip.
  WinZip is an intuitive archiving utility supporting a wide variety of compression data types (PC).

E. Other Web Sites Related to Computer-Based Education

April 14, 1997: K-12 Web Education Sites:

• University of Minnesota project with Hillside Elementary School.
• Alaska: North Pole Middle School.
• American high School: Dade County, Florida. Cyberspace scavenger hunts.
• Wentworth Media's Classroom Connect: lesson plans, pointers to libraries and museums, etc.
  
• NASA's Teachers Online project for K-12 education.
• Web66: University of Minnesota program to help public school educators set up their own servers and find appropriate resources on the Web. Provides links to seeral US and foreign schools.
• Cyber High School: Program developed by John DeGrazia-Sanders adn Geoffrey Foley. See also the related FAQ sit.

January 30, 1997

• Digital Studio's Task Force Online Investigations, part of the Cyberlearning Collection Web site, offers college-level projects that encourage students to solve real-life environmental problems on the Web. (THE Journal, Jan 97).
• ComputerPREP's "Web@ssesser" is a skill assessment test (multiple choice, true/false, or fill-in-the-blank) that can be customized, administered, graded, analyzed, and centrally archived over the Web. ComputerPREP Inc., Phoenix, AZ. 800-228-1027. (THE Journal, Jan 97).
• T.H.E. Journal home page. This journal, free to qualified educators, provides monthly coverage of products and various programs related to computer-based education. Monthly overview of experiences at K-12 and college programs.
• Academic Systems Interactive Mathematics is a series of instructor-mediated learning courses, presently offering Algebra 1, 2, and 3 for college students. Academic Systems. (415)694-6850. (THE Journal. Jan 97).

F. Representative Distance Learning Sites

Examples of Distance Learning Sites

• California State University : Intro to Circuit Analysis site.
• California Polytechnic State University: MultiMedia Research Projects (MMRP). This is an interesting student-organized set of projects, demonstrating the integration of students into the development of visualization-based Web sites, in this case including MMRP's use of head-mounted displays.
• Clarkson University electronics course site.
• Georgia Tech course on "Hypermedia"
• Georgia Institute of Technology: Course on multimedia.
• University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Calculus Course
• University of Illinois @ Champaign-Urbana Integrated Circuit Site
• Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Their Interactive Multimedia Distribution System (IMDS) project provides a large collection of videos distributed over the Web, illustrating a mature, Web-based video delivery system.
• University of Maine Multimedia Site
• Mississippi State University's virtual reality Web page . Network accessed modules (including interactive modules) providing computationally intensive generation of visualization images on the server, downloaded to the student's computer, are expected to become increasingly important in Web-based learning technologies. This site provides a strong example of the effective use of such techniques in visualization techniques applied to education by the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation at Mississippi State University.
• North Carolina State University Multimedia Web page. Web-based technology for providing video of individuals at the two ends of a Web link.
• Northeastern University NSF Colaboratory Project
• University of Oregon: The Physics Dept. has developed significant distance learning course material, with considerable WEB-based course material directly accessible. Two sites (site 1 and site 2) are interesting sites for their impact.
• Vanderbilt University's Engineering Education Program
• Vanderbilt Electronic Lab Simulator
• Virginia Commonwealth University: Depts of English and of Foreign Languages
  This calculus course was developed by J. Uhl, Dept. of Mathematics. This example is interesting since students recommended discarding the lectures, using selective meeting to discuss problems but otherwise relying on use of the computer-based tools for the course.
  

Resources, tutorials, etc

• A vast number of Web sites providing resources, tutorials, and other assistance to educators have emerged . The University of Minnesota provides a representative site.
• Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis demonstrates the Interactive Multimedia Distribution System (IMDS), providing a large collection of videos distributed over the Web.
• Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis demonstrates the Web-based delivery of audio using the IMDS system.