Networking expands learning

For Halloween last year, David Herman, chairperson of the music department, improvised organ music on the new 1,234-pipe tracker organ in Bayard Sharp Hall, to accompany ghost stories spun live from the stage of the Rialto Center in Atlanta. The organ and concert hall are brand new to campus, and so is the high performance network, Internet2, which enables "streaming" of the music and stories in "real time."

It was as if Herman in Delaware and the folklorist in Atlanta were on stage together.

Around the same time, a columnist for the student newspaper asked the University last fall for "a pause in the growth of its online capabilities." Not bad enough that students have private baths, kitchenettes, cable TV, even air-conditioning, he wrote, but must there be direct network connections to their desks? "No wonder the halls...are quiet at night!" Students chat with each other and socialize from behind computer screens. His roommate chats online sometimes with as many as six other students at once. What's happened to just hanging out?

The Office of Admissions staff reports that in fall 2000, 85 percent of the new freshmen used e-mail when they applied for admission. This should not be surprising for an up-and-coming group of young people today, when we know that more than half the households in the country have personal computers. But, it is a new phenomenon--a big change--a legacy of the '90s.

It seems like only yesterday, in 1991, that the University boldly--among the first in the country-- announced that any and all students could use its e-mail for work or play. Initially, a few hundred students took up the offer, and computing technology staff breathlessly wondered what they might have to do to control or limit the students' use of e-mail. Today, the notion of a student using the network "too much" makes as little sense as a student using the library too much.

The number of students who wanted e-mail grew from this meager beginning in 1992, to 25 percent the next year and to almost 50 percent by 1994. By 1998, all of the University's students used e-mail, regularly, and not just to chat with their friends. Almost 100 percent said they used e-mail to talk to their instructors.

The members of the Class of 2004 are not excited about e-mail; they simply expect it. It is a necessary part of their lives. They surely admire the campus brick paths, parks and malls, but they take for granted the miles of network that lie beneath, which they use in every part of their lives as University students.

Theirs are not the fond memories of "summers from hell" shared by the network engineers and technicians. During the long, hot months of 1992 and 1993, they ran miles and miles of fiber optic and copper cable and installed hundreds of hubs and switches to build a campus network that connects every dorm room, faculty office, classroom (down to the desktop in some of them), every nook and cranny of the library, the student centers and offices of all staff and administrators to one another and to the Internet beyond.

The accomplishment won the University national recognition in 1994 when it was the recipient of the CAUSE award for Excellence in Networking. As a "model" for campus networking, the University has hosted hundreds of visitors from the U.S. and foreign universities, and UD representatives have traveled to many places to tell Delaware's story. The May 2000 issue of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine ranked the University of Delaware second among "America's Most Wired Colleges."

The motivating idea was to make the campus network available everywhere and free to everyone at the University, says Susan J. Foster, vice president for information technologies. It should not and would not be necessary to first justify a need for the network. The network should be available to students and staff, just as electricity is available--everywhere. Its mere existence would enable anyone to explore and create uses for fast, efficient communication and access to a world of information.

No one, it seems, has rejected the offer.

In 2000-01, more than 90 percent of the students brought personal computers to campus. Students' top priorities on move-in days in September are getting set up with telephones, VCRs and refrigerators, of course, and network connections--right away.

The students seem "obsessed" with using the network, according to Carol Anderer, manager for Information Technologies-User Services. In past years, a student might try to get to the head of the line for help in connecting to the network with claims of e-mailing a professor. This year, they made no pretenses. Life without the Internet is unthinkable.

A team of 20 students, Residence Hall Computer Consultants (RCCs) spent the early weeks of the fall 2000 semester making the rounds of students' rooms, helping to get their personal computers connected with full Internet access, trying to accommodate the vast and urgent demand. Each student is given a CD, which walks them through the process of connecting and installing anti-virus software (made available at no cost to the student through a University "site" software license), but many of them have questions and need some extra help.

The RCC program is in its third year. "Having more help available in the residence halls--where the students do most of their computing--is essential," says Leila Lyons, director, Information Technologies-User Services. "Further, since all the RCCs live in the residence halls themselves, they are particularly attuned to the needs of the students whom they are helping."

Students who live in off-campus housing have free access to the campus network through a robust dial-in service. This year, new modems were added to it, and several popular off-campus residences contracted with the University for extensions of the campus network to their locations.

Students also make heavy use of more than 900 computers available in 27 sites across campus. Lines form at "express" computers in between classes as they check their e-mail messages. There is definitely no lack of communication among students. And, while they wait, they get that chance to hang out.

When the 1990s began, the University aggressively addressed the need and its desire for students to be competent in information technologies--to be computer-literate.

"Will you be managing a far-flung global company? Will you be composing music or directing movies? Will you be a commercial artist or a journalist? You will want to know how information technologies are used in these careers or others you may choose," members of the Computing Resource Planning Committee wrote in their Final Report in September 1990.

The University made e-mail and the Internet available to all students, negotiated discount price agreements with computer vendors, initiated an online information system, "U-Discover!," provided a Touch-Tone interactive voice system for students to register for courses and equipped classrooms with data and video outlets.

A handful of faculty became pioneers in incorporating instruction in the use of information technologies in their classes. The introductory writing course, E110, built a computer lab and taught the marvels of word processing. The College of Agriculture and Natural Resouces taught word processing, spread sheets and e-mail in introductory courses.

A Student Computing Initiative Committee began a yearly survey to track the success of the University's endeavors to make the student body computer literate. By 1993-94, UD knew that 37 percent of the students owned a personal computer and 42 percent used e-mail. Two years later, the number of students owning a personal computer crept up to 43 percent, although 85 percent of them used e-mail. As the new millennium began, 96 percent of the freshmen brought personal computers to campus and 98 percent said they used e-mail.

Students who wanted to use the network connections in residence halls were very few at first--200 in 1993. The number increased to 800 and 1,600 in the next two years and to 4,500 in the fall of 1996.

When they graduated, students in the Class of 2000 had learned, in many ways, how information technologies are an integral part of their daily lives. The Class of 2004 came to campus already very sure of this, and the University was ready for the challenge.

Faculty members are as eager as the students to connect to the campus network. They post their course syllabi on web pages, link to texts the students should read, post lecture notes and sometimes old exams; they set up forums online; and they exchange e-mail messages with their students.

They are actively involved in new approaches to learning--problem-based learning and self-paced learning. Many of them are discovering that information technologies let them change their ways of teaching while improving students' academic performance.

Francis Doyle, professor of chemical engineering, says that using the World Wide Web in his classes "fostered an atmosphere of community." He was able to provide "a richer, more interactive learning environment." His "Muddiest Point Forum" invited students to tell him about these in e-mail--so he could shed light in the next class.

Charlene Hamilton, professor of nutrition and dietetics, used electronic bulletin boards as an active learning strategy. Her large lecture classes had discussion sessions online, posting and responding to questions. She says she wanted the personal interaction this allowed.

George Watson, Unidel Professor of Physics and Astronomy, wanted to "take students out of passive listening to a lecture mode." His students interacted with computers, each other and their instructor, developing valuable skills, "effective communication, mastery of analytical thinking, team work, independent learning and strategies for making the best use of all available resources."

More and more faculty are "web-streaming," not just delivering, their lectures. Students can listen and watch in the classroom or from as far away as Seattle--or, in fact, from anywhere in the world. The lectures are preserved--jokes, solid substance and all--on the web. Students have their instructors' live performances to rerun and study, when and where they want.

Instructors want their students to talk to them and to their classmates, to express their ideas, to discuss and criticize ideas, to ask questions and to try to find out the answers. They say that they enjoy this kind of teaching and that their students are proving to be good learners in these kinds of active, social environments. Personal contact and socializing are essential, they believe, to learning.

"We want Delaware students to be active learners," says Mel Schiavelli, provost from 1994-2001, who advocated a "partnership" between faculty and students, so that teaching isn't a matter of pouring information into passive heads but helping students to learn inside and outside the classroom. "It places the burden on the students' shoulders," he says.

"Information technology is one of the tools that can make this happen," Schiavelli says. The task technologies have is to create learning environments that reflect their own personal styles and the methods of their particular disciplines in order to mold students into active learners.

Outside the classroom and off the campus, Janna Zinzi, AS 2001, spent last summer making personal contact with New York City radio personalities and other celebrities when she was hired as a summer intern for WKTU 103.5, known as "The Beat of New York." In an interview with the student newspaper, she said that she is most proud of a press release she wrote for a "Survivor Party at Planet Hollywood, New York." She found the job opportunity by browsing the web, "spending hours online."

Students looking for job opportunities closer to home can browse a recently renovated web page published by the University's MBNA Career Services Center. Lynn Jacobson, coordinator for career services, says students can find part-time jobs, internships and career opportunities with greater ease on the new web page, which was designed to be organized, aesthetically pleasing and functional. Campus departments seeking student help, such as Public Safety, the library and IT units, use the web page to post a wide variety of jobs.

Students also can create their re´sume´s from this web page by completing a form, which is then sent to a databank, organized by major and posted on the site for employers to view.

"What have you done to help students lately?" is a question that has become something of a mantra for staff at the University. But, it was first an eye-opener when David Roselle asked it 10 years ago as new president of the University. He was determined that the campus would be a friendly place for students--student-centered.

This rallying cry resulted in the campus network that is everywhere available to everyone and in a myriad of online services, like the posting of job opportunities. The network and the web of information and services on top of it have tamed the bureaucratic snarls of campus life.

In 1992, staff from the offices of the registrar, cashier, financial aid and accounts receivable joined hands in a new Student Services Building to provide "one-stop shopping" for students. Connected by the network to necessary records, files and other resources, staff streamlined the tasks that students face in conducting their campus business. Students no longer had to traipse from building to building to find each of the particular offices they needed.

Still, the geographic constraint existed. They had to walk the brick paths to get to the Student Services Building. And, building hours were restricted by staff's Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule.

Today, everyone does University business online, starting with students who apply for admission.

When the online form was first made available two years ago, a handful of applicants used it. Last year 1 in 6 applicants used the web form.

On "move-in" day, students can use the web to look at their options for dining plans, to check their course schedules, to drop and add courses, to purchase textbooks and supplies at the University Bookstore, to find a problem-solver through the Student Problem-solving Action Network (SPAN), to bone up on rules and regulations in the Official Student Handbook, to take the Electronic Community Citizenship Exam and set up their UD e-mail address, or, maybe, to find out about welcoming festivities and the football schedule.

Once classes start, students and faculty can locate the books they need from the library using DELCAT, the online catalog that was first made available in 1990, in a simple text format. Last fall, the library announced as a source of great pride that circulation is down, thanks to more than 7,000 electronic journals and newspapers and more than 170 networked databases easily linked to on the web. Gregg Silvis, assistant director for library computing systems, reports that the number of "hits" on the library web site reached 17 million in 2000.

When the semester is over, students listen to their grades, as they come in, from a voice synthesizer. And, they check online to find out what books they should return to the library or to renew them, if necessary.

As Commencement approaches in the spring, graduating seniors can click on one link that lists the many things they will need to do and points them to the right source for help--from contacting a faculty adviser to ordering a cap and gown.

The University's web page acquired a new look 3 years ago, and now is about to project a newer, better image. The web page identifies a variety of audiences--students, prospective and current, visitors, alumni, faculty and staff. Each audience has a tailored set of links suited to the services and information it needs. Visitors to the site need not concern themselves with organizational names to find what they need.

In the mid-1990s, U-Discover, a prize-winning campus-wide information system, made a great deal of information available online. But, Carl Jacobson, director of Management Information Services, describes this early effort as "chaotic as a shantytown." Awaiting its debut in the wings is a new "UD and Me" web page.

It will identify and address the specific needs of each person in each audience, Jacobson says. It will be "an institutional information portal," displaying many "channels" of information, such as, "my course schedule, today's assignments, my financial aid status." He thinks of the new web service as a "personalized or pocket-sized" version of the campus web.

What's more, it will allow a student to tailor his page with preferred forums, chats and calendars. He could check his friends' calendars to see who was free to go to a movie Friday night. Jacobson calls these "communities of interest." The web will be connecting people with people.

The award-winning network, now 7 years old, is feeling its age and the inevitable results of its excellence. The University has funded a $2.1 million project to upgrade the campus network. Dan Grim, executive director of Network and Systems Services, says the core, or backbone, is being replaced with a multi-layer switched infrastructure that will run about 16 times faster than the current core. The LAN (local area networks) that connect individual buildings and departments to the core will use gigabit Ethernet, 100 times faster than the current connections.

Looking beyond the bounds of campus, the University has joined a new initiative. It is one of 36 universities that are charter members of the Internet2 initiative, the focus of the University Corp. for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). One year ago, the campus network used a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to connect to Abilene, a high-performance, world-wide network that transmits data more than 10 times faster than the Internet.

The Internet2 project is using high-performance networks like Abilene and vBNS as laboratories to develop a network that will accommodate an astronomical increase in demand for service in the near future, while enabling new types of network service such as "streaming" video and audio transmission. The Bayard Sharp Hall/Atlanta performance was efficiently "multicast" over the network, just to designated points. This is different from a broadcast of a program, which would transmit to every point on the network. Unlike e-mail, which sends a copy of a message to each person on its mail list, the multicast performance efficiently sent the one, live performance to many.

Among the many teams of researchers at the University who will use Abilene in their work, Kenneth Barner, associate professor of electrical and chemical engineering, wants to transmit video images of messages in sign language; Xiao-Han Yan, professor of marine studies, needs to receive information about atmospheric circulation and the climate to simulate ocean conditions; and Murray V. Johnston III, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, will invite researchers across the country to "use" his laboratory's extensive collection of mass spectrometers.

The vast amount of data that applications like these will send over the network and the anticipated increase in use of the Internet by the general public is going to make the recent yearly doubling of traffic seem modest, says Susan J. Foster, vice president of information technologies.

"Without the network, I'd be dead in the water," a graduate student was heard mumbling this fall as she "attached" the umpteenth version of her dissertation proposal--including links to graphs and illustrations on her personal web page--to an e-mail to her professor. But, a morbid sense of humor is part of life for graduate students. Perhaps, she took some time on Halloween to delight in the spooky music and ghost stories coming together somewhere out in cyberspace--and get a glimpse of the future possibilities for electronic communication.