In this Internet era, we have witnessed the exciting convergence of content, technology, and global collaboration. Today, the academe, faculty and students benefit from access to the rich contents and treasured resources of many higher education institutions and organizations both in the U.S. and internationally. The old model of "owning" a collection or site has given way to "sharing," and the new emphases have shifted from the large "physical libraries" to "virtual libraries" all over the world.

Ching-chih Chen will share some of her own experiences in all these areas and transformations - from the creation of her award-winning interactive videodisc and multimedia CD-ROM, called The First Emperor of China, created in mid- and late-1980s, to her current international digital library project, called Chinese Memory Net, supported by the US National Science Foundation. She will also review her latest project, the China-US Million Book Digital Library Project, for which she is a co-PI with Dr. Raj Reddy of Carneige Mellon University, and is in cooperation with twelve well-known universities in China under the joint sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, the Chinese Ministry of Education, and high-tech industry.

This working session will allow attendees from educational digital libraries to discuss issues around sharing peer reviews and user profiles between collections. This working session will lead to the development of a draft specification to which collection providers can build systems to test sharing of peer reviews and user profiles. This workshop is intended for those with well-established collections of digital resources with associated peer reviews.

HTML-eZ is an evolving alternative to commercial products like WebCT or Blackboard. eZ is a homegrown course management system that is easy to use and does not require special training. Come see how easy it is to maintain class web sites. Instructors who use it actually say it's fun!

This program will demonstrate techniques and strategies to evaluate Internet resources for accessibility for students with disabilities. Attendees will get hands-on experience in reviewing Internet sites, identifying potential access errors, and using tools and resources to improve accessibility for all students.

Institutions that evolve successful online learning initiatives, always support multiple discussion groups and fora such as ad hoc online pedagogy and digital technologies research groups, courseware developers discussion forum, etc. These diverse initiatives invariably generate conflicting alternate pathways for IT growth and development. This presentation provides a look at two concurrently evolving learnware initiatives in an institution which has increasingly embraced the integration of instructional technologies and learning object development.

We've all seen and/or used course tools such as CourseInfo or WebCT. Wouldn't it be great to have a similar tool to do our collaboration, research and administrative duties at home and across the world? Work Tools, a free UM resource, also contains push-pull technology where you have control over what you see and when you see it.

The CSU, Long Beach Center for Usability in Design and Assessment (CUDA) provides usability services to improve the design and implementation of the MERLOT software. The role and outcomes of user testing, content analysis of communications, and task analyses within the MERLOT project will be presented.

Sydney  2:

Our understanding of the affordances and constraints of online, asynchronous teaching and learning is still emergent. While we have a relatively systematized body of knowledge about how people learn in traditional settings, we know less about higher education and even less about higher-education online learning. This presentation will provide a framework for considering high quality, internet-based, asynchronous teaching and learning. The primary goal of the presentation will be to propose a broader perspective regarding online learning environments and the place of learning materials and objects, such as those contained in MERLOT, within such environments.

London/Zurich  3:

The production and sharing of quality electronic instructional modules (learning objects) presents educators with numerous challenges. This presentation follows the development of video-based American Sign Language learning objects created for a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee distance education course, from development for the Web through adaptability for handhelds, CD-ROM, and knowledge repositories.

Authoring e-Learning Content for Reuse, Repurpose and Adaptive Delivery
Ian Dolphin, University of Hull

E-Learning content should adapt to engage learners and enable tutors to effectively use their personal pedagogical approach. This can be accomplished by developing reusable adaptable learning objects which comply with evolving interoperability specifications. These interactive objects stored in repositories encourage the development of collaboration, community, best practice and reuse.

Will Faculty Members Donate Materials to Online Libraries? A Qualitative Study
Sebastian Uijtdehaage, UCLA
Chris Candler, University of Oklahoma
Sharon Dennis, University of Utah

The success of digital libraries depends on the willingness of educators to share their innovative materials. Unfortunately, many are reluctant to contribute their assets. We will present a national study investigating the obstacles that thwart the free exchange of educational resources and the incentives that can be created.

We invite undergraduate science faculty to come and tell us about their teaching practices, professional development interests, and assumptions about digital libraries. This session will give users a forum to share information so that the NSDL can be tailored to meet their specific needs.

Information Literacy

The purposes of this session are to trace the changing nature of and perspectives on resource use, to describe the overarching structures of resource-based learning environments (RBLEs), and to identify key challenges. We will describe and illustrate how RBLEs can be created and implemented within a higher education context.

A central challenge of providing support to students in an online environment is in getting them to actually access resources provided by the instructor and other support providers. The presenters will discuss an online resource designed with the intent of developing student competencies in the the key areas of computer skills, library access, and online learning strategies with enough "intrinsic value" that students (and instructors) return to the resource repeatedly, without prompting.

The Library Tutorials for Argument Essay Research are Web based, interactive modules designed to teach basic information retrieval and evaluation skills to freshman composition students. Three independent tutorials introduce the search features of book, journal, and newspaper databases and challenge students to evaluate the text of books, journals and newspapers for relevance, authority, objectivity, and timeliness in support of a logical argument. Online quizzes display results immediately and e-mail a copy to the librarian. Librarian/faculty collaboration, tutorial assessment, and lessons learned will be discussed. http://www.de2.psu.edu/faculty/saw4/moyer/argument.html.

Developing MERLOT Discipline Communities

MERLOT has 13 discipline communities within the MERLOT project. There are many discipline areas that need developing to better serve our academic communities. The presentation will review the criteria and processes for establishing new MERLOT Discipline Communities. Participants’ questions about the services MERLOT can provide them in this cooperative endeavor will be addressed.

K-16 Models of Integration

The South Dakota project, LOFTI, is a K-16 partnership of state agencies, public universities, and school districts formed to improve teaching and learning through the integration of technology. The panel presenters will focus on approaches SD educators have used to develop curriculum, promote professional development, and establish statewide structures.

This session highlights ICON, a unique NSF-funded digital library collection for technology and innovation content resources. Presentation will describe the use of national K-12 content standards to develop controlled vocabulary and metadata, collection attributes, and the relationship of ICON to the NSDL. Special emphasis will be placed on current and future applications of ICON for faculty, K-12 formal and informal educators, and other users of innovation and technology content.

This proposal describes Lessons Learned in (1) implementing a model of integration and wide dissemination of MERLOT Learning Objects in K-16 schools in Louisiana and (2) the procedural development of multimedia learning objects for science and mathematics education targeting K-16 schools.

Multimedia and the Future of Teaching and Learning

This presentation will present the results from an assessment of the use of multimedia in teaching. Teaching two groups of students by alternating lecture and multimedia methods revealed conflicting results. Data were analyzed statistically and perceptions studied. A trend to better performance in quizzes using multimedia in one topic was noted, but lecture was superior in another. This was reversed on the exam. Reasons are discussed.

This paper discusses two Math Forum projects, the ESCOT (Educational Software Components of Tomorrow) project and the OMP (Online Mentoring Project). The projects illustrate some of the ways the Math Forum leverages the potential of the digital library for individual learning. Further the paper underscores the creative ways the Math Forum has pursued these goals by rethinking what it means to scale and sustain an online education community.

The Semantic Web promises a new form of web content that will be “meaningful” to computers. What is the relation between this “meaning” and what people do when they learn? Will a semantic web make possible “learning environments” as suggested for the National Science Digital Library? Are there objective criteria for measuring knowledge so that we can speak directly to “knowledge growth” and “knowledge transfer” without invoking blue ribbon review panels? I would like to try out a vision for personalized learning environments, concept space management, and a new marketplace that would support knowledge growth through science and subsidize learning for all ages.

Blackboard - Beyond the Manual!

How do I release an exam for makeup after expiration? How can I implement HTML pages without learning code? How do I keep students from accessing and sharing exam feedback after the exam? How can I effectively use the communications tools? These and other helpful "tricks" will be demostrated in tis audience interactive session.

Managing the Peer Review Process
*By invitation only*

The MERLOT project has developed an online peer review tool to facilitate the extremely important efforts of our editorial boards and reviewers. This tool is both tightly integrated with the MERLOT database and coordinated with the review process from the initial entry of items onto MERLOT to the final letters of recognition to reviewed authors. The goals for this tool are to streamline the review process, remove redundant information creation and entry, facilitate communications with authors, and maintain a history of the reviews. In this workshop, we will introduce the basic functionalities of the online peer review tool and provide a hands-on experience with the peer review process for the participants. We will also be soliciting comments and discussion from the participants to help in the future development of the peer review tool.

This hands-on workshop session will share the functionality and the creativity of Macromedia Flash as an interactive learning tool. Macromedia Flash is a vector-based animation and authoring tool used for the Internet. Faculty will learn and apply basic tools to create an animation for their courses.

Introduction to LTAs; Linking Them with MERLOT Resources

This workshop will introduce Faculty Leaders and Academic Support Professionals to specific Low Threshold Applications (LTAs)-easy-to-use instructional applications of information technologies (including Flashlight Online). We will explore ways of linking LTA and Merlot resources online,especially in ways that support local professional development programs. Workshop participants may learn to find, develop, describe, use, and compare LTAs; and use Flashlight Online to develop related surveys. Participants may begin/expand their own collections of LTAs and examine several models for LTA-based institution-wide professional development programs. Early registrants may be invited to participate in related online activities.

Overview of the MERLOT Vineyard

The MERLOT project provides a wide range of products and services for the academic community. The presentation will review the MERLOT’s programs, cooperative governance processes, levels of participation, peer review processes, software development processes, and sustainability plans. Assessment processes and findings will also be reviewed.

Strategies for using MERLOT to Achieve Recognition of Digital Scholarship

How can MERLOT serve as a mechanism for both immediate faculty development strategies and for the long-term recognition of digital scholarship? Can faculty who are teaching with, authoring for, and/or reviewing learning objects build evidence for their promotion and tenure portfolios?

Ask Dr. Science: Enhancing Learning With Interactivity

The laboratory components of many biology courses present special challenges to students. A properly designed website can address these problems by making annotated images of laboratory materials available for study, review and self-testing. These materials can also be copied to CD-ROM and distributed to students for very little cost.

Integrating Internet and field lab experiences facilitates teaching 'science in context'. Several Environmental Science courses at Illinois College utilize internet data bases combined with student collected field data to help students realize the significance of their experiments. In addition, students can collect specimens or data from the field, then use the internet to find reference specimens, identify species, and gather background information. Several examples with handouts of labs and internet sites utilized in various Environmental Science courses will be presented.

A Java Applet and an on-line tutorial designed to introduce and discuss the Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel Methods will be presented. The Applet allows the user to experiment with the methods for 2 x 2 systems of equations, and to observe the results both numerically and visually.

Assessing Online Learning

Students were guided AND assessed via a detailed qualitative and quantitative rubric using Project-Based Technology and MERLOT as a major resource. Graduate students at the University of Belize assessed the same products. Half of the graduate students reviewed without a rubric and half with a rubric. Statistical analysis will be discussed.

Come take a look at a remarkable solution to the problem of incorporating technology competencies in program development, the successful partnership between the Georgia DOE standards and resources Web site for teachers and the Education department at a large university. Learn how to use this online treasure with pre-service teachers!

This presentation focuses on the genesis of WebCT usage in an engineering environment. Experimental development of extended course content in four Materials Science courses, beginning in the spring of 2001, produced measurable improvement in student performance.

This session demonstrates the use of MERLOT at the National University of Rwanda (NUR) in East Africa. It is intended to increase the awareness of Merlot contributors to the potential reach of their contributions.

Use of the Internet for learning has exploded in nursing education yet with this use come added demands on the faculty. These demands stem from the additional time and workload of teaching with technology. One of the demands is finding appropriate online learning objects. Although the web has endless sites and information to draw from, faculties need learning objects that are of high quality, easy to access and relevant to online teaching. This presentation will discuss the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) and the use of learning objects found on this site for teaching in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. Learning objects in this repository are of high quality. Besides relevance and content each of the learning objects are also identified as to what kind of learning material this is i.e.: animation, presentation, and collection reference material, quiz or tutorial. Each object also has listed the procedures for using the material, any technical requirements for using it and an evaluation of the quality of the material. To easily access the material for users, a subject categorization scheme is present. Discussion and demonstration of the health sciences site will be shown with examples of how the learning objects are used in different nursing courses and programs.

Peer Review

MERLOT is a Web-based open resource for locating relevant learning materials of high quality. The resources in MERLOT include learning materials as well as sample assignments, discipline panel peer reviews and individual user reviews. This paper describes how two graduate classes have evaluated some of the MERLOT materials in the Information Technology category.

Instructional design students use Merlot's evaluation criteria and our usability guidelines to analyze sites in a selected content area. They compare their reports to that of official reviewers and discuss their findings with class members. This activity provides scaffolding for the metacognitive skills and reflective practice students engage while designing, developing and evaluating their own on-line materials.

This practical session, presented by co-editors from the MERLOT Business and World Languages boards, will include tips and tricks on the recruitment, training and mentoring of external peer reviewers. Tested training materials panleas well as lessons learned will be shared in a presentation that should appeal to editors and potential external reviewers alike.

This presentation will demonstrate the University System of Georgia's website to promote the Sharing of Content Online for University Teaching (SCOUT). At SCOUT, anyone can preview and USG faculty can adopt certain USG instructional resources including the four eCore™ courses that were awarded Exemplary Course status by WebCT in 2001.

Tool Time: Media and Interactivity

This presentation attempts to make the case that student-content interactivity in online learning is critical to the quality and effectiveness of that experience. Furthermore, it will assert that the best tools to use in authoring such interactive materials are based upon or can be contained within the QuickTime media architecture.

Streaming media as a resource for curriculum requires an instructor with excellent content, students with computer assessability, quality video capture and compression, robust streaming media server, efficient media database, simple-to-use delivery tools and sweat equity. Combine these ingredients correctly to bolster curriculum with rich and enjoyable resources.

As part of a curriculum development project, learning objects that focused on diversity and tolerance were identified and used as supplemental materials to teach about cognitive biases and stereotyping. A pretest-posttest survey was administered to assess the efficacy of the learning objects in enhancing students' awareness of cognitive biases and use of stereotypes. Survey results indicated that the use of learning objects compiled at a web project sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center effectively supplemented and expanded a curriculum teaching about cognitive biases and stereotyping.

Gender & Science Digital Library: Equity and Excellence in STEM Education

The Gender & Science Digital Library from Education Development Center, Inc., is a unique collection that aims to transform science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, by bringing together the best of research and practice in gender and STEM, and enabling educators to develop the science skills of all students, particularly women.

We will present how our collaboration between North Carolina and New England worked to address issues identified during course development and the first semester the course was offered. Topics include: 1) the learning management system, 2) studentsí technology skill deficits, 3) facilitating online discussions, and 4) working at a distance.

Participants in this session will learn how an English professor and a librarian worked together to solve the problems associated with research assignments in an online class. Particular attention will be placed on the success of the online orientation. The presenters will also discuss the overall structure of the online course, the various pitfalls encountered over the past four years, and the approaches used to correct them.

Collaboration and teamwork among nursing educators is a benchmark of the nursing program at our college. Team teaching is commonly used in the traditional classroom setting but had not been tried in a Web course. Two years ago nursing faculty decided to develop and teach an on-line pharmacology course to provide more flexibility for our non-traditional nursing students. We believed that pharmacology could be easily developed and taught in WebCT format. Also, we knew that the integration of technology into the nursing curriculum would better prepare our students to function in a society driven by technology.

This session will highlight essential elements for faculty to use when creating online assignments/activities for their students. The presenter will discuss her experience in adding assignments to MERLOT on an individual basis, as well as share handouts outlining tricks and tips for others to begin designing their own online assignments.

How can Flash learning objects for Merlot best be created and deployed to realize the learning-centered classroom? The presenter shares his experience in creating customized learning objects for conventional and online courses. He shows how, with public domain software, Flash learning objects can be delivered in several creative placeholders to realize their active learning potential.

The importance of streamlining the production of e-learning materials and increasing their quality has recently resulted in a number of valuable tools for constructing e-courses, learning objects, and electronic textbooks. These "authoring tools" are designed to meet these needs and to integrate, rather than compete, with course management systems.

Online Modular Educational Resources can be used in several different types of courses, and in several different ways. These difference are discussed in terms of the type of materials, the teaching and learning strategies, the academic bureaucracies, and evaluation techniques.

Ethnographic (participant observation) research on a week-long summer institute offering college professors training in multimedia technology to promote innovative teaching and learning strategies. The author reviews literature on skill and expertise to propose strategies for helping experts deal with anxieties they encounter when positioned as novices in these summer institutes.

The problem of engaging students lead to a collaboration resulting in web projects that (re)constructed teaching and learning for both instructors and students. The projects created new levels of community and challenges to construct verbal/visual meaning and understanding. Presenters will discuss pedagogical strategies, assessment, and provide samples of student projects.

LEADTech (Louisiana Educational Advancement and Development with Technology) is a multi-faceted, long-term technology leadership initiative that prepares school principals and district superintendents with an in-depth understanding of the role of instructional technology as it relates to total school improvement and increased student learning.

The role of the educator is shifting. Active learning has replaced the traditional model of passive (listening to lectures) learning. The student becomes the "driver of the car," following the map created by the teacher. This is especially the case in online learning, but internationally, students are reluctant to take the wheel. This presentation discusses implementation of techniques to encourage active learning.

The workshop will introduce faculty to educational digital libraries, including MERLOT and SMETE.ORG, and will provide a set of processes and methods to help them select appropriate e-learning materials for use by their students.

Who's Out There? Building Community Through Recommendations

This working session will introduce the recommender service developed by the SMETE Open Federation digital library at www.smete.org. Participants will have the opportunity to "test-drive" the service and join in a discussion on the potential value of the service to MERLOT and how it could be used to grow communities.

This highly interactive workshop gives an overview of usability engineering; a design process that involves users at various stages to ensure that the final product meets their needs efficiently and effectively. Participants will divide into groups and assume different roles as they participate in a usability study of an educational resource.

This session will focus on the future technical directions for the MERLOT software, including the OCSK. The need for changing the technical platform for MERLOT is critical to the continued expansion of user needs and user customization. The different choices and trade-offs/consequences of these choices will be discussed.

MERLOT is developing tools to help partner institutions and organizations take better advantage of the services MERLOT provides them. The Partner Reserve will be an upgraded "Tasting Room" for institutional partners providing easy access to the faculty development tools, presentations and other information to help them help the various constituencies that they represent. The Collaboration Finder, a brand new tool to enable partners to better develop collaborations and shared projects with one another, will be briefly discussed.

MERLOT is working with a number of educational organizations, professional societies and other educational digital libraries to extend its reach in terms of content, services and members. Hear a status update on the organizational alliances currently under development and learn the process for suggesting additional organizational alliances and how to work with MERLOT to form these alliances.

The presenters will show how faculty, who are experienced in teaching with technology and, in particular, employing MERLOT learning materials, can share across private-public sector boundaries. The presenters will outline how they organized a discipline-specific symposium, tied MERLOT presentations into an overall "scholarship of teaching" theme, and encouraged faculty participation from several institutions.

The UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Collaborative, a consortium of the 16 UNC campuses, has developed a portal to support professional development related to teaching and learning with technology (http://www.unctlt.org/pdp). The portal contains a searchable knowledgebase which can be customized to the needs of individual users.

Faculty development is a critical need for MERLOT. If the teaching and learning materials in the collection are to be adopted and used effectively, professionals responsible for assisting faculty to integrate technology must be provided training. The State University of New York Teaching, Learning, and Technology Cooperative provides anytime, anywhere access to an eight-week, asynchronous, interactive, online MERLOT course to help meet this need.

GEM's provides efficient & effective access to collections of educational materials distributed across the Internet, including those from museum web sites. Attendees will become familiarized with The Gateway to Educational Materials, GEM Project, & technologies central to the project, via an interactive PowerPoint Presentation. GEM research advances will be announced.

Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a recognized group learning pedagogy that is used about 10,000 college science students each year. (http://www.pltl.org) Small study groups work through problem sets with trained student leaders for two hours each week. We are adapting existing electronic learning resources into supplemental learning objects for this pedagogical format.

Knowledge Networking: Advantages of Building Online Communities
Darrell Pearson, Troy state University
Tamarah Ashton, Cal State University, Northridge
Felicie Barnes, Grambling State University
Carl Berger, University of Michigan
Tuiren Bratina, University of North Florida
Cris Guenter, Cal State University, Chico
Sandra Jones, Troy State University, Dothan
Diane Judd, Valdosta State University
Barbara Levin, University of North Carolina
Kristi Pearce, Black Hills State University
Nancy Pelaez, Cal State University, Fullerton
Karen Smith-Gratto, North Carolina A & T
Steven Smolnik, CTDLC
Richard Staley, SUNY Oneonta
David Wicks, Seattle Pacific University

This panel will explore how Merlot and the TLT Group's Low Threshold Applications (LTAs) -- easy-to-use instructional applications of information technologies - can be used together; especially within the context of an active Student Technology Assistant Program. The audience will also be invited to explore how these ideas and resources can help to engage "almost all" the faculty in improving teaching and learning with information technology. And to do so cost-effectively within a single academic department, a single college or university, a state system, or a consortium.

Tech Camps: A Convergence of Community, Collaboration and Creativity

Are you struggling to develop ideas for workshops that not only teach faculty new technologies, but also keep them actively engaged? This session will share how to develop themes and infuse fun into workshops. Examples of fully-developed Tech Camps will be shared and participants will practice developing themes for their own campuses.

It is time for developers of physics instructional software to move to the next level -- to produce software that is ready for instructors to use for in-class active learning or as interactive homework, and that has been shown through class testing to have a positive impact upon student learning.

Simulations are potentially powerful tools for helping to increase student understanding of complex topics. This session will include some examples of different ways to use simulations, a discussion of some advantages and disadvantages, and some examples of assessments of the effectiveness of alternative learning approaches, such as simulations.

In an environment of evolving information, with constant initiatives aimed at enhancing curriculum content by using technology, we are developing web-based and video learning materials which engage students to gain experiential knowledge through interactive, individually paced learning. We are building faculty collaborations which enrich learning materials through a variety of content contributions.

Promotion and Tenure Considerations for Digital Scholarship
Scott Cooper, University of Wisconsin-la Crosse
Jim Bidlack, University of Central Oklahoma
Donald French, Oklahoma State University

MERLOT - Discovering Resources That Enhance Learning

MERLOT offers peer reviewed on-line instruction components that can readily be adopted into faculty courses. The presenters will discuss the purpose and advantages of MERLOT to teaching and learning. Participants will learn how to access and to use the MERLOT web site.

The Virtual Instructional Designer - Open 24/7

Experience how the Virtual Instructional Designer (VID) project provides 24/7 access to content, tutorials, and best practices for online instruction. The VID, funded through a Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership grant, provides just-in-time instructional design assistance for faculty designing online learning experiences.

This working session will provide the opportunity for attendees to discuss progress to date and resolve outstanding issues on the implementation of federated search mechanisms that allow distributed collections and educational digital libraries to function together as a seamless whole. This workshop is intended for well-established collection providers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education but is open to all collection providers.

From Gregor Mendel to the Human Genome Project, explore and understand the world of DNA, genes, and heredity, the basic building blocks of life on Earth. Key concepts are thoroughly explained through detailed descriptions and animations, image galleries, video interviews, biographies, relevant links, and interactive review problems. Cutting edge web design and ease of navigation also help to make this site the perfect resource for teachers, students, and anyone else with a desire to understand genetics. Author: Shirley Chan & Chun-hua Yang, et al.

Looking for a visual, interactive, and technological way to teach about physics that will make it easier for students to understand even the most complicated concepts? Physlets is a powerful collection of Java applets that create simulations for most topics in physics. Envelope-pushing programming, giving these applets unparalleled breadth and flexibility, makes Physlets a truly unique and engaging tool. Authors: Wolfgang Christian & Mario Belloni

If you are looking for a Spanish language module that incorporates all language skills—reading, writing, listening and speaking, go no further. Ojalá que llueva café provides the opportunity to teach your students how to listen to and speak Spanish. Rich, pedagogically-sound modules use multimedia to engage a variety of learning styles. The site also incorporates a real-world character, and will stimulate a deeper awareness of Dominican culture. With music, photography, and interactive exercises, Ojalá can create a vibrant context for learning in your classroom. Author: Barbara Kuczun Nelson

The MERLOT Biology Discipline Group invited colleagues to participate as external reviewers. The process paralleled procedures used by scientific journals. Reviewers were recruited and trained through personal communication, rubrics, and posted site reviews. About a dozen external reviews were successfully completed and incorporated into composite reviews posted in MERLOT.

The presenter shall give an overview of how uniform the Calculus textbook market appears. After that, the presenter will outline how MERLOT can help authors of quality, but non-canonical, textbooks to be competitive. The context will be materials for curricula that integrate mathematics, engineering and the sciences.

Web-based course preparation requires efforts beyond that of traditional instruction. By authoring an e-textbook with private funds or with publisher support just as with hardcopy-text preparation, there is a clear distinction between the (probably) university-owned course and the e-textbook as intellectual property of the professor/author.

This presentation argues for the establishment of holistic, highly interactive environments for online learning through the use of text-based virtual reality (synchronous MOO) in conjunction with free-web resources such as those provided by MERLOT. My thesis is this: in moving education online we have focused overmuch on the purely instructional variables, leaving behind important environmental/contextual variables. MOO re-asserts and re-establishes these variables and provides a glimpse of what online education may increasingly look like as we move beyond the horseless-carriage era of purely instructional models. This session includes a definition of MOO, a MOO overview, and an interactive, live demonstration of MOO being used in conjunction with MERLOT. Come see and experience the MOO + MERLOT difference!

Presentation of effective ways to exploit newer media (especially computers and the WWW) in foreign language teaching and learning settings. Examples and practical tips.

The dynamics of teaching and learning online have changed dramatically. Much discussion in distance learning focuses on its problematic nature, but it need not be so if it’s viewed as a process of accommodation, which can be taught and learned systematically. This presentation will offer design strategies for online classes that facilitate the change, increase student motivation and improve interactions through the process of accommodation.

This session will showcase a working online module on inclusive teaching. After interacting with one learning object, faculty, course coordinators, instructional designers, and instructional technologists will provide feedback for the module. Participants will also share how they utilize technology to model and teach inclusion.

How Information Literate Is Your Campus?
Marcia Mardis, Merit Network Inc.

New, next generation open course tools are just now being developed using OKI (Open Knowledge Initiative) specifications. What are features of these new tools? What will they look like? Why are they different? CheF, the next generation course tool environment at the University of Michigan, will be demonstrated as an exciting reference example.

This presentation will focus on the evolution of standards related to Learning Technology, namely SCORM, IMS, AICC and the IEEE-LTSC standards. This will be followed by a discussion on how one may easily create Online courses comprised of SCORM 1.2 conformant learning objects while also applying content to various learning styles.

DLNET is a part of an NSF initiative to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics education through a network of digital libraries. It was conceived out of the need to complement engineering and technology education at college and university levels and more importantly, to support the lifelong-learning aspirations of practicing engineers and technologists. DLNET will enable content discovery through search and retrieval of local storage as well as repositories in federated libraries. It will also provide mechanisms for submitting, reviewing, ranking, updating and validating of new and existing contents.

Providing accessible material benefits all learners, not just learners with disabilities. This session will discuss accessibility-related legal requirements for educational entities and provide real-world examples and benefits. Participants will be educated and empowered to discover the rest of the “iceberg.”

MERLOT and History: A Blueprint for the Future

This presentation represents the next step forward for the history discipline team, which has spent the last year establishing itself and beginning operations. In doing so, we have discovered that we face challenges both unique to history and shared with other discipline groups. Yet we have also found that there is an opportunity in the social sciences and humanities for MERLOT to truly establish itself as an academic and pedagogical tool. This presentation introduces our blueprint for transforming MERLOT into a key online resource for historians, history teachers, and students.

It's easy to monitor an online teacher to death, or at least to ineffectiveness. Let's examine the ways an institution can facilitate online teaching quality through technical support, pedagogical insight, specific guidelines, ready-made teaching tools – such as with MERLOT – and an inspirational academic community.

The session will elaborate on and demonstrate online learning communities, faculty/ student resources, and processes that combine to provide an extraordinary foundational support structure for faculty who teach online courses at the University of Central Florida. The session emphasizes the need for and methods of creating interactivity (i.e.; learner to learner, faculty to learner, faculty to faculty, faculty to MERLOT, faculty to university (including other universities) and faculty to Instructional Designer) and the use of learning communities to improve learning and 'connection' with both graduate and undergraduate students.

Developing online course websites, many faculty get stuck posting stagnant content that lacks interactive qualities. Our research indicates that dynamic content is one element of effective online learning environments. In this presentation we describe how our faculty online pedagogy workshops instruct faculty about integrating MERLOT resources into their course websites.

Educational Rationale Metadata for Learning Objects
Jonathan Swallow, Trent University
Tom Carey, University of Waterloo
William Oldfield, University of Waterloo

The DLESE Catalog System (DCS) is a distributable catalog management and discovery system that enables collection builders to develop, manage, search, and share their collections. This poster and on-line demonstration will acquaint participants with the suite of tools and services we have developed to support distributed collection building.

This presentation discusses the integration of MERLOT learning materials in the development of a web-based instructional unit that introduces standing waves and the concept of resonance in undergraduate freshman physics. It describes the development of the web-based learning object using Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks and the prospective deployment in classroom setup.

As teachers, we have often been bothered by the necessity of scheduling equipment and other special materials when ever we want to provide additional experiences for our students. Sometimes, we just can't know two weeks in advance, for example, that we are going to have a brief window of opportunity to provide some "extra-special" multimedia resource. But there is a tool available that requires no scheduling and little in the way of funds, especially when compared to, say, setting up a video studio or purchasing two video projectors. In addition, unlike some media, the tool is perceived to be a productivity tool, not one of entertainment. The tool makes use of the computer, of course, but even more than that, it is a special software, now available for the teacher, that truly allows a teacher to "bring the world to her/his classroom.". The software, or course tool, was designed by a teacher.

ICON, Innovation Curriculum Online Network, is an NSF-NSDL collection with ready access to technological literacy resources. This session will describe the goals, focus, and STEM community applications of this unique collection.

The goals of this project are to: (1) adapt and implement educational materials and approaches identified in the MERLOT and NEEDS to enhance engineering pedagogy; (2) enhance student learning in introductory to heat transfer course with the use of instructional materials that integrate teacher prepared electronic lecture notes.

This study reports the results of a survey of traditional and distance learning faculty members at private four-year institutions in the Southeast regarding their opinions, perceptions, and beliefs about distance learning.

The laboratory program for Kennesaw State Universityís General Education Interdisciplinary Science course utilizes hands-on and online exercises to allow students to quantify and analyze their personal contributions to \regional and global environmental impacts, and understand fundamental concepts in Environmental Science. The approach, content, and assessment of these exercises will be profiled.

The poster session will highlight research that has been done on how faculty and teacher information seeking behaviors. Knowledge of this topic will inform how MERLOT users approach professional development for their faculty and students as well as develop appropriate expectations about finding online resources.

Electronic multimedia portfolios can be used as an effective tool for student evaluation, program evaluation, faculty evaluation, and as a marketing tool for graduating seniors. The suggested structure utilizes a very simple format (A poperpoint presentation with hyperlinks) and a relatively simple model, SIPOC.

This presentation will demonstrate the computing resources needed for campuses preparing students for the application of information systems in the emerging world of technology. This demonstration will emphasize the premier fundamentals of wireless networking, the integration of PDA's on-campus VOIP and a variety of innovative uses for hand held devices.

As the academy moves toward true diversity in the classroom, faculty will need to be willing to take risk regarding content, delivery and pedagogy. Diversity outcomes can be used to develop inclusive teaching strategies, activities and assessment. This presentation is based on Bank's levels of Multicultural diversity and Marchesani's Dynamics of Diversity. Susan will share how she started the transformation of a basic web design course using Banks four level of Multicultural Diversity. Starting with IUPUIs Principles of Undergraduate learning she designed objectives which, included diversity outcomes for her class. From her objectives she will show you how her activities and assessment help the students reach the course's and school's diversity objectives. She will share her experience and student feedback regarding the experience.

Our All-University Curriculum course employed technology to generate consensus-building student discussions, thus enhancing student understanding of the subject matter. A three-staged process of student participation in chat rooms, on-line discussions shifted responsibility for learning to the students. The average amount of time in virtual discussions -- over 142 minutes.

An Instructional Design Model for Learning Object Re-Use

T5 is an Instructional Design Model that encourages Learning Object re-use. Instructors maintain control of the course instructional processes by guiding the learner's approach to the content using Learning Tasks. Tasks are facilitated, as appropriate, by Learning Objects. The Learning Task is supported by Topic material, Tutorials, Tools, and Teamwork.

Evidence for Campus Transformation through Faculty Development in Instructional Technology

Our Technology Serving Learning Institutes have provided training to 68 % of the faculty currently on campus. This session will give participants insight into development and implementation of a successful instructional technology program for faculty. Survey results will be used to support the successful outcomes.

Teaching and Learning with MERLOT

We describe experience in developing and teaching a completely web-based graduate course, "COMP 601: Survey of Computing and Information Systems", for the new MScIS program at Athabasca University, Canada's Open University, and plans to migrate from a fairly self-contained course to use of MERLOT and other online repositories.

The potential uses and benefits of incorporating MERLOT into coursework will be highlighted. The presenter will display some of her own work in MERLOT, give suggestions for those who may wish to begin the process, and facilitate a discussion of how others may have already incorporated MERLOT into their teaching.

The focus of this session is to assist faculty in the development of online course assignments using MERLOT learning objects. The presenters will share a process for designing and evaluating assignments incorporating the MERLOT evaluation standards. The presenters frequently deliver MERLOT-related workshops for faculty in the Virginia Community College System.

You Can Build It...But Will They Come?

With more and more instructional resources available online, the challenge to engage students to myriad opportunities may well turn out to be: If you build it...will they come? It’s an age-old question. How to engage learners? This engaging session is bound to engage you, so come on!

Meet with Ed Walker to discuss the implications and challenges of using online learning resources in an e-Learning Environment. Ed Walker is the Chief Executive Officer for the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. He brings broad experience in cognitive science, research and development and business development to his leadership of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. Prior to IMS Ed was a Visiting Scientist with the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and worked as an independent consultant. Ed was a Vice President of business development for BBN Systems and Technologies and directed projects in intelligent tutoring, knowledge representation and management, distributed collaboration, command and control and logistics planning. He was also a Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, where he was a founding member. Ed earned his doctorate in Psycholinguistics from Indiana University and did post-graduate work at MIT and at St. Andrews University.

"Learning About Learning": Engaging Teachers/Students in Learning Object Design

"Learning about Learning" occurs when students and teachers engage collaboratively to design and develop learning objects, challenging their thinking about both instructional design and pedagogy. This "rethinking" of real classroom challenges results in designing high quality learning objects, which are validated and positioned for sharing among the educational community.

Educational Digital Libraries for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

This panel will provide an overview of a number of educational digital libraries that are collaborating through the SMETE Open Federation to provide coherent access to collections in science, technology, engineering and mathematics for higher education and K-12 educators and learners.

Tenure, Promotion and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This presentation argues for electronic teaching portfolios as professional development tools for both faculty and graduate students and outlines a range of training and professional development initiatives. In spite of the possible benefits, institutional education about the potential of electronic portfolios is necessary to providing incentive and reward for faculty.

Faculty’s portfolios for tenure and promotion reviews can be substantially augmented by MERLOT’s services. Faculty authors, users, and evaluation committees can use a variety of MERLOT’s services in their retention, tenure, and promotion processes. The presentation will also review how MERLOT’s Member Profiles can serve adjunct faculty in their hiring and evaluation processes.

Faculty Development II

This session will present the development of an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) as a new model for faculty development that can better serve faculty needs than traditional methods. A review of how this model has evolved at Baker College will be included along with a discussion of how this approach relates to Merlot-Two.

The presentation’s main goal is threefold: 1) to share the collaborative efforts the various academic departments at Delaware State University in developing a seamless technology and curriculum pathways that encourage curricula redesign; 2) to share successful strategies for staff development that support faculty in redesigning traditional courses to technologically responsive curricula; and 3) to share the Instructional Design Model that is used at Delaware State University.

Many campuses are turning to laptop environments. Faculty development and training must be part of an e-scholar initiative to maintain high educational standards. Administration-supported and organized faculty training should increase the success of faculty in utilizing computer-based technology. Here, we report the successes, failures and expectations of these training efforts.

Developing Online Curriculum in an International Context: The EU Studies Certificate
Paul Harris, Augusta State University
Michael Baun, Valdosta State University
Brian Murphy, Georgia Institute of Technology
Chris Bourdouvalis, Augusta State University
Linda Cooper, Macon State College