Goals:

Expand the role of Academic Computing and academic computing to further the teaching, research, and service goals of the University of Vermont.

Planned Activities

Teaching and Support

• Continue to offer short classes and workshops. For the fall '95 semester that includes Noon on the 'Net, at least six noon-time sessions devoted to the Web; I-LEARN, the on-line list for learning about the Internet; and the WWW Developers workshops.

  There were 10 Noon on the Net classes and 9 Web Developers classes (6 hours each). They were consistently filled to capacity with substantial waiting lists. I-LEARN, unfortunately languished due, in large part, to a conscious decision on my part. I felt that, given UVM's current widely divergent computing infrastructure, some of the postings would generate confusion and would produce an added support burden on other areas within CIT. Now that certain aspects of computing support have been formalized and are more stable it may be worthwhile to revisit the I-LEARN concept.

• Continue to work with faculty to develop Web projects that bring new resources to the Internet. Current plans include working with Laurel Broughten to develop Web pages for her British Literature course, with Jane Ambrose for Music History course, with Glen Elder of Geography whose GEOG 001 students will be creating Web pages and with the History Department.

  Laurel Broughton's site is continuing to grow.

  One of the largest projects in this category was digitizing the Ambrose Collection. Z. Philip Ambrose of the Classics Department has a 250+ slide collection of classics materials. These were transferred to PhotoCD, processed and made available on the web. The project participants continue to refine the web pages related to this collection by linking it to his course calendar, etc.

  Currently underway is a funded project being developed by the Historic Preservation department to create a state-wide database and web site for historic buildings and sites in Vermont. I will be technical advisor. (More on that in the 96-97 report.)

  I worked with the students of ART 295 Cultural Transformations who created a web site for the source materials they used to create their class projects. Drawn from the Fleming Museum and built on the A&S server, the final projects were animations of the objects. Unfortunately, due to concerns from the Fleming, these web pages are not publicly accessible at this time.

  Many of the people who attended the WWW short courses are developing their web sites, though, so far, these tend to include only course syllabi and links to related web resources.

• Start and "grow" UVM-TEACH (with UVM-RESEARCH): two lists devoted to discussion of teaching and research ideas with an emphasis on integrating technology, particularly the Web. Focus on encouraging faculty to use this forum to discuss practical and "do-able" ways of improving their teaching.

  Again, an idea just ahead of its time for UVM. Another approach will be tried for 96-97.

• Offer customized classes to self-defined groups.

  This area saw much activity as can be seen from the list in 95-96 Activites. The courses were primarily web-related, although there was a demand for word processing workshops. These will henceforth be undertaken by Client Services. (see below)

• CAP contract will be ending in March '96. WPCorp/Novell will not be renewing the program as such. They will be bundling support into Novell. Determine how this affects word processing support.

  WP-CAP is over. Corel has bought WordPerfect. Word Processing support has now moved to Geoff Duke of Client Services.

Development:

• Continue work on projects in Hope Hall for the Humanities.

  Much work has been done on the Godey's Lady's Book Web, including experiments with digitizing these problematic texts. Over forty people have contacted me about this project and it is now linked to many sites across the web.

  The Ovid Project has also generated more scholarly interest and is linked through sites as "far away" as Oxford and Germany. An example of cross-web collaboration: Willard McCarty, reknowned classics scholar and editor of HUMANIST, was having difficulty obtaining the engravings in an edition of the George Sandy's translation of Ovid for use in his class. UVM owns a copy, so, after his enquiry, I scanned the engravings and added them to the web site. His response was gratifyingly enthusiastic.

• Consider actually purchasing the SGML tools that are used in preparing and analyzing texts. We have not had a demand for these services yet but I feel we should be prepared for this important area.

  UVM, through a joint venture between CIT and the Libraries, is now the recipient of a grant from Electronic Book Technologies that provides us with their SGML suite of electronic text tools (valued at $179,000). We will be receiving the software in August and will go for training shortly thereafter.

• Have an article published in an electronic or scholarly journal (not a conference proceedings).

  I decided not to pursue this at this time.

Outreach:

• Have accepted an invitation to take our panel on Multimedia Publishing on the WWW to London in December for the International Online Meeting (rumored to have as many as 15,000 participants).

  Our panel was chosen for the closing plenary session, was well-attended, and well-received. (some slides)

• Program chair and conference organizer for NAWEB '95: Educational Opportunities on the WWW to be hosted by the University of New Brunswick, October 25-27, 1995.

  I also presented a session titled The Immovable U Meets the Irresistable Web that was quite well-received!

• Will present Godey pages to a conference in Syracuse for the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association in November.

  Done. OK. Conference as a whole was not that wonderful.

• Continue to work with VETC and, more recently, with VISMT, in areas of professional development, particularly WWW-related training, for the Vermont K-12 community. This has included presenting at and offering technical help at the 1995 VISMT Summer Institute, being part of the planning committee for VISMT Internet '96, and being on the Professional Development Committee for VETC.

  I will be leading one of three VISMT Summer Institutes for 1996. The week-long program will be devoted to teaching 20 K-12 teachers how to develop web sites. They will, in turn, become webmasters for their schools.

UVM Community Service

• This section was not included in the original 95-96 plans but is added here to accommodate work done on Mastering the Maze. My participation in this annual UVM In-service day was greatly expanded this year. It included being a member of the planning committee, the program committee, and the equipment committee. In addition I did a presentation. But the most effort was put into creating and maintaining the web page for the Maze as well as providing training sessions (and lots of encouragement!) for people who wanted to use the web as a presentation media. I included a web-based registration form that was used by many registrants and helped the planning committee generate ideas about how the web can be integrated into future Maze days, as well as into the day-to-day life of UVM departments.