Samuel A. Rebelsky
Mathematics and Computer Science
Science 2427 (Y2)
Summary. I am requesting funding from the Robert N. Noyce Faculty Study Grant to explore extensions to the World-Wide Web to improve web-enhanced teaching at Grinnell and elsewhere. Working with students, I plan to (1) investigate potential tools for extending course webs, such as search engines and annotation facilities, (2) investigate tools for analyzing student use of course webs, (3) purchase and test such tools, (4) develop tools when existing tools do not meet the needs of typical courses, and (5) provide tutorial guides to guide faculty through the creation, extension, and analysis of student use of course webs.
Background. The World-Wide Web (WWW) [1] is becoming an increasingly important tool in undergraduate education. Faculty members are putting a wide variety of class materials online, from traditional content like syllabi and assignments to more computer- or web-oriented materials like animations and collections of links to external materials. One might describe courses that include such materials as web-enhanced courses (to distinguish them not only from traditional courses that do not make use of the web, but also from web-based courses used in distance education). Unfortunately, the use and analysis of such course webs is not as extensive as it could be for a number of reasons, including limitations of core web technologies, software that emphasizes business instead of education, cost of extensions, and lack of faculty time to explore alternatives.
The core web technology does not provide the full range of features supported by more complex hypertext systems [7]. For example, neither HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language [9], nor HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol [3], provide immediate facilities for annotating documents written by others. For most, the only annotation facility is the bookmarking feature provided by browsers. In an academic setting, this means that is difficult for students to create new trails (sequences of pages) through hypertexts, and, more importantly, that it is impossible for students to make annotations (notes, highlighting, etc.) "on top of" an existing web page (which they could more easily do on the printed page). Shared versions of such annotations can provide a medium that allows students to discuss assignments and other handouts, as students and teachers can put questions, answers, comments, and follow-ups directly on the page and have these annotations accessible to others. The need for such class-based electronic discussion forums was highlighted at a recent meeting of the Grinnell Science Teaching group.
While the web was originally developed from an academic standpoint, with a primary purpose of disseminating scientific applications, it has become more controlled by the business community. This means that the focus of many tools is on the needs of business and advertising, rather than on the needs of academia. For example, most web-authoring systems, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Claris HomePage, and Adobe PageMill, focus on the design of pages and not on the underlying content or processes. None of these tools can automatically build a linked syllabus given the dates of the term and a proposed list of topics, nor can they automatically add links based on the content of other documents. In addition, most tools are priced at the commercial rather than the academic market, which may put them beyond the reach of most faculty.
A particularly important need for many faculty is the ability to analyze student use of course webs (primarily anonymously, but also providing student names or codes if they agree). To most, this means more than simply checking on what pages students visit. It also involves understanding the paths students take through materials (e.g., given a question that students need to answer, in what order do they use examples, discussions, tutorials, and such) and the amount of time the spend at each place. For many educational hypertext systems, this information is readily available and there are tools for analyzing the information, such as MacSQEAL [5]. For typical webs, this information is nearly impossible to determine, and there are few, if any, tools that support the types of analyses that faculty members need to do.
Even when such tools are available, faculty may not know about them because there is so much available, and no clear guide to web use for academicians. Given the limited time available to most faculty, it is difficult to investigate which tools are appropriate for a given task. In addition, many may not even realize that it is possible to make better use of course webs.
The Project. I propose to study the tools available that can be used to support more useful and more analyzable course webs, to develop new tools when no tools are appropriate, and to provide reports for other faculty interested in extending or beginning their use of course webs. I anticipate spending most of this summer on this project, and hope to work with students on appropriate aspects of the project. I will use the results of this project in my own courses, and am willing to serve as a consultant to faculty interested in extending their own uses of course webs. I expect that there will be a number of interrelated phases to the project, including (1) discussions with other faculty about needs and expectations, (2) investigation of potentially useful tools, (3) purchase and installation of these tools (I will do the installation), (4) experimentation with tools, (5) development of additional tools, (6) use of these tools in preparing my own courses, and (7) preparation of tutorial guides for other faculty. During Spring term a student assistant funded by the grant board and I will be developing the list of potential tools during Spring term. Some of the tools I expect to evaluate during the summer are ASML [8], Gentler/Siteview [16, 17], HyperWave [6], and CometPage [2]. Others will include analysis tools reported on by students in the Fall 1997 session of CS223.
Expertise. Many parts of this project will grow from things that I have already been doing in support of my own course webs [11, 12]. For example, I use the web to provide daily electronic "handouts" for my class and occasionally need to change the structure of all the pages (e.g., to add a link to a common resource). I've developed a simple text-to-HTML translation package that makes the creation of these handouts significantly less tedious. I've also developed an academically-oriented authoring system, CourseWeaver [10], which needs to be rewritten and documented. In recent attempts to analyze student use of my course webs [13], I've had to develop my own tools for providing basic analysis and have begun to investigate existing tools. I've also installed some tools I've found useful, such as html2ps, which facilitates printing of HTML pages. While I know there are other tools that will make my course webs more interactive, such as the Stanford annotation tools [14] and the HyperWave hypertext system [6], I have not had the time to install and evaluate these tools.
In addition, I've been involved with the hypermedia and educational computing communities for a number of years. I regularly serve on the program committee for the EdMedia World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia and have recently completed a chapter on Multimedia Publishing for the forthcoming Handbook of Multimedia Computing[4]. At my previous institution, I also helped a number of students and colleagues develop their own web pages and have run a number of workshops on hypertext authoring and programming.
Potential Impact. As is clear from the wide variety of links on the library's list of course pages, faculty from many disciplines are interested in putting materials online. Informal conversation with other faculty members suggests that many would like to make greater use of the web, from creating online discussion groups to providing fill-in-forms for some types of questionnaires. I expect that many would make more use of the web if tools that simplified authoring and analysis were more available. I also hope that my own course webs will provide illustrative examples.
Budget. None of your business.
References
1. T. Berners-Lee, R. Calliau, A. Luotonen, H. F. Nielsen, and A. Secret, "The World Wide Web," Communications of the ACM, vol. 37, pp. 76-82, 1994.
2. Digital Comet Inc., "CometPage," url http://www.digitalcomet.com, 1997.
3. R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP/1.1," World-Wide Web Consortium RFC 2068, (January 1997) 1997.
4. B. Furht, Handbook of Multimedia Computing: CRC Press, 1998. In press.
5. T. Jones and M. Jones, "MacSQEAL: A Tool for Exploration of Hypermedia Log File Sequences," Educational Multimedia/Hypermedia and Telecommunications, T. Muldner and T. C. Reeves, Eds., Calgary, Canada (June 14-19, 1997), 1997.
6. H. Maurer, Hyper-G, Now HyperWave: The Next Generation Web Solution: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
7. J. Nielsen, Multimedia and Hypertext:The Internet and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: AP Professional, 1995.
8. C. B. Owen and F. Makedon, "ASML: Automatic Site Markup Language," Multimedia Tools and Applications, vol. 6, 1998.
9. D. Raggett, A. L. Hors, and I. Jacobs, "HTML 4.0 Specification," W3C (November 10, 1997) 1997.
10. S. A. Rebelsky, "CourseWeaver: A Tool for Building Course-Based Webs," Proceedings of ED-MEDIA'97 World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Calgary, Canada, 1997.
11. S. A. Rebelsky, "CS152: Fundamentals of Computer Science II," url http://www.math.grin.edu/~rebelsky/Courses/152/97F/, Grinnell College, 1997.
12. S. A. Rebelsky, "CS223: Algorithms and Software Design," url http://www.math.grin.edu/~rebelsky/Courses/223/97F/, Grinnell College, 1997.
13. S. A. Rebelsky, "In-Class Use of Course Webs: A Case Study," EdMedia World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Freiburg, Germany (June 20-25, 1998), 1998. Under review.
14. M. Roscheisen, C. Mogensen, and T. Winograd, "Beyond Browsing: Shared Comments, Soaps, Trails, and On-line Communities," Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 27, pp. 739-749, 1995.
15. R. Salter, "HtX v. 1.0 User's Guide," url http://www.cs.oberlin.edu/htx/usrgd/ugd.html (July 1, 1997), Oberlin College, 1997.
16. H. Thimbleby, "Gentler: A Tool for Systematic Web Authoring," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 1997.
17. H. Thimbleby, "Siteview: The Language Details," url http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/harold/rsaproj/dwa.html (May 13, 1997), 1997.
Appendix: Responses to Followup Questions
1. Scope and Deliverables
The project is indeed large. However, I am expected to be devoting much of my summer to the project (at least one month of full time work and a few months of part-time work). As I indicated in the proposal, I am also hoping to obtain student research students for the project. Casual discussion with our students suggests that a number are interested, so the only barrier I foresee from that side is funding. Working by myself, I am confident that I would complete at least three core tasks:
With students, I expect to be able to do significantly more. My assumption is that we would attempt to gather more tools and investigate those tools in more depth. We would also provide additional features for the core tools and would likely work on building other related tools.
2. Class Usage
I anticipate using all the tools I develop in each (or most) of the courses that I teach. As I mentioned in the proposal, I already use some tools I've developed for analyzing student web use. Last semester, I developed over 400 printed pages (about 150 web pages) for my two courses and always look for tools to help with this development.
3. Other Faculty
I will admit that I haven't spoken with a wide variety of faculty about their needs. A casual discussion in the science teaching group suggested that a few science faculty would take advantage of an online discussion system, if one existed (and if it were permitted by the computing code). It is also clear that a number of faculty are interested in putting more of their materials on the web. This term, I've already helped at least one other faculty member with developing a course web.
4. Dissemination
I would certainly be willing to give a teaching colloquium in the fall. Since many of us are busy, I also expect that a printed "how to build a web" guide will be useful.