Wednesday, October 1, 1997
New initiative to expand online access for students
WEBSITES: Registration-fee increase helps fund the $2.4 million
project
By Cindy Choi
Daily Bruin Contributor
Gabriella Marquez could have panicked in the isolation of her
dorm room the night before her final exam on religious history. And
so could have four of her classmates.
Instead, Marquez and her classmates met at an online study group
on their class Web site. They posted questions and explanations
regarding Buddha until 2 a.m.
This fall, those Web sites are just one online service available
to UCLA students.
Last week, the College of Letters and Science launched the
Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a $2.4 million multimedia
educational project to expand computer labs, create Web sites for
non-tutorial courses and provide personalized Web pages for
undergraduates.
About half of IEI funding has gone into purchasing computers and
maintenaining the labs.
To pay for all of this, the College of Letters and Science has
implemented a $2.50 per credit/$10 per-course charge for humanities
and social sciences and $3.50 per credit/$14 per-course for life
and physical sciences.
"Our goal is to use multimedia education to improve the
conditions of learning for all undergraduates," said Brian
Copenhaver, provost of the College.
"Providing a Web page for every course, backed by training and
staff, is an excellent way to build a multimedia base for the whole
curriculum," he said.
The initiative will produce 3,000, individualized Web sites
featuring course syllabi, virtual office hours, bulletins and links
to other sites.
So far, Copenhaver has received favorable feedback and demands
from faculty.
"IEI is another tool of teaching," said Marc Mayerson, assistant
dean of social sciences.
"It allows professors to supplement lecture material and to
communicate to the students in a new way. However, computers cannot
surplant lectures and exams," Mayerson said.
Professors have the option to draw from the assistance of Web
consultants, who are UCLA graduate students, to design their
pages.
Some professors also provide links for additional reading
materials and some post previous exams.
Russell Schuh, professor of linguistics, posts answer keys for
collected assignments, focusing on typical errors that students
make. He responds to commonly asked questions to which all students
can refer. The Internet increases interaction with vast numbers of
students in his larger classes, he said.
"Students have a bigger range of choices to explore courses,"
said Schuh. "They might work better given wider options than just
having textbooks and lectures."
Maybe students who are too intimidated to attend office hours
would use virtual office hours to contact a professor, said Jill
Rawal, second-year international-development studies major.
Virtual office hours are suited for specific, brief questions
that arise when completing an assignment or writing a paper, Rawal
said.
Virtual office hours solved some of the limitations of regular
office hours by allowing students to directly reach professors
without being in their offices.
A student who called himself the "effortless philosopher"
submitted questions anonymously for nine weeks before he finally
revealed himself to the professor.
"The shyest students were the ones most likely to contact me
through the Web," said David Wilson, assistant dean of humanities,
who taught a philosophy of religion last fall with 300
students.
He recognized greater faculty-student interaction through the
website, but attendance at his office hours did not drop, Wilson
said.
IEI is designed to suit the lifestyles of a new generation of
students raised with computers.
"This is a chance for professors and students to participate in
what’s becoming a mainstream way to communicate," said Eric
Splaver, director of college information service.
According to the specific features of each Web site, students
can discuss publicly online in chatrooms or with real-time.
Students also can post questions and comments on class bulletins or
send messages to professors.
The access to computers, however, has been a concern to the
administrators, said Wilson.
The task force plans to better notify the students about the
various computer labs on campus, Wilson said. The biggest problem
that they are facing right now is student overflow.
JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS
Students have online access at the CLICC lab in Powell library.
It is one of the labs funded by the Instructional Enhancement
Initiative.