Friday, November 21, 1997
New per-unit fees are paying for Web sites and counselors
TECHNOLOGY: But some complain it isn’t a fair way of assessing
costs
By George Sweeney
Daily Bruin Contributor
Where does the money from that "technology fee" go?
Pull up the My.ucla homepage at one of the myriad computer labs
on campus to see the spoils of the Instructional Enhancement
Initiative.
$2.3 million is the number most often mentioned by
administrators to describe the cost of the initiative. Although
that money goes to more than just creating class websites, the
usefulness of IEI is still in question.
The goal of the initiative is to get as much information and as
many tools to the student as possible. It is a program created by
the college of the Letters and Sciences to build class websites and
new computer labs.
"The IEI is intended as an enhancement to personal interaction
between instructors and students, not as a replacement," Copenhaver
said.
With the advent of these new services, university adminstrators
says that they have made a concerted effort to teach web-management
skills to faculty.
The college is charging Letters and Sciences’ students $2.50 per
unit for courses (and $3.50 for selected science courses) in order
to pay for the new initiative.
Approximately $750,000 dollars is being raised with this
quarter’s fees alone.
With that money, the college has updated and retrofitted new
computer labs for Letters and Science students and created new web
pages, with a system called Web CT.
The Social Sciences’ Computer lab has added 87 new computers to
its new facility in the Public Policy building.
In addition to the new computers, IEI money to hiring Graduate
Technology Counselors, lab technicians and administrators, and HTML
programmers.
The Graduate Technology Counselors are key to gaining professor
support and understanding of their new roles in the initiative.
One counselor, Marilyn Gray, who works with the Spanish and
Portuguese departments, said that her role was to teach professors
how to use the tools, and how to do research on the web.
"This is all driven by what the professor wants … Faculty
buy-in is the key," said Mike Franks, a programmer for the Social
Sciences computing lab.
Web pages could be written in HTML, but there is now a program
that allows the professor to insert information into a specified
field.
On each of the websites there are at least three different tools
for students to use.
The first link is to the professor’s syllabus for the
course.
Secondly, a set of links is offered, which lead students to
sites that are relevant to the curriculum. The college mandated a
certain set of links for each of the websites, including links to
Melvyl, Orion, My.ucla, and the UCLA homepage.
In addition to links, the professor can add links that would be
of help and interest to the students, or links of personal interest
for the professor.
The third feature is a discussion board so that the professor
can address students’ questions and concerns.
However, some feel the discussion boards have a few essential
problems, such as authentication. According to Franks, any person
could log onto the site and pretend to be the professor.
To combat this problem, Social Sciences created an
authentication procedure for professors to use. By entering a
password, an icon appears that notifies students that the professor
or faculty member has made the posting.
Professors can use several other resources in order to derive
more use from their class websites.
"The GTCs (graduate technology counselors) have been out there
working with the professors," said Karie Masterson, director of
computing for the humanities. "And so there are a lot of really
great ideas on how to use it." Like sample midterms, answers to
test questions, or glossaries.
Robert Boyd’s anthropology class uses the website to present
fossil flashcards.
The students are presented with a flashcard and several
questions pertaining to the image. By pressing a link, the answers
to the question are revealed.
Copenhaver cited the ability of computers to present images that
two-dimensional texts cannot.
For example, three-dimensional molecular models can be created
on a web-site and placed into Quick-Time so that the image will
rotate allowing the student to see all sides of the model.
While students are footing the bill for IEI, it is the faculty
who will be responsible for the success of the IEI. But since the
faculty were given no say in the approval or implementation of the
IEI, there remains skepticism of whether all these tools will be
used.
Not all classes are web compatible, and these courses cause some
people to see inequity in instituting an all-encompassing fee.
"It’s unfair to charge students a technology fee when the
potential for the web cannot be utilized because of alphabet and
fonts," said Charlie McNelis, a TA for Greek 1. "Greek letters and
accents can’t be typed into HTML."
In addition to these classes, others argue that the dynamics of
the web do not lend well to certain kinds of teaching.
"It is always going to be the case that the character of a
medium translates differently to different kinds of use,"
Copenhaver said.
Despite these shortcomings, professors’ responses to the new
initiative have been mixed.
"[The response is] mixed," said Gray. "Some people are are very
interested and some are conservative, but they’re honest … The
few people who are not interested are not aware of the
capabilities."
College administrators hope that the IEI will rocket UCLA into
the 21st century.
"This isn’t something that UCLA is doing on our own. We are
responding to it," Copenhaver said. "It’s very important for UCLA
to take the lead in shaping the medium."