Infrastructure for Teaching and Learning

CSG 10-4-1999

Vijay Kumar, MIT; Judith Boettcher,CREN & Jack McCredie, UC Berkeley &

Several Others

Infrastructure Views and Scope

• Is There…. providing and enabling ( like your significant other)

• Makes Simple things easy; Complex Things possible (Alan Kay)

• Layers: Physical; Application; Rules; Support (People); Structure that binds these to enable education through IT

MIT’s Infrastructure for T&L: Core & Athena

web.mit.edu/acs

Distributed Client-ServerGeneral-use clusters & classroomsDepartmental facilitiesBasic network services

Common filespaceSecureSerially ReusableScalableSupport for users

Course LockersZephyr ( Instant Messaging)Discuss and WebXMailing ListsOLTAOWLNEOSCommercial tools / applicationsCoursewareWWW

Why are we talking about the Infrastructure? (Some MIT Happenings & Concerns)

Emerging Applications / Educational possibilities

– leveraged content;

– large scale collaborative design

Evolving Technology and Market Influence

– Rich Media; Network+;

wireless; devices..

Expanding Community– Singapore; SDM;

Corporations; Alumni

•Integrating Heterogeneity

•Enterprise orientation

•Community Definitions and valid access

•Strategic Educational Focus

•Support

What’s New (or almost)

•Educational Media Creation Center

– production of sustainable media and web-based educational materials for MIT: external+internal programs

•MIT Council on Educational Technology

– strategic guidance

•Academic Services– coherent access to technology

resources for T&L

•Pismire (NT); Linux Layered Athena;100MB service•New Services: Web Servers; Spatial Data Support; GIS Service

•Architecture Group

•Digital Info Resources ( Digital Shelf Space; Persistent URLS; Storage management)

•Policies - Student Information; Access•New T&L Spaces: Aero-Astro; Stata; Classrooms

Future Features

the new Commons• Leveraged Content (content objects with functionality across subjects/disciplines

• GIS tools; native speakers; downloadable

educational hardware /devices

• On-Line Educational Utilities: rich-media HELP environments (OLTA, OWL, Neos) for academic advising,course selections…; Decision Dupport Systems for Student Life and Learning

• Physical-Virtual Settings for a variety educational opportunities

• Hybrid Organizational arrangements

Challenges

What do you keep in terms of the Architecture/Environment/functionalities?

What should the COMMONS be?

What are some of the organizational arrangements - to enable and support educational transformations

How do you balance the portfolio

Outside - Inside

Enterprise Orientation with Unique interests

Today - b.l.1. Understanding the Infrastructure in terms of what it should deliver and how.

– John Harwood (Penn State)– Phil Long (Yale)

2. Member Scenarios (5) highlighting current state, changes, issues and desiderata

– UWisc (Kathy Christoph)– U of Chicago ( Chad Kainz) – U Washington ( Mark Donovan)– Cornell (Annie and Joan)– CMU (Daniel Rehak and Anne Humphreys)

3. Survey/s: Complement scenarios; aggregate; sharpen focus on Preferred Sevices and attributes; Issues and Metrics

– Mike Barker, Vijay; Umich Faculty Survey

Today - a.l.

4. Enterprise Applications and Components– UC Berkeley

• (Jack McCredie, Alice,Agogino, Fred Beshears

– IMS • Frank Tansey, Sonoma State

5. Group DiscussionsOrganizing for T&L support

Policies for support

Technology for support

Metrics for support

Future Issues

6. Wrap Up

What do we want from this workshop?

- An understanding of how member institutions support the evolving needs of T&L

- What are the big issues to work on? Common Problems and Common solutions

Engineering the environment I

The Rhetoric Create the Necessary

Infrastructure

“...the virtual equivalent of Killian Court , the Dome”.. and the Infinite Corridor”

..integrating electronic facilities, physical spaces.......renders true value to the community members, ..creates a sense of belonging to a special community...

Create an upgraded and extended campus in which physical spaces, electronic tools, and infrastructure are closely integrated and mutually supportive; electronic interaction spaces mediated through video-conf. and shared software environments

Create people-centered spaces.

Involve the libraries, MIT Press, and CAES in an integrated strategy to gain maximum value from MIT’s intellectual property

Engineering the environment

The Realitybuild architecture that

supports experimentation WITHOUT disrupting production.

make high performance available on highly available environments

scalable, reliable, quality

retain the best features of Athena TMin the new environment.

• serial reusabilty; security;commonfs; scalability

develop strong, highly professional support organization for both maintaining common infrastructure and effectively supporting the various experimental projects.

Quality of Content & ServiceAllowing CustomizationGating shared ( distributed) repositoriesMaintaining / upgrading materials in light of an evolving technological environment

• Value and Viability

•Intellectual Property

B/W Reservation and Protocols

Selecting and Sustaining Meritorious Applications

Distributed Support distributedresponsibility/virtual management

Security

Ed.IT @ MIT Visions & Values (Not DISsing Education)

Integrated EducationLearning and DoingGeneral + ProfessionalResearch and Teaching

commitment to close integration of cutting-edge research and classroom teaching

Graphics - Hi Fi environments for Graphics research and teaching

(generation of hi-fi graphics at interactive rates; web-based, collaborative interactive, highly automated teaching systems

Bringing the Excitement of Research to Teaching ..............Killian