LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA


July 1996
The principal author of this paper is Dr. Judith Ellis, Educational Relations Department of the Academic Affairs Division at the University of California, Office of the President. She may be contacted by email at Judith.Ellis@ucop.edu or by phone at (510)987-0595.


I. INTRODUCTION

The University of California (UC) has been exploring the use of learning technologies to extend educational opportunities since the mid-1960s, when UC San Francisco began operating the first Instructional Television Fixed Signal (ITFS) link on the West Coast to transmit Grand Rounds to Bay Area Hospitals. During the 1970s and 1980s, several studies of the interest in, and potential uses of, instructional technology were conducted and each of the campuses developed programs suited to its own needs and those of the surrounding communities. President Atkinson has made the development and use of educational technology a priority for the University, moving forward the efforts begun under President Peltason to assess the University's needs and capabilities in the areas of distance learning, digital networking, and the uses of the new learning technologies.

UC continues to be on the leading edge, applying those new technologies in the classroom, the library, and the laboratory, and gaining understanding of how they can enrich teaching and learning in the context of a research university. UC is also advancing the technologies themselves and rapidly expanding faculty and student access to these new modes of communication. Some highlights:

* The Office of the President will host an All University Conference in March 1997 on instructional technology and its uses and future within UC, underscoring the University's commitment to explore these new modalities of teaching and learning.

* In strategic partnerships with industry and others, UC has established two major centers for research in multimedia technologies and services: the Center for Digital Innovation at UCLA and the Multimedia Research Center at UC Berkeley.

* UC's universitywide online library system, MELVYL remains the preeminent system in the country and is accessed by students and faculty across the University, the State, and beyond via the Internet and dial up services. In one month alone MELVYL logged more than 3.3 million "find" commands on its bibliographic files, over 400,000 from researchers outside the UC system. Over 1,000 journals are maintained on line.

* UC has ear­marked $3 million as the first step in intercampus network expansion to support intercampus collaboration, distance learning, the digital library, research, and other academic requirements. Phase I, a 10Mbps SMDS network, to be expanded to 34 Mbps, has already been completed. Phase 2, a high-capacity ATM/SONET network, is in the planning stages.

* All UC campuses have constructed formal distance learning video-conferencing classrooms and more are under construction or planned. In 1995-96, UC conducted 35 distance learning courses and seminars, 7 with CSU. Over 15% of the University's classrooms are directly connected to the Internet.

In its January 1996 response to the report of the Governor's Council on Information Technology, Getting Results, the University stated that:

Information technology pervades academic and administrative life in the University of California. Computer and network technologies are used extensively in support of the University's missions of teaching, research, and public service, and the development and application of information technology is one of the numerous areas in which UC has earned distinction for the quality of its research. Information technology is also employed to improve and extend library and information services, to streamline administrative processes and operations, and to enhance student life. Finally, as educators of the next generation of California citizens, and particularly of future California teachers at all levels, we take seriously our responsibility to ensure that out students gain mastery of the technologies needed for success in their personal and professional lives (Appendix 1).

The use of the new instructional technologies is now so extensive on the UC campuses, and is growing so fast, that it is difficult to track all activities in this arena or to provide an inventory that would not be almost instantly obsolete. A sampling of the kinds of projects and programs that use the new technologies is provided throughout the remainder of this report.


II. PLANNING FOR IMPROVEMENT

The use of digital communication networks had become widespread at the University by the beginning of this decade, but no systematic assessment of capability and future needs had been made for some time. In 1993, the University began re-examining its existing capacities and future needs for learning technologies in order to be able to meet the anticipated increase in demand. Because of the economic downturn in the early 1990's and the loss of faculty that resulted from the early retirement programs, UC focused initial attention on maximizing its resources through intercampus collaboration. Therefore, a task force on intercampus programs and distance learning was convened. This task force soon recognized that upgrading the network was a priority, and a second task force was convened to evaluate that need. The work of these two task forces is described below. A third task force on the wide area networking (WAN) is described in Section III of this report.

The Task Force on Intercampus Programs and Distance Learning
In 1993, Provost Walter E. Massey appointed a Task Force on Intercampus Programs and Distance Learning to "examine the ways in which intercampus programs, supported by distance learning technologies, might facilitate delivery of the curriculum between or among campuses, so that UC students can have access to the largest possible number of academic programs." The Task Force was chaired by Dr. Carol Christ, Provost of the College of Letters and Sciences at UC Berkeley. Its March 2, 1994, report contains fourteen recommendations designed to lay the groundwork for developing cooperative efforts, and covered:
- course-sharing between campuses;
- expanding the use of faculty resources;
- sharing degree programs;
- summer sessions and extended day programs;
- distance learning and delivery systems.

The Task Force identified the evolving technologies that can facilitate program delivery and greatly expand the opportunities for intercampus cooperation. These include networks, interactive computing, multi-site video and audio links, and online library catalogs and materials. These technologies make possible student access to another campus through the use of such tools as videoconferencing, electronic mail, shared computer data bases, and interactive multimedia technologies.

The Task Force also recognized the need for new administrative and Academic Senate policies to facilitate intercampus collaboration. This problem had been addressed by an existing intercampus program, the UC/DC Program at the University of California's Washington D.C. Center. This program developed the necessary intercampus registration procedures to allow students in the program to receive credit at their home campus for all courses given at the DC site, regardless of the campus of origin of the course. While UC/DC courses made only small use of video technology, some of those given at the Washington site were transmitted back to the participating "home" campuses, and some have been broadcast to wider audiences through the educational networks. The Task Force recommended that intercampus opportunities like this be multiplied, not only at remote sites like Washington, but among the campuses here in California, and clearly recognized that the use of distance learning technologies could aid in this process. It was also evident that the success of technology-mediated intercampus programs depends on ensuring that the existing intercampus telecommunication network have the capacity and technical sophistication to handle extensive use of mediated learning. The Task Force further recommended:

- the establishment of a work group to design a precise long-term plan for developing interactive computer and multimedia instructional materials;

- the prompt start of a number of demonstration projects emphasizing the innovative pedagogical uses of technology that could ultimately benefit a large number of faculty. These demonstration projects were to encompass the use of video-conferencing facilities to transmit instruction, and the use of interactive computer-based courses which allow students to master academic material at their own pace;

- the establishment of a program of incentive grants to encourage pilot projects;

- that the Technical Sub-Group of the University's existing Communications Planning Group should track changes in technology, assess the implications of such changes, and continue to develop technological links with other institutions.

In his March 14, 1994, letter transmitting this report to the Chancellors, Provost Massey noted that some recommendations could be implemented immediately and he then assigned responsibility for each of the recommendations to the appropriate Academic Senate and/or administrative body.

The Task Force on Telecommunications Infrastructure Needs for Distance Learning
An immediate consequence of the report of the first Task Force was the establishment in April 1994, by Provost Walter E. Massey and Senior Vice President for Administration V. Wayne Kennedy, of a second task force on the Telecommunications Infrastructure Needs for Distance Learning. The charge to this Task Force was to develop a five-year plan for upgrading the University's network to meet the anticipated needs for distance learning. In its July 22, 1994, report, this Task Force offered the following recommendations:

- a university-wide distance learning infrastructure to be phased in over the next five years, with a first phase that assumed at least one fully-equipped, send/receive video and audio facility dedicated to instructional use will exist on each campus;

- staffing each video teleconferencing classroom/facility with appropriate technical personnel to manage the technical aspects of distance learning;

- upgrading the University's Intercampus Telecommunications Network (ITN), the primary carrier of UC distance learning activity, to include the equivalent of one T1 connection between each UC campus dedicated to video teleconferencing applications to support distance learning activities.

Subsequent to the report of this Task Force, the Information Resources and Communications Department of the UC Office of the President developed an implementation plan that has propelled the rapid expansion of UC's intercampus videoconferencing and digital communication networks. At this writing, the University's Office of the President has expended $2 million on communication network upgrades and has earmarked an additional $1 million for continued upgrades during fiscal year 1996-97. There is recognition that a $3 million expenditure for networking is insufficient for ongoing operations, equipment replacement, and maintenance. The WAN Task Force (described below) will define a funding model for long term networking support. All UC campuses have also made a major financial investment in upgrading their communications infrastructures; all now have distance learning and videoconferencing facilities and some have constructed or are planning multiple distance learning centers.


III. DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

There are three components to the development of a comprehensive network infrastructure for the University of California. UC's progress in each area is described below.

A. The Intra-Campus Networking Environment

During the past several years campuses have been systematically upgrading both backbone and building infrastructures to support an ever increasing demand for bandwidth. Demand for network capacity has been generated by increasing dependency on the Internet for access to information resources, distance learning, MELVYL access to bit mapped images, multimedia
applications, research activities heavily dependent on communications, and distributed computing environments.

In order to meet demand all UC campuses have installed interbuilding fiber backbone, extended their networks to residence halls, and are completing intrabuilding wiring and cable. The importance of networking within UC is exemplified in two high profile projects currently underway at UC Davis and at UCLA:

- The Network 21 project at UC Davis is a $23 million project that will provide fiber optic backbone to every important building on campus and make use of ATM technologies. The fiber optic backbone is nearly completed and the campus has issued an RFP for ATM hardware. Once completed Network 21 will be one of the most technologically advanced infrastructures in the nation.

- UCLA's Connectivity Project, launched in November 1994, has as a goal enabling every usable space on campus to access the backbone network and Internet. UCLA has now completed approximately 80% of its fiber backbone and is now addressing the requirements for intrabuilding wiring.

While these two projects are highlighted here, it is important to note that all nine campuses are in the process of reaching the goal of ubiquitous access. An increasing number of classrooms ­­ about 15% at present ­­ are directly connected to the Internet.


B. The Inter-Campus Networking Environment

The University currently maintains two physical networks, each connecting its nine campuses, the Office of the President, and the UC San Diego Super Computer Center: the T1 network and the new SMDS network. The T1 Network was established approximately 10 years ago and has served to support MELVYL, administrative applications such as payroll, and video teleconferencing. However, by 1994, it was clear that additional demand for bandwidth would be required for three reasons:

- The trend towards the delivery of full text in library applications;
- the increased use of desktop video and the transmission of images over the network for both administrative and academic activities; and
- The acceptance and wide spread use of video teleconferencing for administrative meetings.

To accommodate this increased need, UC put in place the SMDS network, which was completed in January of this year and is currently configured to operate at 10Mbps. This relatively new network technology affords UC a six fold increase in capacity beyond the T1 network and can be expanded to 34Mbps. The SMDS network allows UC to migrate all of its applications, with the exception video teleconferencing, from the T1 network. In addition, this network will be used as a transit for access to the global Internet.

The near term objective is to implement ATM/SONET technology because of its capability to support the highest data rates being offered by local and inter­ exchange communications carriers. The additional advantage is that this new technology will support all protocols, including voice, and video applications and therefore allow UC to operate a single, full utility network.


C. Wide-Area Initiatives in Networking

 The Task Force on Wide Area Networking
A UC Task Force on Wide Area Networking, advisory to the Associate Vice President for Information Resources and Communications, has been established to identify UC's long term directions in networking. It has representatives from all campuses and is scheduled to report in November 1996. The charge to this Task Force includes:

- identifying the most cost effective network technology which will support high bandwidth requirements for intercampus communications and Internet access;

- defining a funding model to support initial implementation and ongoing support for the next generation communications infrastructure;

- exploring intersegmental cooperation in the establishment of a network which will support universal access to every student in the state of California and, at the same time, leverage our collective buying power.


UC is also an active participant in two national digital technology development efforts under
the auspices of EDUCOM: the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, and the National Telecommunications Task Force. UC and CSU are both represented on the steering committee of
this latter group, which is currently considering the future of networking structure for education
and research.

IV. OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISTRIBUTED LEARNING.

At a systemwide level, UC has long recognized the importance of using technology to reach out in new and innovative ways. Since the early days of televised Grand Rounds from UC San Francisco, opportunities for distributed learning at UC have expanded considerably. In the early 1970's the University offered part-time programs at the upper division level leading to a baccalaureate degree, and at the Master's level, through the Extended University. This program grew out of an All-University Faculty conference in 1970 and the recommendations of a subsequent task force appointed by President Hitch. The initial pilot programs were funded by UC; some state support was provided for three years, beginning in the 1972-73 academic year. During this time, the number of programs increased and by 1974-75 the Extended University was serving some 1,700 students. When state funding was discontinued, most Extended University programs were phased out. The one remaining program is the Ventura Center Extended Studies program through which UC Santa Barbara offers classes at the Ventura Learning Center, a site shared with CSU. Classes are taught by UC Santa Barbara professors via video and two-way audio and by physical relocation to the site. UC is now considering this as a model for academic centers for outreach to underserved areas and is once again exploring the option of offering part-time degree programs.

The campuses have a variety of task forces and ongoing committees exploring a range of instructional technology issues. The Davis campus, for example, held a conference on Faculty Initiatives in Distance Education and Intercampus Programs in December 1995. Declining State resources and the early retirement of a considerable number of UC faculty have made course-sharing across campuses an important means of pooling resources so that UC can continue to provide needed classes for students throughout the system. There is particular interest in sharing resources so that campuses can continue to offer courses which are academically important but have relatively low student enrollments, such as the less-frequently taught languages. Once the technologies are in place, courses can be transmitted across campus, between UC campuses, to off-site locations, or between UC campuses and those in other segments. In the academic year 1995-96, for example, 35 courses were given using the video-teleconferencing network. Some courses involved UC campuses only; others involved the DOE laboratories, and still others included campuses from other segments such as Stanford; 7 involved one or more CSU campus. UC's video-conferencing facilities, which are also used for seminars and conferences, are already running at 80% of capacity.

A. Intercampus and Intersegmental Cooperation and Other Partnerships

Building on research collaboration and mutual interests, UC faculty are finding ways to collaborate in instruction across departmental and campus boundaries by offering courses on more than one campus and by developing multimedia instructional materials that can be accessed and used in more than one location. Courses taught simultaneously on more than one campus
provide an important vehicle for bringing the full riches of the University's intellectual resources into classrooms throughout the system, even in departments that have been weakened by retirements and budget cuts. Following on the recommendations in the report of the Task Force on Intercampus Programs and Distance Learning (the Christ report), the Office of the President established the Intercampus Academic Program Incentive Fund (IAPIF) in November 1994. The purpose of the program is to stimulate the shared use of academic resources for instructional purposes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. To date, 48 projects have been funded.

At the same time, individual faculty and campus units have obtained funding from such national sources as the National Science Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation as well as from an increasingly diverse array of private partners for development of multimedia course modules in fields like chemistry, physics, and engineering. These efforts involve national coalitions of faculty from research universities, four­year teaching colleges, community colleges, and historically black colleges and universities. They are producing interactive materials that are being used in traditional introductory science courses to supplement or replace some laboratory and routine classroom exercises in ways that give students direct experience with the scientific method of hypothesis and experiment as well as real­world applications of scientific principles. On
a more modest scale, many of the interactive course materials now being developed by individual faculty for posting on class Web pages are suitable for use by faculty and students on other campuses.

Growing cross­campus collaboration within UC feeds simultaneously into increasing intersegmental collaboration based on shared or complementary research strengths and deliberate efforts to make cutting­edge Internet resources available to community college and K­12 constituencies. Major obstacles to this kind of collaboration are the need for large investments
in connectivity and hardware at community college and K­12 facilities and for ongoing training and support of teachers and administrative staff.

Typical of UC projects involving cross­campus collaboration are:

- A course in Armenian History, offered by Richard Hovanissian, an emeritus faculty member from UCLA, to students at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara. Professor Hovanissian is the only faculty member in the system who teaches Armenian History; video teleconferencing made it possible for students to remain on their home campuses and enroll in the course. In addition to using video teleconferencing, Professor Hovanissian visited the students at each of the remote sites at least once.

- An upper division Religious Studies course, Religion and Violence, offered on five UC campuses -- Davis, Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz -- via video teleconferencing. Faculty from Santa Barbara and Riverside were the lead instructors; faculty from the other campuses attended each class, and opportunities were provided for faculty and students to meet in person.

- Intercampus graduate course sharing in digital engineering between Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory using video teleconferencing.

- Intercampus language instruction in Japanese, Spanish, and Russian between UC Berkeley and UC Davis using Remote Technical Assistance system, an Internet software package developed by a UC Davis faculty member. Students share voice, text, and screens as they interact with each other and their instructors.

- Collaboration between UC San Diego and UC San Francisco in undergraduate and graduate pharmacology including a freshman seminar offered via video teleconferencing and an intercampus graduate course that uses the supercomputer in drug design.

- Collaboration between UC Riverside and UC Davis to develop a multimedia database for course materials in nematology. The database has been placed on a dedicated teaching server accessible to students from both campuses via the World Wide Web
.

A successful example of intersegmental collaboration is provided by the joint doctorate program in Educational Leadership, linking UC Davis and CSU Fresno. This program makes extensive use of video conferencing not only for course delivery but also for meetings of the joint doctorate graduate group, and for thesis conferences. The program also requires frequent visits to Fresno by UC Davis faculty. In addition to faculty from the two primary campuses, the program also involves faculty from UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara & San Diego State. Other courses that are shared intersegmentally, using interactive technologies, include:

- Equine Science and Advanced Poultry Management between UC Davis and Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Fresno and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

- Manufacturing Engineering between UCLA and CSU Los Angeles.

- Genetics between CSU Humboldt and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The colleges of Chemistry and Engineering at Berkeley are home to two science curriculum projects embedded in national coalitions. The College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with faculty from UC San Diego, several CSU campuses, nine Community Colleges, and three historically black colleges in Atlanta, is part of an NSF consortium that has undertaken to reform the chemistry curriculum. They have developed multimedia modules to teach the first two years of chemistry, modules that put the chemistry concepts in the context of real world applications. Similarly, the College of Engineering is headquarters to the national Synthesis Coalition, involving more than 10 universities, which is creating interactive multimedia modules for introductory engineering courses. The modules combine simulations and exercises in core engineering knowledge with case studies that demonstrate the interaction between scientific research and organizational decision making to achieve actual engineering breakthroughs. Students use the modules in independent study under supervision of and in consultation with faculty and teaching assistants in a variety of institutions.


Another form of outreach made possible by the use of telecommunications is the Berkeley College of Engineering's affiliation with National Technical University (NTU). UC Berkeley engineering classes are videotaped and used for off­site instruction with coordination and assistance by graduate student instructors. NTU formally offers the courses and grants M.S. degrees to working engineers; the College, individual faculty instructors, and the graduate student instructors are all compensated for their contributions.

Further examples of partnerships between UC and others include the following programs:

- The Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (CEA) at UC Berkeley has established the Science on Line (SOL) project. NASA's Astrophysics Department funded a year-long pilot project designed to link together formal and informal science centers with unique and complementary assets. Sixteen teacher participants were chosen to develop on-line Internet-based resources for 6th - 12th grade teachers and students. Information about SOL is available on the Web at http://www.cea.berkeley.edu/Education/SOLtest/resource_unit.

- The "Kidsat" program, directed by UC San Diego Professor Sally Ride, and funded by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, enables UC undergraduates and students at participating high schools to design research projects for the space shuttle. Project proposals involving photography from space are submitted for competitive review by a board of space scientists. Winners' projects are added to the space shuttle payload to transmit photographic data. At UC Santa Cruz, a mini Mission Control laboratory staffed by students communicates directly with shuttle crew and Mission Control in Houston.

- In an effort to establish the necessary infrastructure in schools, Pac-Bell's California Research and Education Network (CalREN) has awarded funding to UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education to fund EMTIRN (Electronic Mentoring, Teaching, and Information Resource Network) to establish high speed lines connecting K-12 schools, community colleges, libraries, CSU campuses, and various UC Berkeley sites, including Lawrence Hall of Science. Information is available on the Web at:
http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/research/emtirn/emtirn.html.

- The Interactive University Project (IU) at UC Berkeley is a collaborative project whose aim is to identify how the University can best use the information infrastructure to provide community services. In particular, the project works with K-12 schools, community based organizations, small businesses, libraries, and community groups to experiment with Internet tools for campus outreach. Information about the program is available on the Web at: http://iu.berkeley.edu.iu.

- With strong support from the Chancellor, the University Librarian at Riverside has developed a network of collaboration with local K­12 school districts that enables schools to access materials in the Riverside library. Campus and school personnel form working teams that assess school needs for connectivity and infrastructure and develop training sequences to be conducted by University technical and reference experts.

- The UC Educational Research Center in Fresno, a unit of the UC Davis campus, offers ongoing Internet training to teachers from the Fresno Unified School District in the context of conducting research on the most effective ways to incorporate the Internet into the curriculum. The teachers come to the Center in teams large enough to constitute a critical mass within their schools and continue working together after their training is complete. The Center also serves as a research site for the UC Davis­CSU Fresno Joint Doctorate in Educational Leadership.

B. Extension Programs

Technologies that allow for distance learning offer particular promise in the context of UC Extension programs and are the subject of active experimentation. Extension units offer a total of nearly 18,000 courses on all campuses and had enrollments of 419,186 in 1994­95: 246,887 were in professional courses, many offered as part of multi­course certificate programs; 32,889 enrollments in courses transferable to degree programs; and 140,216 were in non­credit courses. Although the preponderance of Extension courses are taught in traditional face­to­face modes, a growing number of students are now able to enroll at secondary sites through video teleconferencing. In addition, the Center for Media and Independent Learning (CMIL) has offered courses via correspondence for decades and is now experimenting with new forms of delivery for courses offered remotely. CMIL accounted for 3,260 of the total 1994­95 enrollments, with just over half in 104 courses transferable for degree credit. CMIL is expanding e-mail and fax options for submitting assignments and is developing a Web site that will list all courses with online and fax options. With support from a Sloan Foundation grant, CMIL put 13 Berkeley Extension courses, including a full certificate program in Hazardous Material Management, on America Online in Spring 1996. The offering will be expanded to 100 in the Fall. A sample of Extension courses on the campuses that use instructional technologies follows.

UC Berkeley Extension:

- In collaboration with CMIL, UC Berkeley will put 175 courses on line over the next three years, with the help of a $2 million grant from the Sloan Foundation

- The Extension Education Network - ExtEn - now links sites in Berkeley, San Francisco,. San Ramon, and Menlo Park through two-way interactive video conferencing.

- UC Berkeley and UCLA Extensions are jointly offering a course in International Trade and Commerce.

UC Davis Extension:

- In conjunction with the Department of Engineering, UC Davis Extension developed instructional video tapes for National Technical University.

- A course in fire prevention is offered via microwave link to Lawrence Livermore Lab, and a Fundamentals of Chemistry course is also telecast from UC Davis to Livermore.

- UC Davis Extension offers teacher training as part of a credit program via Sacramento Cable TV.

- UC Davis Extension is currently developing a CD­ROM course in Visual Basic Training for broad distribution; and consultation/teaching via CU­See Me technology for child welfare agencies throughout California.

UCLA Extension:

- for several decades, UCLA Extension has taught classes over compressed video for contract training to multiple sites; used videotapes; and has provided content for the Hospital Satellite network.

- UCLA Extension recently signed an agreement with The Home Education Network (THEN) for dissemination of curricula and curricula-designing capacities through all known technologies. A similar Writer's Program began offering online instruction in 1995.


UC Riverside Extension:
- Classes in Environmental Science are planned with interactive video and audio seminars between UC Riverside and other UC campuses, including a certificate program in Air Quality Management.

- Online extension classes in Environmental Science are offered via the Internet.

- One-way video two-way audio classes are offered in Physical Training, and CBEST training.

UC San Diego Extension:

- In collaboration with "Access Excellence," a national educational program sponsored by Genentech, UC San Diego is offering an online course in The Scientific Basis of Nutrition or Are We Really What We Eat? The course puts high school biology teachers in touch with their colleagues, scientists, and sources of new scientific information through an online network. Information can be found on the Web at http://www.gene.com/ae.

- UC San Diego Extension is planning to offer online courses and certificates in information technology and multimedia programs
.

V. INITIATIVES TO ENHANCE QUALITY, IMPROVE ACCESS, AND INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY.

The use of instructional technology is widespread and a variety of digital techniques are used on all UC campuses and at the systemwide office to enhance quality, and improve access. A great deal of information about the University is now available on the World Wide Web, including courses in how to use the Internet to get to the information. A review of the general types of uses of instructional technology-mediated activities follows, with illustrative examples drawn from the campuses and the systemwide administration.

A. Academic Uses

Interactive multimedia rest on research in such fields as electrical engineering and computer science, imaging, cognitive development, and the disciplines in which content is developed. Berkeley and UCLA are both the sites of new interdisciplinary research centers that bring together
cutting­edge research from across the academic spectrum with the aim of producing next­generation products that will be capable of serving the most sophisticated new models of teaching and learning. Both combine faculty research strength with innovative partnerships to generate research support. UCLA's Center for Digital Innovation (CDI) brings together faculty across disciplines to pursue multi-disciplinary research activities in the realm of new digital media.
The Multimedia Research Center (BMRC) at UC Berkeley was recently approved and will focus on teaching and learning, multimedia authoring, digital libraries, and social and policy issues (See Appendix II). In addition, the University's research capabilities are being made available to a wider audience through special projects such as:

- The Alexandria Project at UC Santa Barbara: a consortium of researchers, developers, and educators in the academic, public, and private sectors, who are exploring a variety of issues related to a distributed digital library for geographically-referenced information. The Alexandria Digital Library is an online information system inspired by the Map and Imagery Laboratory in the Davidson Library at UC Santa Barbara. Information about the Project is available on the Web at: http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/.

- The UC Berkeley Digital Library project: a 4­year, $4 million research project that includes faculty, staff, and students in the Computer Science Division, the School of Information Management & Systems, and the Research Program in Environmental Planning & Geographic Information Systems, as well as participation from several state and local agencies and industrial partners. The project's goal is to develop the technologies for intelligent access to massive, distributed collections comprising multiple terabyte databases of photographs, satellite images, videos, maps, full text documents, and "multivalent" documents. This project is supported as part of the NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Library Initiative, and as part of the California Environmental Resource Evaluation System (CERES). More information can be found on the Web at http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/.

Because the use of instructional technology is now so widespread in so many areas of academic life, and because of the desire to incorporate appropriate uses of technology to improve instruction and learning, the University established the Committee on Intercampus Networking and Information Technology for Academic Purposes (CINITAP) in 1995. The Committee is made up of faculty and administrators from all campuses, representing a broad range of academic disciplines, and the Office of the President. The Committee is charged with the development of an overall vision and specific goals for the use of educational technology in instruction, research, and public service; to identify factors that encourage or inhibit the use of these technologies in teaching and learning; and to recommend changes in academic policy where appropriate. In all its deliberations, CINITAP is asked to consider the possible roles for, the interest in, and the possibility of collaboration with, the other segments of education in California, federal and State government, and industry. The initial charge to CINITAP was to develop pilot projects. The rapid increase in faculty-introduced projects at the campus level has caused a shift in priorities toward coordination rather than initiation of academic programs.

The use of on-line information and communication tools has become a routine part of students' instructional experiences, as the Web has become a tool for many instructors. Many faculty members now hold some of their office hours via electronic mail; syllabi, class assignments, departmental information, and other course-related materials can be found on line. Many courses on all campuses now have Homepages on the Web, and computer-based and communications technologies are also in use as tools to enhance learning. A 1995 University-wide survey of faculty use of instructional technology revealed that, of the 1,277 faculty who responded, 47% used electronic mail to provide course-related information to students and to communicate with students. Examples of such courses include the following:

- On the UC Berkeley campus, a virtual discussion group on the Internet supported a course on evolution by enabling students to question the authors of the scientific papers they read for the class. The group of international experts posted their answers on the Web site for the class, promoting a lively electronic discussion.

- At UC Irvine, students in a psychology class can find lecture notes and quizzes on the World Wide Web; a lower division biology course used an e-mail bulletin board for discussions of commonly-asked questions; an upper division anthropology class requires all students to use the World Wide Web to complete assignments.

- UCLA has introduced the "Virtual Learning Project," which will bring students enrolled in large classes of several hundred into smaller groups and provide the students in each group with an opportunity to communicate electronically through a bulletin board, perhaps with a faculty member or teaching assistant participating. The program hopes to improve learning, and to provide students with shared academic interests.

An emergent issue is how to ensure that students have access to computers as more information becomes available on line and classes increasingly incorporate instructional technology. Financing needed improvement is a substantial concern; funds needed to wire classrooms, faculty offices, etc. are estimated to be in the region of $200 million. Several campuses are considering requiring computer literacy as a breadth requirement for lower division work. Universal access to means of electronic communication (computers and modems linked to the local networks and the Internet) is the subject of considerable discussion, and campuses are exploring a variety of solutions.

- At UC Irvine guidelines have been developed that underscore the campus commitment to provide all UC Irvine students, faculty and staff with "services of electronic communication and access to information." UC Irvine is also planning to adopt electronic literacy as an educational goal, a necessary "Twenty-First Century information skill."

- In 1994-95, UC Santa Barbara established 55 netstations across the campus to provide access.

- UC San Diego and UC Riverside agree on the importance of computer access but have expressed concerns about cost and the fact that the technological revolution is not free. UC San Diego is considering the introduction of user fees to help defray the cost of improving telecommunications access but is concerned that this might reduce the affordability of this new communication tool for many users and result in the uneven distribution of access particularly among students of limited means.



All campuses have offices devoted to Instructional Technology and offices specifically for Educational Development/Instructional Improvement. These provide a variety of programs to assist all members of the campus community to become fluent in the new instructional technologies. The latter offer programs and resources specifically for faculty and graduate teaching assistants. A sampling of the kinds of programs offered, chosen from each of the campuses, follows.

- The UC Berkeley Office of Instructional Development provides classroom technology grants to encourage UC Berkeley faculty to initiate projects that use the new technologies.

- UC Davis offers a Summer Institute on Technology in Teaching, to promote faculty expertise in the use of new technology for instruction.

- UC Irvine's Instructional Development Services office provides a campuswide teaching assistant development program.

- The UCLA Office of Instructional Development offers programs for faculty in holding virtual office hours, setting up a home page for a class, conferencing on line, and a class in Teaching with Multimedia.


- UC Riverside offers CourseLink, a joint project between UC Riverside Librarians and faculty to provide course-specific home pages based on each instructor's needs and requests.

- The UC San Diego Electronic Information Instruction Partnership Program, a partnership of the Physical Sciences and Engineering faculty and the information specialists of the Science and Engineering Library, provides course-integrated Internet and electronic information instruction using an electronic classroom (the campus' Multimedia Electronic Information Center) and the hypertext features of the Web to teach students information-seeking skills they need to become more efficient and productive.

- UC San Francisco's two Interactive Learning Centers support the instructional computing needs of the campus and are open to all UC San Francisco students, faculty, and staff . The Multimedia Development Laboratory is a new resource, established to encourage faculty to develop innovative, computer-based multimedia programs.

- The UC Santa Barbara Instructional development office provides instructional consultation, and maintains selected documents on the Web including one on Cooperative Learning Strategies.

- At UC Santa Cruz, a series of faculty technology support workshops are offered, covering such topics as HTML For Faculty, Using the World Wide Web for Research, Faculty MultiMedia Toolkit, etc.


B. Libraries

The University of California was an early and enthusiastic adopter of information technologies for application to library and information services. When the UC Santa Cruz library opened in 1965, for example, it was without a traditional card catalogue; instead, computers were used to produce and maintain a catalog in book form, which would be printed in multiple copies and placed in multiple locations. A comprehensive Universitywide plan for library development, adopted in 1977, made several bold recommendations for the strategic use of information technologies to enhance library operations and services at a time when development of commercial systems to support these functions was still in its infancy. The recommendations included:

- acquisition of computer systems to automate library circulation operations and improve collection control and management;

- use of networked systems supported by large national databases of catalog records to speed up cataloging operations and control the cost of cataloging;

- development of an on-line union catalog of the holdings of all nine campus library systems, searchable from terminals located in libraries throughout the University, replacing functionally limited and increasingly costly campus-based card catalogs.


All of these recommendations were subsequently implemented, resulting in an electronic library information system that has since evolved far in excess of the expectations of its original planners. The University-developed union catalogue, the MELVYL system, is a computer-based library system, created by the Division of Library Automation, that allows users to search a variety of bibliographic databases and to connect to other databases and systems at UC campuses and elsewhere. It began with the development of an automated union catalogue for bibliographic access to collections and an enhanced system for interlibrary borrowing. Currently, there are 8.1 million unique titles, representing 12.4 million holdings available via MELVYL. The Periodicals Database includes over 790,000 unique titles of newspapers, journals, proceedings, and maintains over 1,000 journals online. Today, MELVYL provides access to three types of databases:

- library materials owned by UC and others -- the Catalogue Database (CAT), the ten-year catalogue (TEN), and the Periodicals Database (PE);

- commercially produced databases for access to journal articles and other materials, available only to UC-affiliated users; and

- databases produced by other libraries or organization available via the Internet.


The MELVYL system contains the union catalogue for UC as a whole, and campus-specific library systems such as GLADIS at UC Berkeley, ANTPAC at UC Irvine, ORION at UCLA, ROGER at UC San Diego, UCSFCAT at UC San Francisco, PEGASUS at UC Santa Barbara, and CRUZCAT at UC Santa Cruz. Additional information about the MELVYL System is available on the Web at: http://www.dla.ucop.edu/dlaweh/MELVYL.html.

The MELVYL system is complemented by integrated, library information systems at each campus that support acquisitions, cataloging, circulation and management functions, as well as providing catalog access to the holdings of the local campus. Access to the MELVYL system and the campus systems is no longer limited to terminals located in the libraries, but is available from any computer connected to a campus network or the Internet. This network of linked library information systems makes possible more efficient library operations and provides enhanced access to the holdings of all campus libraries, not only for the University community, but for other education segments and the general public wherever a connection to the Internet is available. In addition, the "system of systems" provides a platform for the development and deployment of highly advanced information services such as the UCLA Center for Digital Innovation, UC Berkeley's Multimedia Research Center, and the Pathways application program described below.

The planned development of such advanced services is the subject of the UC Digital Library Initiative, a broadly-based planning program organized and sponsored by the UC Library Council with joint oversight by the Council and CINITAP. The Initiative will identify and explore the academic, budgetary, legal, operational, and technological issues associated with the provision of electronic library resources to the UC community. It will sponsor strategic prototypes and demonstration projects and is expected to develop recommendations by Fall, 1996.

Finally, UC is exploring the possibility of a "Cyberlibrary" for California -- a virtual library that would be available to anyone with access to the Internet. It would link digital collections of knowledge and information throughout the State and beyond, encompassing libraries, museums, archives, and other collections in the fields of science, art, engineering, history, and literature. Digital facsimiles of the most important of these collections, using multimedia technologies, would provide new pathways to knowledge and learning for students of all ages.


C. Academic Support Services

The University's academic support services have been streamlined and made more cost-effective through the use of digital technology. Many administrative functions, such as the administration of the financial aid program, are now performed entirely via the Internet. The UC Office of the President maintains a Web server with various information links, providing access to campus Web sites. The central server also includes all university-wide policies and guidelines, such as the Bylaws and Standing Orders of The Regents, the Academic Senate Manual, Business and Finance Bulletins, the Accounting Manual, etc. General information about the University of California and about its campuses can also be found on the Web, including General Catalogues, campus calendars, information about student housing, campus events, etc. The campuses and the Office of the President all maintain Web Homepages which lead the reader to comprehensive information about the campus or the University as a whole.

Over the past several years computer-based registration has enabled students on all UC campuses to manage the registration process with considerably greater efficiency and has allowed most students to enroll on the first day with a full program. Online information also enables students to have access to advising and course-scheduling information, enrollment information, information on wait lists and course availability. For example, UC Santa Barbara uses a degree-audit system that allows students to determine course requirements that they must meet in their chosen fields and will allow them to see the effects of making different enrollment decisions. In Fall 1995, UC Berkeley started pilot testing such an audit system in selected academic units.

A major use of the digital network is for outreach to potential students. In collaboration with IBM, the University is expanding the use of an electronic guidance and admissions program known as Pathways. This program allows prospective applicants to access information about the University, to receive timely and up-to-date guidance information, and apply for admission electronically. Ultimately, students will be able cumulatively to store information about their achievements in a safe location online, and compare courses they are taking with UC requirements. An interactive feature allows students to ask questions and receive answers from an admissions counselor online. A financial aid planning component is being added for fall/winter applications and, if approval is obtained from the Department of Education, a financial aid application will be added too. When fully implemented, Pathways will be able to collect stored information about a student, including grades, SAT scores, and other relevant data, and use this information for application to the University. In the final stage, the program will provide notification of admission, financial aid, and pre-registration services to students electronically. The application portion of the program was used in pilot mode at 3 high schools and 3 community colleges last fall and is being expanded across the State next fall. When completed, this program may well provide a base on which to build a whole new structure for national student admissions.


VI. CONCLUSION

Institutionally, UC is working to create a technologically sophisticated "bed" out of which new projects and advances in teaching, learning, research, and service can grow. The use of new digital technologies is already widespread and this has been a reality, especially in the research area, for many years. The technologies have the potential to enrich the learning environment and improve quality and there are many different applications, appropriate in different contexts. In a time of reduced State funding, these technologies serve to leverage resources to make UC's programs more widely available, and are now well established in administrative procedures. UC faculty use the new technologies in a wide variety of ways in their research and teaching, as do their students. These developments have grown primarily through campus-based initiatives, and are not being dictated by the Office of the President, which plays a facilitative role wherever possible (e.g., through CINITAP and IAPIF). As UC begins academic planning for a possible 10th campus, it is already clear that this will not look like the existing campuses, since instructional technology will be built into the academic plan from the very beginning.

President Atkinson has called for an all-university conference on recent advances and breakthroughs in information technology, to take place in March 1997. This conference will bring together faculty, students, administrators, and Regents across the University to increase understanding of how these new technologies can be most effectively deployed to help the University fulfil its mission. To highlight its importance, President Atkinson has chosen to associate his inauguration with this event. Traditionally, such all-university conferences have provided a springboard for major University initiatives, such as the one that launched the Extended University in 1970. The University envisions that the advances in learning technologies will require us to rethink every aspect of how we do business. These technologies have already proved invaluable in research and will no doubt present opportunities to improve the quality of instruction in ways as yet unknown.
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