Funding

  Project Proposal:
  The Sacred Sites of Asia: A Georeferenced Multimedia Resource (First-year)   

  Participants:
  UCB, UCR, UCSB, UCSD, University of Sydney, University of Redlands

  Principal Investigators:
  Barbara A. Holdrege, Project Director; William Powell; Juan Campo
  Center for the analysis of Sacred Space
  Department of Religious Studies
  UC Santa Barbara

Our intercampus team of University of California faculty is applying for a Teaching, Learning, and technology Collaborative (TLtC) Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 to support the development and implementation of a georeferenced multimedia World Wide Web site for the study of sacred sites in Asia that will serve as an instructional resource for a range of UC courses on the religions and cultures of Asia. The project will focus on the development of twenty sacred site modules, which will be incorporated in fourteen courses taught by seven faculty at three UC campuses: four courses at UCSB, six courses at UC San Diego, and four courses at UC Riverside.

  Nature of the Collaboration

This collaborative effort began in January 2000 when the three Principal Investigators of the project-Barbara Holdrege, the Project Director; William Powell; and Juan Campo-established the Center for the Analysis of Sacred Space (CASS) at UCSB as a multidisciplinary center to foster the development of innovative instructional technologies concerned with the analysis of sacred sites, with a particular focus on the religions and cultures of Asia. The CASS faculty team subsequently developed intercampus partnerships with three major initiatives at the University of California that are focused on the development of georeferenced technologies, data management systems, and instructional resources: (1) the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL); (2) the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT); and (3) the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), an international project administered out of UC Berkeley. As the humanities counterpart of ADEPT, CASS is concerned with expanding the instructional applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and technologies beyond the earth sciences and social sciences into the humanities. Our collaboration with these UC initiatives involves three types of cooperative efforts:

• We are collaborating with ADL in building a special CASS collection of georeferenced multimedia resources on Asian cultures that will be stored and archived in the digital library.
• We are collaborating with ADEPT to build a collection oriented around one of the CASS courses-Religious Studies 158B, Pilgrimage Traditions of South Asia-that will serve as an ADEPT pedagogical prototype for the humanities.
• We are working with ECAI to adapt TimeMapView-which is the principal interface custom-designed for the ECAI datasets-as the front end of the CASS website.

In addition to these intercampus partnerships, the CASS faculty team has recently expanded to include a broader team of faculty collaborators comprising five faculty members at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UC Riverside who are specialists in either South Asian or East Asian religions and cultures: Lewis Lancaster, Director of ECAI and Professor of Chinese religions, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley; David Jordan, Professor of Chinese religions and cultures, Department of Anthropology, UCSD; Richard Cohen, Assistant Professor of South Asian religious literatures, Department of Literature, UCSD; Brian K. Smith, Professor of South Asian religions, Department of Religious Studies, UC Riverside; and Vivian-Lee Nyitray, Associate Professor of Chinese religions, Department of Religious Studies, UC Riverside. Our UC faculty collaborators will be involved in two main phases of the project. In the planning phase of the project, they will provide input on the pedagogical vision and design of the CASS project. In the implementation and evaluation phase, they will adapt the CASS sacred site modules for use in their own targeted courses, and they will utilize designated evaluation protocols to assess the pedagogical effectiveness of the website modules as an instructional resource. With support from a TLtC Planning Mini-Grant, we convened a six-day workshop at UCSB in March 2001, which brought together the CASS faculty team, our faculty collaborators at other UC campuses, and the technical teams of CASS, ADL, ADEPT, and ECAI in order to discuss pedagogical issues and technical issues involved in the development of the CASS website.

  Project Goals

The CASS project involves the construction of a georeferenced multimedia website for the study of sacred sites in Asia that will serve as an instructional resource for courses on the religions and cultures of Asia at four UC campuses. The CASS faculty team received funding from two granting agencies in spring 2000 to support the development of the CASS website: an external grant from the Wabash Center, a program funded by the Lilly Endowment; and a UCSB Instructional Improvement Grant for 2000-2001. In addition, we have been awarded a UCSB Instructional Improvement Grant for 2001-2002 to support the development of the sacred site modules for this web-based instructional resource.

Pedagogical Design
The pedagogical design of the CASS web-based instructional resource is structured around sacred site modules for twenty sacred site complexes in Asia, including thirteen site complexes in South Asia-Nepal, India, and Pakistan-and seven site complexes in other parts of Asia-Iran, Central Asia, Tibet, China, and Japan. In a later phase of the project, we intend to expand the scope of the website to include more site complexes in Central and East Asia. Each of the fourteen designated UC courses will incorporate a distinctive combination of sacred site modules.

On the basis of our assessment of the existing CASS collection of multimedia resources and the pedagogical needs of the fourteen UC courses, we have targeted twelve of the twenty sacred site complexes for which we will develop multimedia modules in the coming year, 2001-2002: (1) Kathmandu Valley, Nepal; (2) Uttara Khanda, India; (3) Braj, India; (4) Banaras, India; (5) Sarnath, India, (6) Bodhgaya, India, (7) Tirupati, India; (8) Srirangam, India; (9) Madurai, India; (10) Beijing, China; (11) Buddhist sacred mountains, China; and (12) Daoist sacred mountains, China. The compilation of our own field data is vital to the construction of the sacred site modules for the CASS website in order to ensure that we have an extensive collection of digital media that are accurately georeferenced using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and free of outside copyright restrictions. The CASS South Asia field team spent six months in India and Nepal, from September 2000 to March 2001, collecting over 4,000 georeferenced digital images and 50 hours of digital video recordings pertaining to seven sacred site complexes in India and Nepal. A member of the CASS China field team spent from June to September 2001 in China collecting georeferenced digital images of Buddhist and Daoist sacred site complexes. In addition to the resources collected by the CASS field teams, we already have a substantial collection of multimedia resources pertaining to sacred site complexes in South, Central, and East Asia that will be incorporated in the website, including over 2,000 images and a variety of maps, texts, and other resources.

The website will employ a georeferenced interface that will allow students to explore each sacred site module through superimposed map layers, zoom in on specific geographical regions, delimit specific time periods, and investigate data resources pertaining to the site complex. The interface will display spatially- and temporally-referenced datasets as map layers, in which map objects are linked to multimedia resources and other data. The interface will constitute the front end of a database that will store a variety of digital media for each of the sacred site modules, including maps, textual sources, iconographic images, photographs, video footage, audio recordings, animated material, ethnographic data, and other digital resources.

The map layers for each sacred site module for a particular site complex will include a base map of the sacred site complex on which major pilgrimage routes and subsites-including temples, shrines, and geographic features such as sacred mountains and rivers-have been marked by point locations, or hotspots, on the map. The hotspots for each subsite will be linked to a variety of media, including images, texts, video footage, audio recordings, animations, and three-dimensional models. Using the map function, the student may access the base map of the sacred site complex, such as Banaras, and click on one of the hotspots marking a specific temple site. A popup menu will appear indicating the various types of data resources available for the temple site, such as idealized pilgrimage maps of the site, eulogistic M€h€tmya literature extolling the greatness of the temple, photographs of the temple and its iconography, video recordings of p(tm)j€ ceremonies centered on offerings to the temple deities, video clips of festival celebrations at the temple, and audio recordings of devotional chanting associated with the temple. The student could display simultaneously on a split screen a photograph of the temple and a relevant M€h€tmya text while at the same time playing an audio recording.

The CASS website will enable students to take guided journeys as virtual pilgrims traversing sacred sites in Asia, in which they will discover multinodal and multilayered connections among various types of geohistorical data, such as patterns of historical development, pilgrimage routes, temple networks, regional variations in ritual practices, competing models of sacred space among different communities, and systems of religious and cultural exchange among sites. Students will explore each of the sacred site complexes through the conceptual framework of five cross-cultural categories in the study of religion:

• Space. Students will investigate the sacred geography of the region, examining maps that mark various types of sacred sites (t...rthas) and traversing the major pilgrimage circuits. Their journey will include an exploration of geographical features of the sacred landscape-mountains, rivers, trees, and stones-as well as major temples and shrines.
• Ritual. Students will explore various types of festivals and other ritual traditions associated with the site complex, including festival cycles, ritual offerings to temple images, ritual recitations, devotional chanting, dramatic performances, women's folksongs, and bathing rituals.
• Community. Students will examine patterns of religious exchange and contestation among the various communities who have historically shared the site complex. They will investigate the various sociocultural factors that shape the contending perspectives of the different communities, including religious orientation, sectarian affiliation, socioeconomic status, caste, gender, and other factors.
• Narrative. Students will examine narratives associated with the site complex, including mythological representations, M€h€tmya and Sthala Pur€Ša literature extolling the greatness of the place, historical documents, pilgrimage guidebooks, devotional poetry, and ethnographic accounts.
• Iconography. Students will analyze iconic and aniconic images associated with the site complex, with particular attention to the importance of location-including variations in region, temple traditions, historical period, and the social locations of various interpreters-in determining the meanings and interpretations of an image.
  

The potential pedagogical benefits of this georeferenced technology can be illustrated with reference to an assignment pertaining to the Madurai sacred site module designed to help students understand the multivocal nature of South Asian pilgrimage traditions. Using the map function of the website, the student would specify a spatial footprint on a map of the earth and zoom in through successive map layers-from Asia to India to South India-to a detailed map of the region of Madurai in Tamil Nadu. The student would then investigate the central pilgrimage networks associated with two distinct but interrelated temple complexes: the M...n€k...-Sundarevara Temple located in Madurai, an ancient pilgrimage site that is a flourishing cultural and political center in contemporary Tamil Nadu; and the Temple of Alagar located in the Alagar hills about twelve miles northeast of Madurai. The purpose of the assignment would be to allow the student to explore the issue of multivocality from a variety of perspectives, using the categories of space, ritual, community, narrative, and iconography as interpretive lenses through which to make sense of the contending pilgrimage traditions associated with the two temple complexes. This exploration of multivocality would include an examination of:

• The competing models of sacred space associated with the two temple traditions in Madurai and Alagar.
• The ritual traditions associated with two annual festivals that distinguish and interconnect the two temple complexes.
• The contending communities in the two locales that present alternative interpretations of the significance of the festivals.
• The narratives that are invoked by members of these communities to legitimate their respective interpretations.
• The manner in which the festival iconography reflects the tensions between the competing temple traditions.

Please see http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/CASS/ for a demonstration of the CASS instructional resource utilizing the Madurai sacred site module.

Instructional Objectives
The CASS website, with its network of interwoven map layers and multimedia resources, will allow students to explore particular sacred sites as well as the interrelationships among sites from a variety of perspectives. The website will incorporate a number of features that are designed to realize specific instructional objectives.

• The website will support students with diverse learning styles by incorporating a variety of media that support different modes of appropriating the material. In order to activate the range of learning skills available to students, the material will be presented in a variety of formats, ranging from textual sources and maps to images, video clips, music, and other media. This instructional resource will transform the students' approach to the subject matter, allowing them to move beyond the confines of the classroom and to enter into a virtual world whose sensory richness, conceptual complexity, and interconnectivity more closely approximates the religiocultural worlds they are studying.
• The website will encourage a highly interactive engagement in the learning process by providing students with hyperlinked networks of visual imagery, textual sources, and other media. The structured interconnectivity will enable the faculty to assign to students specific learning paths and exercises while also allowing the students greater control over the learning process so that they can explore the material in accord with their own interests and learning needs. Features such as individualized student record pages, on-line storage, and note-taking capabilities will promote self-directed learning, empowering students to explore and analyze the data in ways that are not possible through standard lectures, textbooks, and testing procedures.
• The website will foster in students the capacity for critical reflection by incorporating questions that are directly related to the material being viewed and that stimulate students to analyze, penetrate, synthesize, and assess the material. Students will be able to respond to these questions using an on-line word-processing application that can import and edit images, sound files, and texts from the website itself. The resultant file, which records the student's responses and reflections, can then be stored in the student's own on-line portfolio, sent to the professor, posted on the website itself, or even mailed to other students in the class. This feature will thus promote critical thinking and collaboration while at the same time serving as a means of evaluating students' ongoing work.
• The website will provide tools that encourage ongoing dialogue and community building among students and faculty through various modes of interchange. Through such tools as chat, threaded discussion lists, and automated e-mail list services, students will be able to critically engage and discuss the course material with one another, as well as with the professor and teaching assistant(s), outside the confines of the classroom.

Course Applications
The fourteen UC courses in which the sacred site modules will be incorporated exemplify the diverse levels and types of courses in which the website can be fruitfully implemented in a variety of different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Beyond these specific courses, the CASS website will serve as a broad-based instructional resource that can be adapted to realize the pedagogical objectives of a range of other courses that involve the study of Asian religions and cultures.
UCSB Courses

• Religious Studies 1: Introduction to the Study of Religion. To be taught by Juan Campo in Spring 2003.
• Religious Studies 3: Introduction to Asian Religious Traditions. To be taught by William Powell in Spring 2002.
• Religious Studies 158A: Hindu Myth and Image. To be taught by Barbara Holdrege in Spring 2003.
• Religious Studies 158B: Pilgrimage Traditions of South Asia. To be taught by Barbara Holdrege in Spring 2002.

UC San Diego Courses

• Making of the Modern World 2: The Great Classical Traditions. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Winter 2003.
• Religious Studies 113: Texts and Contexts: Textual Communities in South Asia. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Winter 2002.
• Literatures of the World 135: The Buddhist Imaginary. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Winter 2003.
• Literatures of the World 136: Goddesses and Women in India. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Fall 2002.
• Anthropology Regional 170: Traditional Chinese Society. To be taught by David Jordan in Spring 2002.
• Anthropology Regional 173: Chinese Popular Religion. To be taught by David Jordan in Winter 2003.

UC Riverside Courses

• Religious Studies 5: Introduction to Asian Religions. To be taught by Vivian-Lee Nyitray in Winter 2002.
• Religious Studies 101: Religions of India. To be taught by Brian K. Smith in Fall 2002.
• Religious Studies 106: Buddhism. To be taught by Brian K. Smith in Winter 2002.
• Religious Studies 107: Taoist Traditions. To be taught by Vivian-Lee Nyitray in Spring 2003.

The CASS website development team will focus on two principal tasks in 2001-2002: (1) development of the website infrastructure, and (2) development of the twelve sacred site modules, which will be implemented and evaluated in the fourteen designated UC courses over the next two years (2001-2002, 2002-2003). (The schedule when each course will be taught is indicated in the "Course Applications" section.)

July to December 2001

• Development of the website infrastructure.
• Development of the sacred site modules that will be incorporated in UC courses to be taught in Winter 2002.

January to March 2002

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Winter 2002.
• Development of the sacred site modules that will be incorporated in UC courses to be taught in Spring 2002, Fall 2002, Winter 2003, or Spring 2003.

April to June 2002

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Spring 2002.

September to December 2002

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Fall 2002.

January to March 2003

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Winter 2003.

April to June 2003

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Spring 2003.

  Project Evaluation

Evaluation instruments and protocols will be developed to assess the pedagogical effectiveness of the sacred site modules as an instructional resource. For each course, the faculty member will be asked to formulate a statement of instructional objectives that specifies (1) the objectives of the course as a whole, (2) the specific pedagogical goals to be accomplished through the implementation of each of the website modules in the course, and (3) the measures that will be used to evaluate student performance and the attainment of the specified objectives. The evaluation protocols for each course will include two principal phases of evaluation and will be concerned with assessing the extent to which the specified instructional objectives are achieved.

• Formative Evaluation. Protocols will be developed to gather feedback online from both students and faculty at designated intervals during the implementation of each website module in the course. Students and faculty will be asked to provide feedback concerning the technical design, functionality, and ease of navigation of the website; the conceptual framework and intellectual content of the website module; and the effectiveness of the website assignments in enhancing the students' ability to analyze, synthesize, and critically assess the course material. This online feedback will be used by the website development team to identify problems and to adjust and refine the website design, content, and assignments as the course progresses.
• Summative Evaluation. At the conclusion of each website module and at the end of the course as a whole, students and faculty will be asked to complete surveys evaluating the design and content of the website modules and the accompanying guidebook. Faculty will be asked to assess more specifically the effectiveness of the website in enhancing student performance and in fulfilling the pedagogical objectives of the course as a whole.

  Budget

The TLtC Implementation Grant, as described in detail on the budget form, will be used to fund four aspects of the CASS project that are integral to our broader collaborative efforts with our intercampus partners.

• Development of the website infrastructure, including construction of a multi-tiered database system that will ensure the interoperability of two key components of the CASS website: (1) ECAI's TimeMapView, which will be customized for use as the front end of the CASS website, and (2) the ADL system, which will be used to store and archive the CASS data objects and metadata.
• Development of twelve sacred site modules for each of the twelve sacred site complexes that have been targeted for development in 2001-2002
• Hosting of a two workshop at UCSB in winter 2002, which will bring together the UC faculty collaborators and the teams of CASS, ADL, ADEPT, and ECAI to assess the progress of the CASS project and to discuss pedagogical and technical issues involved in the implementation of the website modules in the designated UC courses.
• Release time for one course for the Project Director, Barbara Holdrege.

  Plan for Continued Funding

• We intend to seek further support from TLtC Implementation Grants in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 in order to develop the eight additional sacred site modules that have been targeted for development beyond the twelve sacred site modules developed in 2001-2002. (See Appendix, "Sacred Site Modules and UC Courses.") In addition, we plan to expand, enrich, and adapt the initial twelve modules based on the evaluative feedback that we receive from faculty and students in the designated courses.
• We also plan to apply for funding from extra-mural granting agencies to support the long-term development of the CASS website as a broad-based instructional resource for the study of Asian religions and cultures not only at the University of California, but also at other colleges and universities throughout the United States. We intend to submit, in collaboration with the Alexandria Digital Library, a proposal to the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) for funds to support the development of the CASS collection. We also plan to submit proposals to the Lilly Endowment, which funded the Wabash Grant that we received in 2000-2001, and to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• Through our collaboration with the Alexandria Digital Library, which will store, archive, and maintain the CASS collection of data objects and metadata, we will able to ensure the long-term persistence and viability of the website as an instructional resource. Beyond the initial phases of development and implementation, the intercampus team of faculty collaborators is committed to utilizing the sacred site modules on an ongoing basis in their respective courses.