Funding

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

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

  Principal Investigators:
  Barbara A. Holdrege, Project Director; William Powell; and Juan E. Campo (UCSB)

Our intercampus team of University of California faculty is applying for a Teaching, Learning, and technology Collaborative (TLtC) Implementation Grant for 2002-2003 to support the second phase of development 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 long-term project involves the development of thirty sacred site modules, which will be incorporated in seventeen courses taught by seven faculty at three UC campuses: six courses at UCSB, seven courses at UC San Diego, and four courses at UC Riverside. In the first phase of the project this year, 2001-2002, we have focused on the development of seven sacred site modules in India and Nepal. In the second phase of the project, in 2002-2003, we will develop eight additional sacred site modules in India and China. In the third phase of the project, we plan to develop the remaining fifteen sacred site modules. (See "Progress Report for 2001-2002.")

  Background

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. The purpose of the Center is to provide an institutional framework to foster the development of innovative, state-of-the-art web-based instructional resources for the analysis of sacred space that will revolutionize the way in which courses on Asian religions and cultures are taught. The Center's principal 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 a range of undergraduate and graduate courses on the religions and cultures of Asia at UC campuses.
During the past two years, the CASS faculty team has received a number of grants to support the collection of field data and development of the website:

• Wabash Grant for 2000-2001 from the Wabash Center, a program funded by the Lilly Endowment.
• Teaching, Learning, and technology Collaborative (TLtC) Planning Mini-Grant for March 2001 from the University of California Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology.
• Teaching, Learning, and technology Collaborative (TLtC) Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 from the University of California Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology.
• Pacific Rim Grant for 2001-2002 from the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program.
• Instructional Improvement Grants for 2000-2001, 2001-2002, and 2002-2003 from the UCSB Academic Senate Committee on Effective Teaching and Instructional Support.
  

  Nature of Collaboration

The CASS faculty team developed intercampus partnerships in 2000-2001 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 has involved three types of cooperative efforts:

• We have been collaborating with ADL in building a special CASS collection of georeferenced multimedia resources on Asian religions and cultures that will be stored and archived in the digital library.
• We have been 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 have been working with ECAI to adapt TimeMapView-which is the principal interface custom-designed for the ECAI datasets-as one of the web applications that will be utilized in the CASS website.
  

In addition to these intercampus partnerships, the CASS faculty team at UCSB expanded in winter 2001 to include a broader team of faculty collaborators from other University of California campuses, 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, UC San Diego; Richard Cohen, Assistant Professor of South Asian religious literatures, Department of Literature, UC San Diego; 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 are involved in two main phases of the project. In the planning phase of the project, they provided 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.

  Choice of Technology

In developing the CASS website infrastructure, we have been concerned to ensure the interoperability of the website architecture and database system with the technologies developed by two of our intercampus collaborators: (1) TimeMapView, the principal interface developed for the ECAI datasets, which we have adapted for use as one of the web applications in the CASS website; and (2) the ADL system, which we are using to store and archive the CASS data objects and metadata. Through our collaboration with ADL and ECAI, we have access to sophisticated information technologies, developmental expertise, and ongoing support that would be impossible to replicate through other means at a reasonable cost.

The Alexandria Digital Library is providing the project with the hardware resources and software systems required for secure storage and archiving of the CASS data objects and metadata. ADL's data maintenance protocols will ensure the persistence and integrity of the data over the long term, protecting the project data against hardware and software obsolescence. Housing the CASS data as a special ADL collection will also make the data available to the broader network of users of the Alexandria Digital Library at the University of California.

ECAI's TimeMapView is a sophisticated spatiotemporal methodology that has many of the functionalities that we are developing in the CASS website. We have worked this year with the technical team of ECAI to customize the TimeMapView interface for use as one of the web applications in the CASS website and to develop additional functionalities to serve the specific instructional objectives of the CASS project. The CASS customized georeferenced interface displays spatially- and temporally-referenced datasets as map layers, in which map objects are linked to multimedia resources and other data. This georeferenced interface allows users 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 user interfaces for the CASS website constitute the front end of a database system that stores 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. As will be discussed further below, we have been concerned this year with the construction of a multi-tiered database system that will ensure the interoperability of the CASS website with the ADL system. This database system includes three principal components:

• The CASS Data Objects Repository, for which ADL is providing disk space and a directory tree.
• The CASS Clearinghouse Database, which is a Microsoft Access database that serves as the central repository to consolidate, standardize, and test the metadata for the CASS data objects.
• The CASS Production Database, an Informix database that mirrors the structure of the CASS Clearinghouse Database and that will be housed on a Map and Image Laboratory research machine in ADL. This database constitutes the critical interoperational system that links to ADL.
  

This multi-tiered database system provides a scalable, flexible, persistent website infrastructure that is sufficiently robust to support the instructional objectives of the CASS project over the long term. This system enables the CASS website developers, in constructing the sacred site modules, to assign each data object and its corresponding metadata a unique identifier and to use these unique identifiers to dynamically construct web pages to display different configurations of data objects and metadata within the user interfaces.

  Project Goals

Pedagogical Design
The pedagogical design of the CASS web-based instructional resource is structured around sacred site modules. In its final form the CASS website will include sacred site modules pertaining to thirty sacred site complexes in Asia, including Iran, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, and Japan. As mentioned earlier, in the first phase of the project this year, 2001-2002, we have focused on the development of seven sacred site modules in India and Nepal. In the second phase of the project, in 2002-2003, we will develop eight additional sacred site modules in India and China. In the third phase of the project, we plan to develop the remaining fifteen sacred site modules. Each of the seventeen designated UCSB courses will incorporate a distinctive combination of sacred site modules. (See Appendix A, "Sacred Site Modules and UC Courses.") [MSWord document]

The map layers for each sacred site module for a particular site complex include a base map of the sacred site complex on which major pilgrimage routes and sites-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 site are 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 Mahatmya literature extolling the greatness of the temple, photographs of the temple and its iconography, video recordings of puja 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 Mahatmya text while at the same time playing an audio recording.

The CASS website enables 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. The website allows students to 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 (tirthas) 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, Mahatmya and Sthala Purana 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 Minaksi-Sundaresvara 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.

  Instructional Objectives

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

• The website supports 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 is 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 encourages 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 enables 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 fosters 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, synthesize, evaluate, and apply 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 provides 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.
  

  PROGRESS REPORT FOR 2001-2002

  Objectives

In the course of developing the Sacred Sites of Asia Instructional Resource over the past year, we have revised the objectives of the project in two significant ways that diverge from the objectives stated in our original TLtC Implementation Grant proposal submitted on April 18, 2001.

First, in accordance with the recommendations of the review committee for the TLtC Implementation grant, as specified in Vice Provost Zelmanowitz's letter dated May 12, 2001, we have shifted the focus of the project in order to give primary emphasis to the construction of generic sacred site modules rather than to the development of customized course applications. As discussed in the original proposal that we submitted on April 18, 2001, we initially envisioned that the development of the CASS website for the study of sacred sites in Asia would involve three principal tasks: (1) development of the website infrastructure; (2) development of the sacred site modules that form the basis of the CASS website; and (3) adaptation and incorporation of these sacred site modules in customized course applications for the fourteen UC courses designated in the proposal. Based on the recommendations of the review committee conveyed to us by Vice Provost Zelmanowitz in May 2001, we eliminated the section of the proposed budget pertaining to the development of customized course applications and refocused that portion of the budget on the development of generic (non-course-specific) sacred site modules for the twelve sacred site complexes targeted for development in 2001-2002. This in turn led us to expand our definition of what constitutes a sacred site module. We had originally conceived of a sacred site module as a basic assemblage of web documents that configure the multimedia resources pertaining to the sacred site complex in discrete units pertaining to particular sites or themes. In response to the advice of the review committee, we reconceptualized the sacred site module as a much more rich, complex, and multifaceted module that should be sufficiently flexible to fulfill the needs of a variety of different University of California courses. This means that beyond the base digital resources, the construction of each sacred site module involves the development of generic courseware that reflects a range of pedagogical objectives corresponding to the different types of UC courses in which the module will be incorporated.

Second, we have spent a substantial portion of this year developing the website infrastructure-including the database system, website architecture, and user interfaces-and we have consequently had to redefine the scope of our work in 2001-2002 to include fewer sacred site modules than originally projected in the proposal that we submitted on April 18, 2001. Whereas in the original proposal we projected that we would develop twelve sacred site modules in 2000-2001, by the end of this funding cycle we will have developed seven sacred site modules.

  Activities and Results

The CASS website development team has focused this year (2001-2002) on three types of tasks:

• We have used funds from the TLtC Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 to develop the website infrastructure.
• We have used funds from the Wabash Grant for 2000-2001 and Pacific Rim Grant for 2002-2003 to support the collection of field data in India and China.
• We are using funds from the TLtC Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 to develop sacred site modules for seven site complexes in India and Nepal: Varanasi, Uttar Khand, Braj, Tirupati, Srirangam, Madurai, and Kathmandu Valley. We are using funds from the UCSB Instructional Improvement Grant for 2001-2002 to develop courseware for each of the sacred site modules.

Website Infrastructure Development
We have used funds from the TLtC Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 to construct the CASS website infrastructure, including the database system, website architecture, and user interfaces.

Development of the Website Database System. The CASS website developer and database programmer have been concerned this year with the construction of the multi-tiered database system, discussed earlier, that will ensure the interoperability of the CASS website infrastructure with the ADL system, which we are using to store and archive the CASS data objects and metadata.

• This year we have developed and have been testing the CASS Clearinghouse Database, which is a sophisticated relational database in Microsoft Access that integrates metadata for various types of media-including still images, video recordings, texts, and maps-in a single system based on a hierarchy of spatial categories. The CASS Clearinghouse Database builds on and refines the structure of the earlier flat-file CASS Field Databases in Filemaker Pro that were used by the CASS field teams in India and China. We have transferred the metadata from the CASS Field Databases into the Microsoft Access database and have been consolidating and standardizing the metadata for the data objects collected by the CASS field teams and the archival and library research team.
• After testing and finalizing the design of the CASS Clearinghouse Database, we are constructing this spring the CASS Production Database, an Informix database that mirrors the structure of the CASS Clearinghouse Database and that will be housed in ADL on a Map and Image Laboratory research machine. This phase involves development and testing of protocols for transfer of data from the CASS Clearinghouse Database to the CASS Production Database.
• We are collaborating with ADL technical experts to map the CASS-specific metadata categories onto the standard ADL metadata categories and to ingest the CASS metadata into ADL so that the CASS data objects and metadata can be accessed not only through the CASS Production Database but also directly through ADL.
  

Development of the Website Architecture and User Interfaces. The CASS website designer has also focused this year on designing and constructing the architecture and user interfaces for the CASS website.

• Design and implementation of the core architecture for the website.
• Development of user interfaces to accommodate the needs of different types of users.
• Development of various custom web applications that serve as search engines and browser plug-ins.
• Management of Geographic Information System (GIS) datasets.
  

Collection of Field Data
Over the past two years (2000-2001 and 2002-2003) we have used funds from grants other than the TLtC Implementation Grant-in particular the Wabash Grant for 2000-2001 and the Pacific Rim Grant for 2001-2002-to send field teams to South Asia and China to collect digital media for the CASS website. The compilation of our own field data has been vital to the construction of the CASS website in order to ensure that we have an extensive collection of digital media that are (1) specific to the particular sacred site complexes that are the focus of our courses; (2) accurately georeferenced using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver; and (3) free of outside copyright restrictions.

• South Asia Field Data. 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 that represent a range of Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim traditions.
• China Field Data. A member of the CASS China field team spent from June to September 2000 and from July to December 2001 in China, collecting over 9,000 georeferenced digital images pertaining to thirteen sacred site complexes that represent various Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Muslim traditions.
  

Development of Sacred Site Modules
We have used funds from the TLtC Implementation Grant for 2001-2002 to develop sacred site modules for the seven site complexes in India and Nepal for which the South Asia field team collected digital images and digital video recordings in 2000-2001. The construction of each sacred site module involves a complex array of tasks, including archival and library research, inventory and preparation of multimedia resources, and web application programming.

Archival and Library Research. In order to supplement the digital resources collected by the South Asia field team for the seven sacred site modules, the CASS archival and library research team has been concerned this year with the collection of maps, still images, films, textual sources, and other resources from libraries, image collections, and electronic archives that are free of copyright restrictions.

• Acquisition of digital maps and other map resources.
• Collection of still images from various image collections.
• Researching of film and videotape collections.
• Collection of primary and secondary textual sources.
  

Inventory and Preparation of Multimedia Resources. The CASS team has also focused this year on the inventory, preparation, and cataloging of the multimedia resources that will be incorporated in the seven sacred site modules.

• Processing of map resources and generation of map layers from datasets.
• Preparation and optimization of digital images collected by the CASS South Asia field team and the archival and library research team.
• Editing and compositing of movie programs from video footage collected by the CASS South Asia field team.
• Translation and adaptation of primary and secondary textual sources.
• Creation of metadata records for all data objects.
  

Web Application Programming. In addition to constructing the website architecture and user interfaces, the CASS website developer has been concerned this year with the development of multimedia web documents and three-dimensional content pertaining to the seven sacred site modules.

• Development of multimedia web documents for each of the sacred site modules, which integrate and configure the data objects in discrete units pertaining to particular sites (for example, temples, shrines, or geographic features) or particular themes (for example, ritual, narrative, or iconography).
• Development of custom three-dimensional content for each sacred site module, including three-dimensional visualizations, animations, and interactive walkthroughs.
  

Design of Course Lessons. Funds from the Instructional Improvement Grant for 2001-2002 are being used to develop courseware for the sacred site modules. For each sacred site module we are developing lessons that address a range of pedagogical objectives corresponding to the needs of each of the courses in which the module will be incorporated.

Development of Guidebooks and Student Evaluation Procedures. We are also developing guidebooks and student evaluation procedures for each sacred site module.

• Development of guidebooks, in both HTML and printed forms, that include instructions for navigating the module with reference to specific pedagogical objectives.
• Design of assignments, questionnaires, and other modes of evaluating students, including procedures built into the website module as well as others administered externally.

Implementation of Sacred Site Modules
Due to the complexity of the design of the sacred site modules, we have focused our energies this year on the construction and testing of the modules and have postponed our plan for widespread implementation of the modules in a range of UC courses until 2002-2003. We are testing select modules this spring in Religious Studies 158A, Hindu Myth and Image, taught by Barbara Holdrege.

  Faculty Roles

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. Over the past year we have consulted with our faculty colleagues at other UC campuses in order to ensure that the pedagogical vision, design, and objectives of the Sacred Sites of Asia Instructional Resource reflect the collective needs of the designated courses at all three UC campuses. We will be convening a workshop at UCSB in June to bring together the UC faculty collaborators and members of the CASS, ADL, ADEPT, and ECAI technical teams to assess the sacred site modules developed this year and to discuss pedagogical and technical issues involved in the implementation and evaluation of the website modules in the designated UC courses over the course of the next two years (2002-2003, 2003-2004).

We formalized the collaborative relationship between CASS, ADEPT, and ADL in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding dated June 16, 2001, which delineates the specific terms of our intercampus partnerships. (See "Memorandum of Understanding" appended to the Budget following the letter of commitment from Larry Carver, Director of Library Technologies at the Map and Image Laboratory of the UCSB Davidson Library.)

William Powell, one of the Principal Investigators of the CASS project, together with Cory Redmond, the CASS website designer, made a presentation at the ECAI Conference, "Towards an Electronic Cultural Atlas: E-Publishing and Data Interoperability in the Humanities," at the University of Sydney, Australia, in June 2001. The presentation included an overview of the Sacred Sites of Asia project, drawing examples from two sacred site modules of the CASS website targeted for development: (1) Braj, India, a network of pilgrimage sites centered around Mathura that is considered the sacred land of the Hindu deity Krishna; and (2) Jiuhua Shan, China, a mountain located in Anhui Province that is considered one of the "Four Great Luminous Mountains" of Late Imperial Buddhism. We are scheduled to make another presentation at the next ECAI Conference in Japan in September 2002. In addition to our ongoing participation in ECAI conferences and workshops, the CASS website development team has also been working with the ECAI technical team this year to adapt the ECAI interface, TimeMapView, for use as one of the web applications in the CASS website, as discussed earlier.

  Budget

We do not anticipate carrying forward more than twenty-five percent of the TLtC funds that we received to support the Sacred Sites of Asia Instructional Resource this year. All of the funds awarded for 2001-2002 have been allocated to project activities that will be completed during the current funding cycle.

  Timeline for 2002-2003

The CASS website development team will focus on two principal tasks in 2001-2002: (1) development of sacred site modules for eight additional sacred site regions in India and China: Prayag, Sabarimala, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Jiuhua Shan, Tai Shan, Wudang Shan, and Beijing; and (2) implementation and evaluation of the fifteen sacred site modules developed in 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 in seventeen designated UC courses over the next two years (2002-2003, 2003-2004).

Development of Sacred Site Modules
On the basis of our assessment of the existing CASS collection of multimedia resources together with the new data collected this year by the China field team member, we have targeted eight additional sacred site complexes for which we will develop multimedia modules in the coming year. Like the sacred site modules developed this year, the construction of each module will involve archival and library research, inventory and preparation of multimedia resources, and web application programming.

Archival and Library Research. In order to supplement the digital images collected by the CASS field teams, the archival and library research team will collect multimedia resources for the eight sacred site modules, including maps, still images, films, textual sources, and other resources from libraries, image collections, and electronic archives that are free of copyright restrictions.

• Acquisition of digital maps and other map resources.
• Collection of still images from various image collections.
• Researching of film and videotape collections.
• Collection of primary and secondary textual sources.
  

Inventory and Preparation of Multimedia Resources. The CASS team will also focus on the inventory, preparation, and cataloging of the multimedia resources that will be incorporated in the eight sacred site modules.

• Processing of map resources and generation of map layers from datasets.
• Preparation and optimization of digital images collected by the CASS field teams and the archival and library research team.
• Editing and compositing of movie programs from video footage collected by the CASS field teams and the archival and library research team.
• Translation and adaptation of primary and secondary textual sources.
• Creation of metadata records for all data objects.
  

Web Application Programming. The CASS website developer will develop multimedia web documents and three-dimensional content pertaining to the eight sacred site modules.

• Development of multimedia web documents for each of the sacred site modules, which integrate and configure the data objects in discrete units pertaining to particular sites (for example, temples, shrines, or geographic features) or particular themes (for example, ritual, narrative, or iconography).
• Development of custom three-dimensional content for each sacred site module, including three-dimensional visualizations, animations, and interactive walkthroughs.
  

Design of Course Lessons. For each sacred site module we will develop lessons that address a range of pedagogical objectives corresponding to the needs of each of the courses in which the module will be incorporated.

Development of Guidebooks and Student Evaluation Procedures. We will develop guidebooks and student evaluation procedures for each sacred site module and course in which the modules will be incorporated.

• Development of guidebooks, in both HTML and printed forms, that include instructions for navigating the module with reference to specific pedagogical objectives.
• Design of assignments, questionnaires, and other modes of evaluating students, including procedures built into the website module as well as others administered externally.
  

Implementation of Sacred Site Modules
Over the course of the next two years (2002-2003, 2003-2004), the fifteen sacred site modules developed in 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 will be implemented and evaluated in seventeen UC courses. In addition to the fourteen UC courses specified in last year's proposal, the UC faculty collaborators are developing three additional courses that will be structured around the sacred site modules: Religious Studies 19: The Gods and Goddesses of India., a new course that will introduced by Barbara Holdrege in Winter 2004; Religious Studies 175: Sacred Geography in China and Japan, a redesigned course that will be taught by William Powell in Winter 2004; and Anthropology Lower Division 90: Sacred Space in China, a new course that will be taught by David Jordan in Spring 2003.

The seventeen UC courses in which the sacred site modules are being 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.

UC Santa Barbara 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 2003.
• Religious Studies 19: The Gods and Goddesses of India. To be taught by Barbara Holdrege in Winter 2004.
• 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 2003.
• Religious Studies 175: Sacred Geography in China and Japan To be taught by William Powell in Winter 2004.

UC San Diego Courses

• Making of the Modern World 2: The Great Classical Traditions. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Fall 2004.
• Anthropology Lower Division 90: Sacred Space in China. To be taught by David Jordan in Spring 2003.
• Religious Studies 113: Texts and Contexts: Textual Communities in South Asia. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Winter 2004.
• Literatures of the World 135: The Buddhist Imaginary. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Winter 2004.
• Literatures of the World 136: Goddesses and Women in India. To be taught by Richard Cohen in Fall 2004.
• Anthropology Regional 170: Traditional Chinese Society. To be taught by David Jordan in Spring 2004.
• Anthropology Regional 173: Chinese Popular Religion. To be taught by David Jordan in Spring 2003.
  

UC Riverside Courses

• Religious Studies 5: Introduction to Asian Religions. To be taught by Vivian-Lee Nyitray in Winter 2004.
• Religious Studies 101: Religions of India. To be taught by Brian K. Smith in Fall 2003.
• Religious Studies 106: Buddhism. To be taught by Brian K. Smith in Winter 2003.
• Religious Studies 107: Taoist Traditions. To be taught by Vivian-Lee Nyitray Spring 2003.

 Timeline

All of the eight sacred site modules targeted for development in 2002-2003 will be completed by the end of next year, although a number of the modules will not be implemented until 2003-2004. The timeline for the implementation and evaluation of specific sacred site modules will be determined by the schedule when each of the seventeen designated UC courses will be taught over the course of the next two years, as outlined above.

July to December 2002

• Development of the sacred site modules that will be incorporated in UC courses to be taught in Winter 2003.
  

January to March 2003

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Winter 2003.
• Development of the sacred site modules that will be incorporated in UC courses to be taught in Spring 2003, Fall 2003, Winter 2004, Spring 2004.
  

April to June 2003

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

September to December 2003

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

January to March 2004

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Winter 2004.
  

April to December 2004

• Implementation and evaluation of the sacred site modules in UC courses taught in Spring 2004 and Fall 1994.

  Project Evaluation

We are developing evaluation instruments and protocols to assess the pedagogical effectiveness of the website 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 used 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.

Appendix A, "Sacred Site Modules and UC Courses" [MSWord document]