Completed Projects

Syllabus Project for Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Review
Contact: Karyn Sproles
Programmer: Kevin Hegg, Center for Instructional Technology

JMU is preparing for a reaccredidation review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The process of reaccredidation occurs every ten years, and is proceeded by an extensive analysis of the University's compliance with the SACS criteria for accreditation. One aspect of this process requires JMU to confirm that all students receive information about how each of their courses is conducted, i.e., through a syllabus. To ensure that the SACS team will have easy access to a random sample of syllabi, faculty are being asked to upload a copy of their syllabi for Spring '02 courses to http://syllabus.jmu.edu, a site created by Kevin Hegg specifically for this purpose.

2001 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement
Project: The Creation and Utilization of Streaming Media for In-Class/Out-of-Class Applications
Investigator: Dr. Steven D. Anderson
College: College of Arts and Letters
Dept/Div: School of Media Arts and Design

The purpose of this project is to investigate and adopt technologies that will allow faculty in the School of Media Arts & Design to utilize streaming media (both audio and video) in the classroom. The project seeks to determine whether making streaming media material available online would help students understand principles of visual communication related to dynamic composition and editing. Teaching composition involving camera movement or movement within the frame would logically require visual examples necessary to illustrate the concepts. It is hoped that students would learn these principles by seeing examples of the principles illustrated in class and online for later review. Further, SMAD 202 itself (and other more advanced classes) may benefit from the server being available for them to learn about creating streaming media.

2001 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement
Project: Virtual Parasitology
Investigator: Dr. James Dendinger
College: Science and Mathematics
Dept/Div: Biology

To develop an on-line textbook for parasitology which will be partially constructed by students taking the course. To produce an active, current electronic textbook and to increase the student’s participation in the course through active learning.

2001 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement
Project: FLASHy Enhancements to GIST 113
Investigator: Dr. Jeffrey Kushner
College: College of Integrated Science and Technology
Dept/Div: Integrated Science and Technology

This project proposal is for the development and incorporation of Macromedia Flash animations into the ISAT General Education course GIST 113 – Issues in Living Systems. The objectives for this project will accommodate both visual and aural learners, allowing instructors to create active learning environments for the students, as well as fulfilling the technological needs of students, thus providing effective facilitation of student learning, and providing enhanced course components for the many faculty involved in teaching this Gen. Ed. component of the ISAT curriculum. Production of the following: 12 flash movies, each ending with an optional ‘quiz’ and a web page linking the movies to the class.

2001 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement
Project: Electronic Reserves for EDUC 360: Foundations of Education
Investigators: Dr. Les Bolt and Dr. Barbara Slater-Stern
College: College of Education and Psychology
Dept/Div: Teacher Education

This project is designed to develop a comprehensive set of on-line support resources for EDUC 360, Foundations of Education. This project would provide a common knowledge base, via on-line resources, that faculty members could link to from a variety of portals (CourseInfo, WebBoard, individual web pages, etc.). This should lead to some standardization of what learnings students in EDUC 360 get across sections. This should also provide a mechanism for increased interactions between faculty members teaching different sections of EDUC 360.

2001 mGrant Award: Distance and Distributed Learning
Project: JMU Online Writing Lab
Investigators: Dr. Teresa Murden
College: College of Arts and Letters
Dept/Div: Writing Program/English

Currently there is only one writing lab on campus and it is limited to use from first year students. The OWL will be staffed by peer tutors and will be built to meet the needs of JMU’s writing community. The custom design plan for building a JMU OWL is two-fold: (1) to construct a web site (OWL Web) with information and materials designed to support all writers in the JMU academic community and (2) to create a virtual writing lab space (OWL Tutoring Center) where writing tutors can meet with students to discuss works in progress and to support students in all stages of the writing process.

2000 Project
Project: Self-Study Electronic Library Catalog
Administration: Frank Doherty, Director of Institutional Research

The purpose of the SACS Self-Study Electronic Library Catalog is to enable faculty and staff to quickly find the documents needed to write sections of the SACS Self-Study report.

2001 Substance Abuse Prevention Training Curriculum Transition
Partners: Virginia Effective Practices Project (VEPP) and Center for Instructional Technology

The Virginia Effective Practices Project (VEPP) is a collaborative initiative of the Virginia Department of Education, Office of Compensatory Programs and the Office of Substance Abuse Research at James Madison University. The project, in it's fourth year in 2001, is designed to promote and support effective practices in youth substance abuse and violence prevention. VEPP has been selected to partner with the newly established Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention in the implementation of a revitalized statewide prevention system. As a part of this effort, the VEPP has partnered with the Center for Instructional Technology to transition training materials for substance abuse prevention specialists across Virginia to a web-based format.

2001 Project: Teacher to Teacher Video: the Writer's Workshop Approach
Investigator: Dr. Teresa T. Harris
College: College of Education and Psychology Dept/Div: Early Childhood Education

The purpose of this project is to create a video case study of exemplary teaching as part of the ongoing series, Teacher to Teacher. Ann Young, a third grade teacher at Spotswood Elementary School in Harrisonburg, Virginia uses the Writer's Workshop approach to teach children in the primary grade how to become better writers. Students in her class will be followed as they begin several drafts, selecting a single piece for revision into a final copy for publication. Anne will discuss the work of the children as well as her role in the writing process.

2000 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Expanding the Horizons of the Digital Image Database
Faculty: T. Aherne
Department of Art and Art History
College of Arts and Letters
http://cit.jmu.edu/aah

This grant expanded JMU's Digital Image Database at JMU. Dr. Aherne identified and added images of non-Western art to the image database by scanning and editing appropriate images and by reviewing and selecting appropriate images from the AMICO image library. These images were incorporated into the search and review system (The SlideShow Builder) of the database. In addition, Dr. Aherne worked with CIT staff to refine the image viewing component of the database to allow projection of dual images for comparison. Also, a pamphlet was developed for faculty that explains and promotes the Digital Image Database. Over 50,000 images can be made available for classroom teaching and online student study.

2000 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Development of Graphical Tools to Upgrade Web-based Quizzes for the Introductory Laboratory Courses
Faculty: D. Chodrow; K. Giovanetti; W.C. Hughes
Department of Physics
College of Science and Mathematics
http://cit.jmu.edu/ibex

This project expanded the current lab web site by creating graphic simulations. The quiz system builds on a system developed by the CIT in association with faculty in the Statistics and Philosophy departments in previous years. These simulations permit students to construct and submit drawings of test related materials and include images in their test responses. The online quizzes effect twelve sections of physics courses and are intended to stimulate new and better approaches of thinking about lab-related issues, more appropriately test students' understanding of concepts, evaluate and improve course aids so that students understand more clearly the goals of the lab, and engage the students as a critical part of the learning process and aid in their ability to participate as a critical part of that process.

2000 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Implementation of a Database to the Support A General Education Virtual Textbook
Faculty: C. Hurney
Department of Biology
College of Science and Mathematics
http://csm.jmu.edu/vtd

In association with the CIT, Dr. Hurney developed a database-driven virtual textbook for students and faculty in the General Education program. Using an online searchable database that contains links to select online readings, faculty can provide students with web addresses to supplement material covered in class. This resource is searchable via the Internet, easily updated, routinely checked for out-dated links and accessible to faculty interested in utilizing online resources. Readings originally cover issues focused around "Discovering Life" such as Genetic Identity, Infectious Disease, Biology of Addiction, and Genetically Engineered Plants; however, faculty are presently adding web resources to this database that support their instruction, thus creating a dynamic resource.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: CD-based Laboratory Simulation in Classical Conditioning
Faculty: J. Benedict
School of Psychology
College of Education and Psychology

Dr. Benedict has received a Learning Enhancement Grant to develop a software package, stored on a CD-ROM, which will simulate the process of designing and implementing experiments in classical conditioning. Pavlovian conditioning is an important area of study in psychology but is costly and time-consuming to have students experience and study in a lab setting. The CD-ROM will allow students to have an animal laboratory experience without using animals. Real animals will be conditioned and videotaped. The videotaped information will be digitized and integrated into a software package that simulates four difference procedures in classical conditioning. The software will include data generation, analysis and decision feedback. Project objectives include permitting students to practice the process of formulating and testing hypothesis, statistically analyzing and graphing results, and formulating new hypotheses that can be tested and enabling students to learn the concepts of classical conditioning through experimental method

1999 Grant Award: CIT Fellowship
Project: Animated Biology: Development of Computer Generated Animations
URL: http://cit.jmu.edu/animbio/
Faculty: C. Cleland and J. Herrick
Department of Biology
College of Science and Mathematics

Drs. Cleland and Herrick received a CIT Fellowship to improve teaching in the Department of Biology through the development of and incorporation of animations into Biology courses. The animations designed cover both physiological and microbiological topics such as cross-bridge theory of muscle contraction and enzyme binding. Many animations were be developed and are being incorporated into five courses during the 1999-2000 academic year. Project objectives included accommodating visual and aural learners, giving faculty tools and resources to create active learning environments in biology, fulfilling growing technological needs of students, providing effective transmission of knowledge to students, and providing course components to other faculty developing lecture materials.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: A Virtual Epidemiology Lab Tutorial and Interactive Simulation
Faculty: M. Lattanzi and R. Teutonico
CD: Infectious Diseases
Computer Science/ISAT
College of Integrated Science and Technology

Drs. Lattanzi and Teutonico created a computer-based supplement to GIST 111B. The outcome of the project was a tutorial on infectious diseases and an interactive laboratory, delivered on CD-ROM. This virtual laboratory allows students to experiment with various epidemiology factors such as lethality and population density, which affect the growth and spread of infectious diseases.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Development of a Web-based Financial Accounting Course
Faculty: M. Riordan
School of Accounting
College of Business

The scope of this proposal included the development of an online course for the MBA program in the College of Business. Financial Accounting (COB241) is one of the prerequisite undergraduate courses that must be taken prior to acceptance in the MBA program. This online course provides a model for other prerequisite courses offered online within the College of Business.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Online Publication Capacity to Support Teaching of Creative Writing
Faculty: M. Facknitz
URL: http://cit.jmu.edu/cw
Department of English
College of Arts and Letters

Dr. Facknitz will provide JMU students with an outlet for publishing creative writing works. Project development will include an online publishing system, the creation of an example cyber-magazine, and the development of templates that can be used by other faculty for online publication. In addition to the publication opportunity, the web site will provide a place for student collaboration of working drafts and shared discussion. After completion of the mGrant, collaborative publications will be regular and on-going.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: Development of Materials for Critical Thinking Courses
Faculty: W. Knorpp and T. Adajian
URL: http://cit.jmu.edu/etc
Department of Philosophy and Religion
College of Arts and Letters

Drs. Knorpp and Adajian will develop software to enhance the effectiveness of elementary critical thinking courses. The first module will focus on teaching students to distinguish argumentative from non-argumentative discourse, identify premises and conclusions and analyze the structure of arguments. Also, animations will be developed that are devoted to teaching fundamentals of logical crucial to analytical reasoning, for instance: the concepts of logical form, soundness, and validity; common valid and invalid argument-forms; ways of demonstrating invalidity; and truth tables.

1998 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: "On-Line Methodology Workshop for General Education Cluster Four"
Faculty: Drs. Charles H. Blake and Valerie A. Sulfaro
Department of Political Science

This project gathers instructional materials in support of the Goals and Objectives of Cluster Four of the General Education program, designed to teach students the different methodologies involved in gathering research, evaluating sources, and using data in ways that are consistent with scholarly practice. The Workshop, which will be delivered to students on-line, will emphasize collaborative learning and hands-on analysis, with an emphasis on social research.

Online Statistics Homework System
Development: Dr. Jonathan Kuhn and CIT Faculty and Staff
URL: http://www.stat.jmu.edu/hmwk/hmwksvr.plx

The College of Science and Mathematics has opened a statistics computer lab that will use this system to help students with the computational components of their math courses. Administrative and instructor functions of this system will be further developed in Fall, 1999.

1999 mGrant Award: CIT Small Grant
Project: Course Development for a Summer Institute in Counseling Psychology
Faculty: B. Evans
School of Psychology
College of Education and Psychology
Total Award for Hardware and Software: $496.75

Teaching Methodology Video
Development: Drs. Teresa Harris and Marilou Johnson

This teaching methodology video about "economics" will assist K-12 teachers in the implementation of different teaching methodologies.

Centra99 Distance Learning Server
Administration: CIT Staff

Faculty across the university continue to use this application for distance learning offerings. The CIT will continue to administer this distance learning server and train faculty in the use of the system. The university now has a site license for this application. For more information about Symposium, see http://learn.jmu.edu.

JMU Special Collections Web Site
Administration: Chris Bolgiano, Clint Sellers and CIT Staff
URL: http://library.jmu.edu/library/sc/memory/

Chris Bolgiano, in Special Collections, continues to work on digitizing a large volume of historical black and white photos of the JMU campus and community from its beginning in 1909 until present, to comprise a permanent online exhibit on JMU history to be mounted in the 90th anniversary year of 1999. Approximately 1,600 photos in the JMU Historical collection are digitized and available via the WWW.

1998 mGrant Award: CIT Fellowship
Project: "Online Course of Pathophysiology of the Hearing Mechanism"
Faculty: Dr. Dan C. Halling
Communication Sciences and Disorders

Traditionally, the graduate course CDS 619 (Disorders of the Auditory System) has been taught as an independent summer course to graduate students serving their summer externships, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction on both the parts of the instructor and students. This project takes CDS 619 into a distance learning environment, where students will maintain close contact with their instructor and each other while they pursue their studies independently and collaboratively. The class will meet weekly in an on-line real-time session led by Dr. Halling and supplemented by weekly visits by guest experts. On-line resources will supplement the in-class environment.

1998 mGrant Award: CIT Fellowship
Project: "Digital Image Database"
Faculty: Ms. Christina Updike and Dr. Kathleen Arthur
Art and Art History

This project provides a comprehensive on-line archive of images used in teaching Art History 205 and 206, and will provide access to the image collection in a medium that can be used by different instructors teaching in multiple sections in General Education.

1998 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: "The American Political System"
Faculty: Dr. Devin Bent
Political Science

This project implements a course web site for GPOS 225. Dividing the course curriculum into individual modules, the website will present topic-centered comprehensive study using both on-line course materials and Web-based resources, as well as assignments, tests, exercises, and chat- and threaded-discussions. The course will be offered as an alternative to a traditional face-to-face course, enabling students to enroll during the summer from their homes or during the Fall and Spring semesters from campus.

1998 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: "Heuristic Scientific Reasoning Engine"
Faculty: Drs. Steve J. Baedke and Lynn S. Fichter
Geology and Environmental Studies

This project will expand the capabilities of the prototype Heuristic Scientific Reasoning Engine (HSRE) to a fully operational computer program for use in introductory general education science courses GSCI 102A, GEOL 100, and GEOL 110. The intelligent system, programmed in Visual Basic, uses an interactive interface to foster critical thinking skills, such as observation, hypothesis formulation, prediction, and testing. Initially, the computer program will be used to identify minerals and rocks; however, the HSRE can be applied to any science class to foster scientific reasoning.

1998 mGrant Award: Learning Enhancement Grant
Project: "Computer-based Accounting Assignments"
Faculty: Dr. David R. Fordham
School of Accounting

This project introduces computer technology into accounting classes that have traditionally not used computers. In an effort to parallel real-world situations, assignments in these courses will require students to use computers to solve accounting problems. The project will also create a video tape to be used as supplemental instruction in the use of technological tools.

Foreign Languages and Literatures Web Site

In association with the CIT, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures has developed a World Wide Web home page dedicated to foreign language studies at James Madison University. The home page provides prospective students with information about foreign language curriculum, opportunities for study abroad, and extracurricular activities. Faculty and students have access to class home pages, on-line dictionaries, language-learning resources, and links to WWW sites that are relevant to studies in foreign language and literatures. Faculty contributions, including original information and language expertise, facilitated the development of this site. The Spanish web site has been selected by the Instituto Cerbantes, Madrid, to be included amidst the sites of its monumental Centro Virtual Cervantes.

General Education Website

General Education wanted to develop a comprehensive website that was informative, fluent and well-organized, and easy to navigate. CIT developed a new site format organized around the cluster structure of the General Education program, new General Education graphics, and a searchable database of course and instructor information. The new site (http://www.jmu.edu/gened) provides comprehensive information about the entire program as well as each cluster. Objectives, requirements, and prerequisites are features in formats that are useful to students, faculty, administrators, parents and advisors.

USI Marketing Video

The CIT has developed for hire a 10 minute marketing video for USI Corporation.