Transcript Physics meets the Virtual University DCOMP 01 Meeting MIT June 25 2001 Geoffrey Fox Florida State University Department of Computer Science and CSIT (School of Computational Science.

Physics meets
the Virtual University
DCOMP 01 Meeting
MIT June 25 2001
Geoffrey Fox
Florida State University
Department of Computer Science and
CSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology)
400 Dirac Science Library
Tallahassee
Florida 32306-4120
[email protected]
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
1
Distance and Web-based Education






http://aspen.csit.fsu.edu/collabtools
“From Computational Science to Internetics: Integration of Science
with Computer Science”
http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/documents/internetics2
Curriculum developed as web-pages: “Learning Objects”
– Improving Standards enable higher quality authoring such as
Macromedia Flash or Adobe Illustrator or nifty physics
interactive simulations
Delivered at a distance (needs collaboration technology), in-class
and/or asynchronously viewed by students in their own time
Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard offer
– Student registration, Quizzes, Grading, Security
– Database or better XML Storage
– IMS and ADL standards allow reusability
Important implications for “business model for education”
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
2
3-Tier Architecture for Education Portal




Everything is an Object: Curriculum, Users, grades, computers
– all are defined in XML
XML very important in online education as objects quite small,
are naturally decentralized and have
rich important metadata
Object
There are several important Object
Repository
Models: COM, CORBA, Java, Excel
Web, flat file, Oracle Database ……
But model doesn’t matter!!
XML
File System
(Web Site)
Request
Or
Export/Import
Information
Middle Tier
“Business Logic”
dissociates User and Back End
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
Database
3
Portals in Education and Training




We are discussing Web-based education
or portals to a virtual university or
virtual corporate training center
Merrill Lynch predicts that Enterprise
Information portal market will be $15B
by 2002
So assume that we are building education
portals in terms of “Distributed
Educational Objects” -- this is not really
an assumption but a statement as to
“language used”
Portals are built as a Collaborative
customizable set of XML components (
e.g. Display a thumbnail of the next webpage in lecture, give in-class quiz or run
a Particular Multi-media clip )
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
4
What is Web-based Collaboration?


Collaboration means sharing objects (Web Page very important
object)
Web-based Collaboration implies use of Web to share
distributed objects accessible through the Web
– Shared Web Pages; Resources accessed through Web Servers or
Brokers; Client-side applications with programmatic interfaces
such as Java Physics Simulations
Web Site
Shared Page
Specify Page
Web
Page
11/7/2015
Receive Identical Page
Web
Page
Web
Page
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
Shared
Pointer
5
Why use Distance Education and Training?

New and rapidly changing Academic Curriculum such as
Computational Physics or Complex Systems suggest the use of
distance education as it will allow a few experts to deliver
instruction to more students and this addresses both
– The shortage of trained faculty
– Offering classes with small enrollments at one university
– cost of developing new curriculum QUICKLY requires many students
(say around 5-10 times traditional class) to amortize cost



Distance Education is technically sound based on web curricula- both synchronously and asynchronously -- today with very
robust clear implementations available over next few years
Both delivery mechanism and identification of knowledge
nuggets (such as computational physics) that are smaller than or
different in content from a traditional degree suggests different
approaches to certification
– Courses are given, graded etc. by multiple organizations -- University
integrate degrees?
Similar arguments for distance training with relative importance of
synchronous and asynchronous learning differing by customer group
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
6
The Virtual University





Motivated either by decreased cost or increased quality
of learning environment
Will succeed due to market pressures (it will offer the
best product)
Assume that as with text books, only a few
pedagogically excellent teachers will produce lectures;
only a few charismatic souls deliver them
“Centers of Excellence” (“Hermits Cave Virtual
University”) are natural entities to produce and deliver
classes supported by good technology and wonderful
graphics
University acts as an integrator putting together a set
of classes where it may only teach some 20% but acts
as a mentor to all
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
7
Courses at Jackson State

Taught using Tango since fall 97 over Internet and defense high
performance network DREN twice a week from Syracuse
– Course material based on Syracuse Senior Undergraduate class CPS406(Web
Technologies) and graduate classes CPS615/616/640(Base Computational
science/Internetics)
– Curricula, Homework, Grading, Facilities done by Syracuse
– Students get JSU NOT Syracuse Credit




Jackson State major HBC University with many computer science
graduates
Do not compete with base courses but offer addon courses with
“leading edge” material (Web Technology, modern scientific
computing) which give JSU (under)graduates skills that are important
in their career
Fall 99 Semester CPS640 offered to 40 students in 5 distant places and
separately 40 at Syracuse
Fall 2001 restart with “latest technology” (Access Grid, HearMe,
Garnet)
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
8
Architecture of Tango Distance Education
JSU Web
(Proxy)Server
Student’s View of
Curriculum Page
HTTP
Java Tango
Server
Share URL’s
Audio Video
Conferencing
Chat Rooms
White Boards etc.
NPAC Web
Server
Address at JSU of
Curriculum Page
Teacher’s View of
Curriculum Page
……. Java Sockets
Java
……. Control Clients
Participants at JSU
Teacher/Lecturer at NPAC
All Curricula placed on the Web
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
9
> Two Shared Physics
Simulations – SHO and
Vector cross product
> Chat Room
> Audio video conferencing
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
10
What did this lead to?





Jackson State students got access to curricula that was not
otherwise available to them
Developed quite good Information Technology and
computational science curricula
Jackson State faculty acted as mentors in course and now
teach some of material in their own courses and to other
HBCU colleges
– Make rapidly changing and important curricula
available to an HBCU network -- could dramatically
improve curricula opportunities for HBCU students
– JSU has institutional commitment to area
Used in High School Java, DoD wide training and Winter
00 semester as part of ERDC Graduate Institute
Supports migrant teachers -- I have delivered course spring
00 semester from Syracuse, FSU and ERDC, Vicksburg
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
11
Saturday Java Academy
http://old-npac.csit.fsu.edu/projects/k12javaspring99/
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
12
Current Status and Futures

Commercial Systems such as Centra, WebEx, Anabas and
Placeware offer similar functionality to our old system Tango for
synchronous collaboration
– Shared applications, chatroom, whiteboard, A/V conferencing



Blackboard, WebCT, Lotus offer learning management systems
– need to switch to IMS, ADL standards; high-end authoring
and XML based technology (not databases or files)
Access Grid (community e.g. classroom) and HearMe (desktop)
are new internet audio-video systems which are be used with
shared object systems
I develop research systems Gateway and Garnet for education
and computational science portals
– Feature hand-held and desktop clients, integrated collaboration and some
“technical advances” – major use of XML, shared SVG

Peer to Peer Grids suggest decentralized architecture
(http://www.jxta.org)
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
13
Commercial
Collaboration
Systems
Centra
PlaceWare
WebEx
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
14
Batik Viewer on PC
PowerPoint can be converted to SVG
via Illustrator or Web export
11/7/2015
SVG Sharing PC to PDA
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
15
Access Grid (Argonne, NCSA) and HearMe
Access Grid: Community
HearMe: desktop integrates phones
and Internet Audio
Presenter
camera
Presenter
mic
Ambient mic
(tabletop)
Audience camera
11/7/2015
physicsvirtuniv mitjune01
16