News from Component I

A new feature has been added to Ben U Live, which allows students to review their financial account, make payments on line, and check their grades. Also, students in the AABA and BAM cohorts can now add/drop courses on line via Ben U Live.

Ben Central launched their website which provides a nice complement and link to Advising Matters. Through Ben Central's site students now have access to general financial aid information and can see what aid has been applied to their individual accounts through Ben U Live.

In the area of training, three Peoplesoft workshops were offered
covering: Basic Peoplesoft Navigation, Ben U Live, and Student Transcripts.

Faculty Projects

Four faculty were supported by Title III with release time to pursue a variety of projects.

Vickie Frohne will be developing and implementing the administration of Pre-Lab Exercises in Physics 114 using the WebCT quiz tool. The pre-lab exercises are homework exercises that familiarize the students with the physics background needed to do their lab experiments. The new questions will be designed to be independent of any textbook so that the students may use the text of their choice as a reference. Since WebCT provides semi-automatic grading, the students will receive immediate feedback on their answers. Vickie will be constructing quizzes and implementing them on a week-by-week basis for Physics 114 in Fall 2003 and Phys 119 in Spring 2004. Part of this project will be learning how to administer a WebCT course with multiple sections (eight lab sections) and instructors (four faculty members) so that each student's work is routed to the correct instructor.

The purpose of Pete Nelson's project is to enrich BIOL/PHYS323 - Introduction to Biophysics, with computer-based materials. The goals for the Fall 2003 semester are to develop Excel-based modules; to investigate more sophisticated programming languages and environments, such as Visual Basic, Javascript, Java, Microsoft .NET; and to investigate the use of molecular visualization and simulation packages. The Excel modules should include both a lecture component and a computer assignment component. The modules will be designed to introduce the student to various computational aspects Biophysics that can be implemented within an Excel spreadsheet. Potential topics for these modules include: the entropy of a two-box system; diffusion as a random walk; diffusion using the finite difference method; membrane systems and the approach to equilibrium; solute/water permeation and osmosis; ion permeation and the Nernst equation; heat flow; fluid flow; thermal fluctuations and the Boltzmann factor; and molecular dynamics.

Manu Kaur will create Calculus Quizzes for WebCT, with the expectation that these quizzes can be used in multiple sections of calculus, and that the department may be able to extend the idea to freshmen testing. A recent article in The College Mathematics Journal (Vol. 34, No. 4, September 2003) by G. Donald Allen that says, "Within every course management package, such as Blackboard and WebCT, there are extensive tools for online exam creation and online grading. However, all are unsuited to the mathematics environment." This is because typing mathematical symbols requires special software, different mathematical entities may mean the same thing, and creating math quizzes may require software (like Maple or Mathematica) that understands mathematical manipulations. Manu will explore the best way to create these quizzes in view of being able to develop them further and being able to create multiple, say 50, problems of the same kind that would pop up at the student's screen at random.

Joel Ostrow will be developing a WebCT page for the Model UN course, PLSC C215. The Model United Nations class takes place every spring and is a highly visible and successful program for the Department and the University. It is Joel's belief that a strong online component can help strengthen the experience for the students, and for the student leaders of Model UN.

This is a complicated project for several reasons. Model UN has one component that remains consistent from year-to-year: the institution, processes and functions of the United Nations. One "side" of the online materials must present supplemental material, information, links, and assignments on this portion of the course.

Each year, Benedictine is assigned a country to represent. As this changes from year to year, the content of this will change as well. However, I would like to develop a framework that will enable us to "plug in" the links and materials in future years in the same "spots" on the page.

And briefly....

• Scholl 101 was outfitted with 2 new projectors, 4 JBL surround sound speakers, and two new screens
  
  
• New network equipment was purchased to separate the student network from admin network to reduce the problem with viruses and to increase the efficiency of the network.
  
  
• The new Educational Technology course, with its Lectora component, was piloted. A Lectora demonstration/luncheon was attended by over twenty faculty and staff.
  
  
• A Title III group from Lewis University provided an outside evaluation of the status of our grant activities.
  
  
• Our Title III project was leveraged to help support a successful application for an ACTC/NEH grant. Project teams will collaborate on the task of integrating humanities and sciences.