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Academic Computing Services
Overview of IT at SMU

The Digital Commons was created in 1993 to support instructional technology at SMU. While the Digital Common's was absorbed in Summer 2004 by Academic Computing Services, the following is intended to serve as an archive of the development of instructional technology in the 1990s. Most of the Digital Common's projects were undertaken in conjunction with the CMIT, and would not have happened without the support of Travis Jordan, Director of CMIT, who retired in 1997 and CUL Director Maureen Pastine (who went to Temple University).

Until the 1990s, instructional technology at SMU was largely school or department based, with committees such as the Campus Computing Coordination Committee some strategic direction for the campus as a whole. (While the ITS Academic Computing Services had been founded by the early 1980s, it was discontinued for a number of years.) The Center for Media and Instructional Technology began to be seriously involved with the computer-side of instructional technology with the creation of the first all-University hands-on computer classroom in 1991. In the 1990s, the Provost Office became increasingly proactive in helping faculty evaluate the possibilties of instructional technology through grants and other funding.

Examples of faculty projects using the Digital Commons.

During Fall 1999 and Spring 2000, 17 STAR students supported a total of 58 faculty members and 66 projects. Projects involved Web pages for courses (22), WebCT course materials (32) and the ubiquitious "Other" (12) which included audio/video production, document production, electronic gradebooks, multimedia presentations, and electronic communication.

Trudy Anderson (Cinema) Soviet Propaganda Film CDs. The CD-ROM is a three part set on Socialist Cinemas, which includes the former Soviet Union, Cuba and China. The focus of the CD-ROM is the images of women in cinematic representation under a socialist system. The necessity for the CD-ROM stems from the unavailability of the films/videos and written material on the subject. The videos and research were based on five extensive visits to the former Soviet Union, five visits to Cuba and two research visits to China. In the case of the former Soviet Union, the topic is films of the Stalinist thirties-- films which have never been screened nor translated for the U.S. There is a complete dearth of information and access to Cuban films here as well, and the films of China's forties and fifties prior to the Cultural Revolution are also rarely seen and analyzed. The function of the CD-ROM is for classroom use in cultural studies, cinema studies, gender studies, and possibly political studies. The students will also be able to do self-directed learning outside the classroom with the CD-ROM. A companion book is planned upon the completion of the CD-ROMs.

Richard Mason (Business) Ethics Companion. An introductory body of knowledge in ethics organized in a hypermedia format that gives beginning students accesss to materials on ethics in general, and four historical traditions, Consequentialism (Pursuit of Happiness), Deontological (Obeying Duty), Virture, and Justice in specific. Students read case studies that illuminate current ethical issues, identify the stakeholders, and then assess the consequences if the stakeholders were to act according to any one of the traditions. HyperCard programmer for this project was Thain Marston.

Gordon Birrell (German) Core 1314: Images IV: The Fragmentation of Reality. Serves Kodak PhotoCDs of art work via the World Wide Web. This site allows students to open multiple images at one time and study from any location on campus.

Rosa Jara-Simmons (Spanish) course Website with audio exercises. In Progress. The existing site shows the use of the Web for serving randomized quizes.

AnneMarie Carr, et al (Medieval Studies) Cathedral Slide Show. In progress

Martha Satz (English) Women's Studies web site. This Web site was part of Satz's goal to integrate computer technology into Capstone 3314: "Woman as Thinker, Artist and Citizen."

David Sedman and Barry Crosno (CCA) Culture-Morph and Virtual City conferences. Culture Morph was the first conference at SMU that was broadcast over the Internet.

Tony Cortese (Sociology) Social Problems. This video has the goal to visually present (in condensed format) to students the major sociological approaches to to minority-dominant relations through a broad range of images representing relevant significant events. This was our first major editing project using Avid XPress.

Larry Rubin (Biology) Cell Biology web site. This project is intended to radically alter the manner in which Cell Biology is taught at SMU. Originally designed to be delivered as a CD-ROM project, it is currently being tested as a Web-based system. The project has two objectives: 1) to create interactive computer-bnased instruction which will facilitate the students' learning of basic concepts in cell biology; 2) to teach students the critical thinking processes necessary fo rht edesign and interpretation of scientific experiments.

Bonnie Wheeler (English) Arthuriana website. Arthuriana is the scholarly jounral about King Arthur. Although now maintained by Professor Wheeler and her assistants, the DC was involved in setting up the original site and providing a Web server that could password protect files. This last feature allows subscribers to access the latest issues of Arthuriana online.

Norman Wick, David Mancini (Music Theory) Hypercard Music Theory program. Steve Flora, now with ITS, was the principle programmer for this project.

Career Paths CD-ROM. Although produced almost entirely by Convergence Multimedia, a small amount of material in this commercial product used Digital Commons software and equipment.

Not listed are hundreds of smaller projects involving OCR, image scanning, slide printing, CD-ROM burning, oversize printing, Web hosting, etc.

Faculty development grants

The Digital Commons, Center for Teaching Excellence, Teaching Technology Group, and Office of the Provost with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund awarded ten faculty members grants for working on instructional technology projects during the summer. Receiving grants were William Bryan (Theology), Shuqin Cui (Foreign Languages), Cynthia Dooley (Foreign Languages), Melissa Gantz (Foreign Languages), Kevin Heffernan (Electronic Media and Film), John Holbert (Theology), Alyce McKenzie (Theology), Carolyn Schlak (Foreign Languages), David Sedman (Electronic Media and Film), and Jeffrey Trexler (Law). Faculty will be working with Digital Commons and Academic Computing Staff as well as those STARs students on campus during the summer. (Summer 2000)

DC Staff helped write a successful $594K TIFB state grant proposal that will allow SMU to purchase equipment to enhance Internet access and to improve distance learning capabilities. (Summer 1999)

The Digital Commons and Center for Teaching Excellence have received a $189K grant from the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation for two years to support hiring a Curricular Designer, awarding 20 faculty technology incentive grants, expanding the SMU Stars Program, and building a small library of exemplar software. This is the second grant we have received from the Culpeper Foundation, the first one of which was instrumental in promoting the effective use of instructional technology at SMU. (Spring 1999)

DC staff work with 10 SMU faculty selected by the Teaching Technology Group and Provost's Office to receive $2500 summer stipends from Continuing Education for integrating technology into a course. (Summer 1998)

Professor Jerry Goldman (Political Science, Northwestern University) was the first of four faculty at other institutions who visited SMU in 1997 as part of the Culpeper Master Teacher Initiative. Prof. Goldman presented a workshop on his multimedia projects and a roundtable on serving audio on the Web.

For many years, Dr. Goldman has engaged in the creative application of technology to teaching and research. His early work in the development of Idealog, a microcomputer-based software product, helped students assess their own political ideologies. Dr. Goldman served as a contributor to the CD-ROM version of the Challenge of Democracy, the best-selling introduction to American government and politics. More recently, he developed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Supreme Court, a visually engaging multimedia product that integrates information about the Supreme Court's composition, history, and cases. Dr. Goldman is codeveloper of Crime and Punishment, a CD-ROM and Internet-based multimedia criminal court sentencing simulation. Perhaps his most important contribution is the development of the Oyez Web pages, which provide online access to the audio records of hundreds of oral arguments as presented before the Supreme Court. Dr. Goldman is professor of political science at Northwestern University. More information may be found at http://www.nwu.edu/people/j-goldman and http://oyez.nwu.edu/history-out-loud/

CTE/Digital Commons uses remaining funds from Culpeper Foundation to establish a Master Teacher Program. The Culpeper program offers individualized peer support by pairing faculty members from SMU with colleagues who have been awarded an Educom Medal. Now entering its fourth year, the Educom Medal Awards Program is a collaborative effort between Educom and professional disciplinary partner societies to recognize and reward outstanding educators, professionals, and other individuals who have made significant contributions to the improvement of undergraduate education through innovative applications of information technology.

CMIT/Digital Commons awards third series of Culpeper faculty development grants to Trudy Anderson (Cinema), Charles Davis (Journalism), Cathy Hayes and Donna Ginther (Economics), and Robb Pocklington (English) (Fall 1997)

CMIT/Digital Commons with assistance from the Culpeper Foundation hold an Institute for Rhetoric faculty in July 1997. Hector Villa, professor of English at William Patterson, shared his experience in teaching rhetoric using Common Space. University of Louisville PhD candidate Paul Tuttle shared his experiences and those of his colleagues. Bob Skinner worked with particpants on how to use NetAdministrator, the more advanced features of First Class, and how to use CommonSpace. Steve Flora (ITS) discussed administrative issues concerning FirstClass.

CMIT/Digital Commons uses Culpeper funds to send 6 faculty and academic staff to Syllabus 1997, 3 of whom give a presentation during the conference

CMIT/Digital Commons awards second series of Culpeper faculty development grants to David Sedman (TV/Radio), Thomas Fomby (Economics), Jane Winn and Gail Daly (Law), and Victoria Palacios (Law). (1996)

CMIT/Digital Commons uses Culpeper funds to send X faculty to Syllabus 1996

CMIT/Digital Commons uses Culpeper funds to send X faculty and academic staff from the law school to Educom 1995

CMIT/Digital Commons awards first series of Culpeper faculty development grants to Larry Ruben (Cell Biology) and Martha Satz ("Woman as Thinker, Artist and Citizen") (Fall 1995) CMIT/Digital Commons uses Culpeper funds to send 9 faculty plus academic staff to Educom 1994; these faculty through debriefing sessions and other outreach become articulate advocates for the use of technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning at SMU. Persons attending were Rus Barclay (Public Relations), Bill Beauchamp (Foreign Languages), Tom Downing (Academic Computing), Cathy Dummer (Academic Computing), Bill Dworaczyk (CMIT), Steve Flora (ITS), Margorie Hatch (Psychology), Travis Jordan (CMIT), Jan Marston (Foreign Languages), John McCarthy (Biology), Fred Moss (Law), Don Pasquella (Cinema), Bob Rasberry (Business), Martha Satz (English), Bob Skinner (DC), Ruth Wilson (Anthropology), and Andre Winandy (Foreign Languages).

Instructional systems support

SMU has acquired a site license for ProCite Bibliographic Software. For more information, see the June 1999 NextStep. (Summer 1999)

Information Technology Services successfully established an NT Server running WebCT in February. During our first full semester using WebCT, 25 faculty are teaching 40 courses with 800 students. (Spring 1999)

A Classnet system was installed in the G4 classroom allowing the instructor to control the room's 26 PCs. With Classnet, you can blank the student monitors, transmit your screen or a video to every PC in the room, and display what is on any student computer to the rest of the class. For a demonstration of the system, contact Steve Snider. (Fall 1998)

CTE/Digital Commons uses remaining funds from Culpeper Foundation to establish a Personal Digital Assistant Program that provides individualized student support to faculty. Bonnie Wheeler (English) and Ron Wetherington (Anthropology) are first to receive PDAs. Carolyn Channel, Debra Combs, Ann Shattles, Annie-Laurie Cooper participate in an experiment to integrate FirstClass software in eleven sections of Rhetoric with 165 student. DC staff conduct training sessions for faculty and students.

CMIT begins supporting computers in classrooms in Fondren and Fondren Science; creates specially equipped multimedia "carts" using Culpeper funds

CMIT/Digital Commons given gift of FirstClass conferencing software from EDS; in cooperation with ITS who runs the server, CMIT begans educating faculty on the uses of electronic conferencing in general and FirstClass in specific

On Campus Conferences and workshops (1 day or more)

Steve Snider conducted several training sessions on FrontPage for individual faculty members and will be teaching classes on Dreamweaver 3 (SMU's recommended web-authoring program for the Macintosh) for SMU faculty and staff. Steve also has been teaching Meadows CE courses on Photoshop and PhotoDeluxe. (Spring 2000)

The Digital Commons was pleased to host a number of "visiting firemen" including two contingents from Collin County Community College and a Dean from UT Dallas who are considering similar facilities for their institutions, and two senior faculty from the University of Nebraska who are designing a new multimedia degree program. (Spring 2000)

Dr. Michelle Lamberson, a faculty member in the Geology Department at the University of British Columbia and an Educom Medal Awards Winner, visited campus as our final Culpeper Master Teacher. In addition to working directly with individual Geology faculty, she gave public talks on the "Effectiveness of Using the Internet as a Teaching and Learning Medium" and "Innovative Approaches to Teaching Science to Undergraduates." (Spring 1999)

The DC conducted a Boot Camp from December 14-18 for faculty interested in working with SMU's new Web-based Course Management System. This was our most successful large-scale training experience with faculty yet. Mornings were spent covering WebCT and creating or scanning graphics for Web Pages. Afternoons were for individual work, consultation with technical staff, or help with unique requirements. (Fall 1998)

Second Syllabus regional confernce at SMU held April 3-5, 1998. Bob Skinner teaches seminars on "Technology Evaluation and Support" and Ian Aberle conducts two workshops on"Web Publishing/Web Page Design"

Digital Commons' staff member Bob Skinner conducts all day "Teaching on the Web: A Hands-on Workshop" (Spring 1997)

CMIT/Digital Commons attracts Syllabus to hold their most successful to date regional faculty workshops (Spring 1997). Travis Jordan teaches seminar on Technology Support and Bob Skinner conducts workshops on building course-related web pages.

CMIT/Digital Commons and Culpeper Foundation host second Internet in the Classroom conference, this time focused on needs of SMU faculty (1996)

CMIT/Digital Commons and Culpeper Foundation host first Internet in the Classroom conference which is attended by 180 persons from around the United States (1995)

Workshops, seminars, satellite broadcasts (1 day or less)

We assisted the Teaching Technology Group and Center for Teaching Excellence in conducting two workshops:

Evaluating WebCT Courses Workshop 11/14 2000
On Tuesday, November 14, the Center for Teaching Excellence sponsored a workshop where SMU faculty teaching with WebCT received instructional design feedback on their courses in an informal setting. Providing the feedback were Dr. Pete Smith, Assistant Vice President and Director of Distance Education at the University of Texas at Arlington and Jenny Jopling, Associate Director, Center for Distributed Learning, at the University of North Texas. The workshop had two parts. Earlier in the afternoon, four SMU faculty who had requested private appointments met ndividually with the designers. From 3:30-5pm, Smith and Jopling publicly reviewed several WebCT courses at SMU which employ successful strategies for the online classroom. The workshop was intended for faculty who are curious about what WebCT can do as well as those who are looking for pointers on improving their course.

WebCT Mini-Conference Debriefing and Faculty Grant Presentation 11/13
On Monday, November 13, the Teaching Technology Groupsponsored a debriefing by some of the 13 SMU faculty and staff who attended the recent WebCT Mini-Conference at the University of North Texas in Denton. The all-day Mini-Conference held at the end of September featured sessions on topics such as "Using WebCT to Support Various Learning Styles," "Multi-Disciplinary Development for Advanced Internships," and "Techniques for Teaching and Learning with Large Undergraduate Groups," to name a few. Emphasis of the 45 minute November 13th debriefing was on SMU faculty discussing the sessions they attended and found most valuable. A handout summarizing the technical sessions attended by staff was distributed. Following the debriefing were presentations by Jeff Trexler (Law) and Melissa Gantz (French), who received TTG grants during the summer. Professor Trexler's grant was to develop The Simplified Legal Interface Project that uses Web-based resources to help law students better understand their coursework. The project offers user-friendly hyperlinked interaction to help students prepare for the classroom exchange. Professor Gantz's project has established a First Year French website that emphasizes pre-class skills practice and activities allowing students to prepare for class at any hour. (Fall 2000)

Dr. Thain Marston has joined the Digital Commons as Director of the STARs program with a broad range of experience in the educational, business and military spheres. In the instructional technology area, he has developed computer-based training for internal applications as well tutorials for general-purpose software. For higher education, he has developed custom applications for student management, a course in business ethics and has also created a number of web-based applications to support instruction and data collection. Other areas of experience include program evaluation, needs analysis, and user interface design. He received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Texas at Austin with a minor in statistics and experimental design. Dr. Tony Cuevas will continue to work with faculty as a consultant one day a week. Both Tony and Thain's positions are made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. (Fall 2000)

Tom Downing (Associate Director for Academic Computing Services) and Cynthia Standfield (Training and Documentation Manager)will be representing SMU at the second annual WebCT Conference in July at Georgia State. We are anxiously relating the release of the beta for WebCT 3 that is scheduled for mid-June. (Summer 2000)

The STARs program has been selected as a finalist in the American Council on Education-USA Group Foundation awards program on Academic Excellence and Cost Management. We are one of 19 finalists out of 120 submissions. Bob Skinner will represent SMU at an Invitational Symposium on Academic Excellence and Cost Management to be held 12 June 2000 in Washington, D.C., at which the winning institutions will be announced (http://www.acenet.edu/). (Summer 2000)

A beginning workshop on ProCite was held October 15. Copies of ProCite are available to the SMU community at http://help.smu.edu/ and an electronic discussion group has been setup for persons interested in ProCite (to subscribe, send a two word message "subscribe procite" to majordomo@mail.smu.edu). (Fall 1999)

Four DC and Academic Computing Services staff attended the first WebCT conference in Vancouver. (Summer 1999)

SMU hosted our third Syllabus Regional Conference which was attended by over 200 faculty, administrators, and academic computing professionals. DC staff conducted workshops on Web Design, Digital Audio and Video, Instructional Technology Evaluation and Support, and QuickTime VR. (Spring 1999)

Dr. Cynthia Selfe, Professor of English at Michigan Technological University, and one of the world's leading experts in teaching writing online, visited campus as part of the Culpeper Master Teacher Program. While here she worked with Rhetoric faculty, met with the Dedman Dean, and gave 4 public presentations. (Fall 1998)

CMIT hosts teleconference with discussion afterwards on "Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia" (Spring 1997)

Digital Commons offered multimedia workshops to faculty on PageMill, Scanning Images, Photoshop 4, Creating Animated Gifs, and QTVR (Spring 1997)

CMIT/Digital Comons sponsors workshop conducted by Marjorie Hatch on "Simple Ways that Computers and the Internet Can Improve Your Courses" (Fall 1996)

Digital Commons offers faculty 2 hour workshops on Photoshop, Virtual Reality, LifeForms (Nathan Montoya, dance), 3 Dimensional Computer Graphics Animation (Spring 1996)

CMIT/Digital Commons offers faculty workshop on Life Forms animation program and Adobe Acrobat (Fall 1995)

Digital Commons offers faculty workshops on Authorware, Presentation Software in the Classroom, Making a CD-ROM, and Publishing Information on the Net: SMU Campus and Secondary Information Resources

CMIT hosts a satellite broadcast with discussion afterwards on Distributed Learning Environements: An Integrated Model for Distance Education (Spring 1995)

CMIT/DC works with six faculty and 200 students to provide them with rapid and intensive raining and support on the use of email and the World Wide Web. Dr. David Boltz conducted the workshops.

Digital Commons offers four Tech-Know sessions: Educom Debriefing, Internet Browser shootout, Introduction to Photoshop, Hi-tech toys for your computer, and Enchancing Visual Presentations (Fall 1994)

Surveys

WebCT use in the first month of the Fall semester has broken the 2400 account mark, triple the number of users for the entire previous year. Fall 1999

Faculty computer classroom use survey, Fall 1997

Faculty computer use survey, Spring 1993

Publications, webpages

At the request of the President of the Faculty Senate, DC Staff put together for the Board of Trustees an overview of how SMU faculty are using instructional technology: "ABC's of Faculty Use of Technology in the Classroom." Extracts from this document are being printed in the monthly NextStep. (Fall 1999)

Digital Commons creates "HowNow" web pages on programs such as PageMill, Photoshop, Toast, printing, scanning, and creating Web graphics

Digital Commons publishes "Instructional Computing at SMU," a four page brochure that was the first guide to instructional technology produced at SMU

Digital Commons publishes "Internet on the Sun: an overview," the first comprehensive guide to email, telnet, ftp and other services produced at SMU

Digital Commons Web server is setup over Christmas break 1993/94 and is one of the first Web sites at SMU

Digital Commons publishes Next Step that began as a calendar to integrate instructional technology workshops and funding opportunities at SMU and now is a newsletter about teaching, learning and Technology issues.

Multimedia

The Digital Commons has assisted User Services with their choice on making Dreamweaver the Web Authoring Standard on the Macintosh. Though it is not free, there is educational pricing on Dreamweaver. Please contact the Computer Corner. (Spring 2000)

November 13th saw not only the dedication of the new Fondren Library Center, but the DC's first use of streaming audio technology. Using RealNetworks server and encoding software, the DC broadcast the 30 minute dedication ceremony to the Internet. (In 1997 we had broadcast a symposium using video conference technology, but this was our first experience with the RealNetworks products.) If you wish to know more about the possibilities of streaming audio or video over the Internet, either live or from a file, please contact Bob Skinner. (Fall 1998)

A 29 inch Mitsubishi presentation monitor was ordered for the Showroom to facilitate making presentations to groups of up to 12 people. (Fall 1998)

We added a DVD-RAM drive to backup IT projects of up to 5.6 gigabytes on a single disk. (Fall 1998)

Encad 24 inch plotter purchased from operating budget

AVID Digital video editing system purchased using Kerr funds (1997)

Examples of other projects

The DC's amazing webcam was put on the Internet as an experiment in providing live video with minimum resources. It was taken off-line for a month during the Fall because we needed the Ethernet port for another project. (Summer 1998)

Dallas Museum of Art and the DC collaborated on an interactive multimedia project for the Museum's DISD fifth-grade multiple-visit project. In this CD-ROM, "artguy" leads students to explore Church's Icebergs and other works. (1997)

Dallas Bach Society. DC staff designed and host the WWW site for the Dallas Bach Society.

SMU Banking School Website. DC staff designed the original pages for this site [Newer work is not ours.]

SMU Athletics Website. DC staff designed the original pages for this site [Newer work is not ours.]

SMU Web site redesign. DC staff have helped the University redesign its home page.

Public Computing and classrooms

Computer Labs returned to ITS; renamed ACS Computer Labs Jointly administers 2 computer classrooms with ACS (1997-98) CMIT/Computer Labs uses Pegasus funds to establish a Pentium classroom in basement of Fondren Library West and upgrade Macintosh classroom

Public Computing Labs used an average of 60,000 times a year (1997).

CMIT/Digital Commons consolidates computer labs and multimedia lab on third floor of Fondren

* places emphasis on people skills and management ability in lab manager and staff
* increased access to multimedia equipment

12 station PowerMacintosh multimedia classroom/lab created in Fondren Library West 301; faculty computers moved next door to FLW 305

25 station PowerMacintosh classroom created in Fondren Library West 309 after surveying faculty in the Spring of 1993 to determine their needs

Public Computing Labs use grows 800% during first year of operation by CMIT (1994)

Public Labs remodeled using $100K from Kerr grant (1993)

CMIT takes over care of administration of Public Labs (1993)

Public Computing Labs moved to Fondren Library West (1990)

CMIT creates first campus-wide hands-on classroom at SMU (1990?)

Digital Commons Facility

The Digital Commons returns to Fondren Library and becomes part of Academic Computing Services under Dr. JoAnn Lan. (Summer 2003).

The Digital Commons becomes an affiiate with the Hart eCenter and moves from the Basement of Fondren Library West to the second floor of the Loyd All Sports Center. The Hart eCenter later moved to Legacy. (Fall 2002)

The Digital Commons has assisted Networking on the approval of the AirPort(IEEE802.11) wireless network standard on campus. The Digital Commons loaned its AirPort equiped iBook and AirPort Basestation to Networking for a two month trial. After the two months of testing, the AirPort passed. Wireless networking is available for the Mac. For question on using the AirPort or othe wireless networking products on campus, please contact Networking. (Spring 2000)

Dr. Anthony Cuevas has resigned his full-time position as Curricular Designer to return to A.T. Kearney. Fortunately, Tony has agreed to consult with SMU faculty the equivalent of one day a week through the end of May, 2001. SMU will be recruiting a full-time manager for the STARs program for the Fall. (Spring 2000)

On September 15, Dr. Tony Cuevas joined the staff of the Digital Commons as Curricular Designer. Among other responsibilities, Tony is in charge of the STARs program. (Fall 1999)

Out of 110 applicants, 27 incoming freshman were selected to attend the second ASAP Bootcamp in mid-August. From these, 11 were chosen to join SMU's STARs program. This brings the total number of students in the STARs program to 16 for 1999-2000. Our ability to increase the number of STARs from 12 to 16 was made possible by grants from SMU's Teaching Technology Group and the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation. (Fall 1999)

Thanks to a President Partner's grant last Spring, the DC has added several pieces of equipment of interest to faculty, including an HP handheld scanner that should be perfect for taking to libraries and a Microtek Imagedeck--a stand-alone "scanning appliance" that doesn't require a computer. Both of these may be checked out by faculty. (Fall 1999)

ASAP, a pre-Fall semester program that trains entering freshman for technology positions, "graduated" 21 students and placed 16 of them in campus technology jobs within the first two weeks of school. (Fall 1998)

The first 13 students are accepted into the STARS program which will train them to assist faculty with instructional technology projects. (Fall 1998)

The DC received academic computing funds to purchase new equipment and software including 2 Compaq computers and 1 G3 PowerMac for the showroom; a QTVR object rig and Intergraph 3D workstation for the Sandbox, and a Classnet control system, Panasonic electronic whiteboard and portable Elmo Desktop Presenter for the Stage (G4 computer classroom). New software included SoftImage and Discreet Logics Paint and Effect. (Summer 1998)

Digital Commons facilities relocated to basement of Fondren Library West (Summer 1997)

Digital Commons split off from CMIT and becomes part of Center for Teaching Excellence with renewed emphasis on faculty support (Fall 1997)

Second full-time staff person, a multimedia specialist, was hired in Fall 1996

Digital Commons established using $60K from Kerr grant (Fall 1993).

The DC was located in Room 301 of Fondren Library West in a space vacated by the McCord Theater Collection when the Hamon Arts Library opened in 1990.

* 6 workstations for faculty to develop instructional materials
* Web server to host course pages
* Staff of 1 full-time manager and part-time director

CTE = Center for Teaching Excellence
CMIT = Center for Media & Instructional Technology
CUL = Central University Libraries
ITS = Instructional Technology Services
ACS = Academic Computing Services 

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