New initiative to expand online access for students

Published: Wednesday, October 1, 1997

Wednesday, October 1, 1997

WEBSITES: Registration-fee increase helps fund the $2.4 million project

By Cindy Choi

Daily Bruin Contributor

Gabriella Marquez could have panicked in the isolation of her dorm room the night before her final exam on religious history. And so could have four of her classmates.

Instead, Marquez and her classmates met at an online study group on their class Web site. They posted questions and explanations regarding Buddha until 2 a.m.

This fall, those Web sites are just one online service available to UCLA students.

Last week, the College of Letters and Science launched the Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a $2.4 million multimedia educational project to expand computer labs, create Web sites for non-tutorial courses and provide personalized Web pages for undergraduates.

About half of IEI funding has gone into purchasing computers and maintenaining the labs.

To pay for all of this, the College of Letters and Science has implemented a $2.50 per credit/$10 per-course charge for humanities and social sciences and $3.50 per credit/$14 per-course for life and physical sciences.

"Our goal is to use multimedia education to improve the conditions of learning for all undergraduates," said Brian Copenhaver, provost of the College.

"Providing a Web page for every course, backed by training and staff, is an excellent way to build a multimedia base for the whole curriculum," he said.

The initiative will produce 3,000, individualized Web sites featuring course syllabi, virtual office hours, bulletins and links to other sites.

So far, Copenhaver has received favorable feedback and demands from faculty.

"IEI is another tool of teaching," said Marc Mayerson, assistant dean of social sciences.

"It allows professors to supplement lecture material and to communicate to the students in a new way. However, computers cannot surplant lectures and exams," Mayerson said.

Professors have the option to draw from the assistance of Web consultants, who are UCLA graduate students, to design their pages.

Some professors also provide links for additional reading materials and some post previous exams.

Russell Schuh, professor of linguistics, posts answer keys for collected assignments, focusing on typical errors that students make. He responds to commonly asked questions to which all students can refer. The Internet increases interaction with vast numbers of students in his larger classes, he said.

"Students have a bigger range of choices to explore courses," said Schuh. "They might work better given wider options than just having textbooks and lectures."

Maybe students who are too intimidated to attend office hours would use virtual office hours to contact a professor, said Jill Rawal, second-year international-development studies major.

Virtual office hours are suited for specific, brief questions that arise when completing an assignment or writing a paper, Rawal said.

Virtual office hours solved some of the limitations of regular office hours by allowing students to directly reach professors without being in their offices.

A student who called himself the "effortless philosopher" submitted questions anonymously for nine weeks before he finally revealed himself to the professor.

"The shyest students were the ones most likely to contact me through the Web," said David Wilson, assistant dean of humanities, who taught a philosophy of religion last fall with 300 students.

He recognized greater faculty-student interaction through the website, but attendance at his office hours did not drop, Wilson said.

IEI is designed to suit the lifestyles of a new generation of students raised with computers.

"This is a chance for professors and students to participate in what's becoming a mainstream way to communicate," said Eric Splaver, director of college information service.

According to the specific features of each Web site, students can discuss publicly online in chatrooms or with real-time. Students also can post questions and comments on class bulletins or send messages to professors.

The access to computers, however, has been a concern to the administrators, said Wilson.

The task force plans to better notify the students about the various computer labs on campus, Wilson said. The biggest problem that they are facing right now is student overflow.

JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS

Students have online access at the CLICC lab in Powell library. It is one of the labs funded by the Instructional Enhancement Initiative.