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Assessing the Impact of Technology-Rich Spaces on Student Learning
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Ongoing Projects in Other Academic Institutions

There are numerous ongoing projects in academic institutions both nationally and internationally.  This page provides a brief overview and links to some of these ongoing projects.   Most of the annotated descriptions associated with these projects have been taken from the individual web sites and should not be seen as promoting one program over another

.The Duke Center
The Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) is a department within Duke University Libraries, created in 1999. The Center for Instructional Technology supports the academic mission of Duke University by helping faculty find innovative ways to use technology to achieve their teaching goals. Drawing on expertise in both technology and pedagogy, CIT staff assist faculty with projects, share information across the university about effective practices and examine the effect of technology on teaching and learning.  Current goals and projects are described in the Duke Center for Instructional Technology Strategic Plan for 2004-2007.

The Duke Digital Initiative
The Duke Digital Initiative (DDI) is a major instructional technology program focused on experimentation, development, and implementation of digital technology in an academic environment. Over a three-year cycle, the DDI will incorporate digital audio, images and video, collaboration tools, and tablet and hand-held computing. This web site serves as a central clearinghouse of information on the DDI for members of the Duke community and the general public.  This project was largely shaped by the experiences of the 2004-2005 iPod initiative, lessons learned, and the conversations that resulted among faculty, staff, and administrators.

The Flashlight Program
The Flashlight Program, a program of the TLT group, is designed to help teaching faculty and staff use data to improve education and control some of the attendant costs and stress.  This link connects to a number of case studies related to assessing the use of technology in higher educational settings.

The Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative
The Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative (LTDI) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland was funded between 1994 and 1999 by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to promote the use of learning technology and computer based learning materials in Scottish Higher Education. The LTDI web site will continue to provide free access to the resources and publications that LTDI created.

The Mellon Foundation's program: Cost-effective Uses of technology in Teaching
The Mellon Foundation's program entitled "Cost-Effective Uses of Technology in Teaching" (CEUTT) supported studies gauging the costs and pedagogic effectiveness of using instructional technology in higher education.  The goal was to help address whether, and under what conditions, such technology might be deployed in ways that reduce institutional costs and promote pedagogic gains. The CEUTT projects have had three components--(i) measure of pedagogic effectiveness, (ii) measure of costs of teaching, and (iii) assessment of cost-effectiveness, as ratio of (i) and (ii).

Under this program the Foundation supported the assessment of existing instructional technologies by teams of experts in pedagogic assessment, cost measurement, and instructional technology.  Starting in 1996, twenty-five projects were funded at universities around the US, with one project in South Africa; the program accepted the final proposals in January, 2001.

From 1996 to 2001, twenty-five CEUTT projects were funded at twenty-four institutions.  The following table is taken from the CEUTT web site and provides links to the institutions and a summary of each project.

Institution	Project	Date
George Mason University	Instructional Technology across the curriculum	December 1996
University of Cape Town	Deep Foundations I and II	December 1996 and December 1998
University of Michigan	Less-Commonly Taught Languages	March 1997
University of Pennsylvania	Pre-laboratory Web-based Instruction	June 1997
Rice University	Engineering Design Tutor	December 1997
University of Pennsylvania	Collaborative Writing Groups	March 1998
Michigan State University	Psychology and Natural Sciences with CAPA	March 1999
Drexel University	Online Degree in MSIS	June 1999
Dartmouth College	Calculus Case Studies	June 1999
Georgia Institute of Technology	Collaborative Web Structures	December 1999
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	Web-based Courses	December 1999
University of California, Davis	Web-enhanced Classes	December 1999
Carnegie Mellon University	Web-based Modules on Causal Reasoning	March, 2000
Pennsylvania State University	Web-based Modules on Introductory Biology	March, 2000
University of Florida	Web-based Instruction in Pre-calculus and Chemistry	March, 2000
University of California, Berkeley	Chemistry Instruction with Web and Video Tools	June, 2000
Northwestern University	French, Spanish, and German Instruction with Web-based Modules	June, 2000
University of Missouri at Columbia	Teaching Introduction to Speech Communication Online	September, 2000
Hampton University	Computer-Assisted Instruction in Statistics	September, 2000
Brown University	Evaluating Web-based Instruction in Chemistry	December, 2000
University of Southern California	Teaching 'Introductory Electric Circuits' Online	December, 2000
Syracuse University	Cost and Learning Effects of Alternative e-Collaboration Methods in Online Settings	December, 2000
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	Wireless Instructional Technology	March, 2001
University of Nebraska	Web-based Instruction in Biology and Psychology	March, 2001
San Francisco State University / AEA Education Committee	Efficiency in the Use of Technology in Economic Education	March, 2001

Middle Tennessee State University: Assessing the impact of instructional technology on teaching and learning
Since 1994, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) has provided comprehensive support for the use of instructional technology tools in their teaching practice. This site provides assessment results of surveys conducted at MTSU related to perspectives on program resources and services such as technology-based classrooms; multimedia development centers; training; and release time to develop technology-based materials.

MOATS
MOATS, the Module Organizer and Teaching Suggestor, is a collaborative instrument and research project that attempts to address instructional design theory in relation to technology and student learning. The goal of MOATS is to create an instrument with which an instructor (or instructional support person) can enter an instructional problem or goal and receive an array of solutions or suggestions for how to solve the problem or attain the goal. The options should be displayed along a continuum based on the instructor's goals, preferences, and/or key instructional variables such as learner characteristics, subject matter content, learning task characteristics, or other variables such as course level, class size, and teaching philosophy. MOATS invites the user to begin with the learner role, instructor role, or an instructional problem statement. By focusing on the desired or preferred role and problem statement, each user can gain access to those strategies that best meet the learning need. 

UNC-system mobile computing initiatives
This page provides links to academic projects at other UNC-system initiatives related to the mobile computing initiative run through CALS at NCSU.   This includes East Carolina's Center for Wireless and Mobile Computing, UNC-Wilmington's Project Numina, Winston-Salem State's Technology Requirement Initiative (TRI), Western Carolina's Wireless Palm and Active Learning Project.

The UNC-TLT Collaborative
The University of North Carolina Teaching and Learning with Technology Collaborative (TLTC) is a consortial organization that provides vision and shared resources in support of teaching and learning with technology programs and initiatives on the sixteen UNC campuses. The TLTC seeks to empower teachers, learners, providers of instructional support, and decision makers by identifying and developing resources to facilitate the implementation of technology in teaching and learning. The WebCenter for Learning Networks Effectiveness Research: New Jersey Institute of Technology
The goal of this research program is to increase the quality, quantity, and dissemination of results of research on the effectiveness of Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN).  It synthesizes existing knowledge and creates new knowledge about the methods and findings of research on the determinants of effectiveness of ALN, and makes the results available worldwide via a project web site. This integrates the secondary goal of the site, which is to build and strengthen the ALN evaluation research community to create and share improved research methods, theoretical frameworks, and instrumentation for assessing the outcomes of online learning.