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Instructional Improvement Grant Proposal, 2000

(Note for those reading this document in print: this proposal includes many links to Transcriptions resources, only some of whose URLs can be spelled out explicitly here. The proposal is best read online at: http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/proposals/instructional-improvement-grant-2000.shtml)


Transcriptions
Date: February 22, 2000
To: Ronald W. Tobin, Assoc. Vice Chancellor Academic Programs
Fr: English Dept. Transcriptions Project Team—Alan Liu (Dir.), Charles Bazerman, Christopher Newfield, Carol Pasternack, Mark Rose, William Warner
Re: Proposal for Instructional Improvement Grant

1. Abstract

Literacy and literature have long served as the means by which societies certify certain classes and individuals as knowledgeable and cultured. But in contemporary society, "information literacy" is ascendant. What do the well-read need to learn from the well-informed, and vice versa? And how does thinking about the technological underpinnings of literacy–past and present–help answer this question?

The Transcriptions Project in the English Dept. ("Transcriptions: Literary History and the Culture of Information") is a three-year curriculum development initiative that addresses these questions by developing an integrated suite of courses, Web sites, research-and-teaching colloquia, and other resources that use information technology to "transcribe" between literary and information cultures. The project began in academic year 1998-99, is now offering its first courses in 1999-2000, and will continue its course-development work through 2000-2001. At that time, its courses will become a regular offering as one of the English major's new "concentrations" or elective tracks.

Transcriptions successfully applied for Instructional Improvement funds for its initial two years—funds that were critical in supplementing its equipment grant of $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) because it paid for two graduate students per quarter. Transcriptions is now following up for the third and final year of its planned development cycle by requesting support for an equivalent level of student assistance during 2000-2001. Student assistants have been crucial to the project's development; and they will be even more important in 2000-2001 as the project prepares to become an integral part of the English major. The assistants will help implement the Transcription project's highest priority for next year: developing a set of credit-bearing "lab" sections to supplement its courses (see Plans for Third Year of Project below).

2. Overview of Project Rationale and Design

Transcriptions rests on the belief that purely practical justifications for using information technology (IT) in humanities instruction—e.g., to facilitate or extend teaching, to give students employment skills, etc.—are necessary. But such rationales are by themselves insufficient. Wiring the humanities requires encouraging humanities students to engage both practically and intellectually with the literary, social, political, economic, philosophical, psychological, and other dimensions of IT. If the humanities are to engage integrally rather than adventitiously in the great contemporary adventure of information, in other words, its crucial questions must include the following: what do humanities students have to learn from serious engagement with the culture of information? Reciprocally, how can information culture–as practiced in the corporate "knowledge work," "service," and other domains in which many students end up–benefit from the perspective of humanists trained in critical and historical inquiry? In short, how can the humanities help humanize the great narratives of "restructuring," "lifelong learning," and "global competition" for which IT now serves as such a powerful and thrilling allegory?

Transcriptions is creating curricular and other resources to address these questions. Its courses not only "use" information technology but also make such technology an object of thought. The twofold goal is to study IT as a phenomenon of culture while also simultaneously studying culture (specifically as represented in literature) as itself a kind of evolving "language tech" (the historical technologies of oral, manuscript, early-print, late-print, broadcast, and other literary cultures). Half the emphasis of the courses created by Transcriptions, therefore, are on the contemporary culture of information and the other half on the cultures of earlier language technology (with some courses spanning from the parchment past to the WWW present, "from scroll to screen"). By seeing IT from the perspective of literature while also seeing literature from the perspective of IT, the project creates a common ground of understanding—at once collaborative and critical—between the universes of the "well-read" and "well-informed."

Because the present proposal follows up on those of the previous two years, the full project rationale is not reproduced here. The supporting documents listed below offer a more detailed glimpse of the idea behind Transcriptions. They also cover the project's background or context, its departmental support, means of evaluation, etc.:

3. Progress Report

During this reporting period (Feb. 1999-Feb. 2000), Transcriptions made progress in the following major categories. (For a detailed chronology of project activities, see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/logs/project-log.shtml):

Course Development: Though Transcriptions offered two "beta-version" courses in 1998-99, it passed its most important milestone in Fall 1999 by initiating a full roster of instruction—including:

Courses are supported by full-featured Web sites and require students to engage in all or most of the following information-technology skills:
  • Web-authoring
  • Creating an online, interactive database (a chronology database and relationally-linked resources database edited through Web forms)
  • Participating in a threaded discussion forum
  • Participating in an e-mail list

Course assessment is being conducted through both the normal campus student course evaluation forms (ESCI) and a supplementary survey focusing on the students' experience of instructional technology. For the one project course that has been completed at the time of this proposal (the fall, undergraduate version of "The Culture of Information," enrollment: 35), student reaction was favorable. The ESCI instructor's mean was 1.4 (dept. mean over time, 1.7; campus mean over time, 2.0); and the course mean was 1.8 (dept. mean over time, 1.8; campus mean over time, 2.1). Student comments on the exit survey about instructional technology were highly positive (the survey is discursive and cannot be summarized easily here; responses are available on request.) The main weakness that Transcriptions has discovered in its curricular design is that it needs to consolidate and make more efficient its teaching of technology skills (see Plans for Third Year of Project below). In general, student interest and enrollment in the project's courses have been very high at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Web Site: The Transcriptions Web site (http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/) was redesigned and put online in its new form in late summer 1999 in time to support the project's first year of courses. The site includes full-fledged course sites, curricular and research resource pages, topics pages, and colloquia pages. In addition, there are developers' FAQs and other resources intended to enhance collaborative project development. A special effort was made in Fall and Winter 1999 to create original graphics for the site (including images of students presenting their projects in class). The following are sample pages from the site:
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/liu/english236/
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/topics/weaving-webs/home.html
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/resources.shtml#overview
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/colloquia.shtml

Colloquia: Transcriptions initiated a colloquium series in Spring 1999 on the research and pedagogical dimensions of information technology. In Fall 1999, the colloquia became a credit-bearing graduate course. In general, the colloquium series has been one of the real strengths of the project. It is a flexible venue that features both UCSB and extramural speakers, theoretical and practical topics, and formal and informal presentation formats. Held in the Transcriptions computing studio, the colloquia generate a "workshop" atmosphere in which speakers engage students and faculty in conversations that modulate between the philosophical and the technical. A recent speaker, for example, was Matt Kirschenbaum from the University of Kentucky, who first gave a formal talk on the visual experience of information technology (an area in which he is one of the world's experts) and then followed up with an informal workshop on professional opportunities in the "digital humanities" field.

Computing Studio and Collaborative Online Work Environment: At its onset, Transcriptions used its NEH funds to build a new computing studio in the English department equipped with four workstations, a multimedia projector, and the project's own server. A faster server, two more workstations, a scanner, a digital video camera and video card, and an additional multimedia projector were added during the current reporting period to support an increase in both the amount and variety of course-related use. Significant progress also occurred in software implementation and development. Especially important was the creation of a database design and accompanying Web interface that allows students to edit Filemaker databases remotely for class assignments. (See, for example, http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu:591/topics/postmodernism/db/index.html)

Publicity and Dissemination: Transcriptions has actively publicized and disseminated its work as it has proceeded. For students, the project produced descriptive materials, flyers, and posters that explained its idea and advertised its courses. For graduate students and faculty within the English department, the project held workshops and introductory sessions. For interested members of other UCSB departments as well as for administrators, the project held briefing sessions. Similar presentations of the project were made to faculty from other UC campuses at a planning meeting for the new "Digital Cultures" Multi-Campus Research Group (see below) and for alumni and community members (organized in collaboration with the offices of the Dean of Humanities, the Chancellor, Development, and the Friends of English). Transcriptions has also engaged in outreach by presenting its work at an area high school.

Planning: To plan and design the above activities, the Transcriptions team (faculty, research assistants, and staff) met a total of 11 times during this reporting period. In addition, the project established a tradition of "jam sessions" in which project developers meet in the computing studio to discuss current tasks.

[Late-Breaking News:] The Digital Cultures Multi-Campus Research Group: In a significant new development, Transcriptions has helped initiate the new UC-system "Digital Cultures" Multi-Campus Research Group (MRG). Proposed to the UC Office of the President by Transcriptions member William Warner, the MRG was approved in January 2000. It will knit together faculty and graduate students from all the UC campuses (except UCSF) in the following activities: an annual summer institute (seminars led by distinguished scholars in the field of humanities computing), an annual conference, an annual graduate-student conference, an ongoing inter-campus research and teaching information network, and a casebook series on the use of information technology specifically in humanities teaching and research. The MRG will also explore the possibility of inter-campus. information-technology-assisted courses. "Digital Cultures" will be headquartered at UCSB and will utilize the precedents, resources, and equipment already developed by Transcriptions (though Transcriptions itself receives no funding from the MRG initiative). For more information about the MRG, see http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/

4. The Role Played by Student Assistants

Graduate-student research assistants in Transcriptions have acted as full partners in the project. They sit on the project's planning meetings and participate in developing training workshops, creating content for the project's Web site, collecting resources on the use of IT in teaching, and implementing the project's new software and network environments. Since developing new courses using IT imposes a heavier than normal burden on faculty (and since Transcriptions faculty receive no course relief, stipend, or other benefits for their participation in the project), the assistance of the students has been critical. For an example of instructional resources that were created almost entirely by research assistants, see Collaborative Learning Resources (http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/ resources.shtml) (In addition, it should be noted that student assistants clearly benefit professionally from their combined practical and intellectual work in Transcriptions, as may be documented by the successful job search of one project research assistant this year who ended up with a choice between a tenure-track teaching job and a position in a start-up information technology company.)

5. Plans for Third Year of the Project, 2000-2001 (Final Development Year)

In the next academic year (which marks the formal end of its development stage), Transcriptions will continue the activities described above in its progress report. In addition, the project will address three high-priority development needs:

(I) Creating New Courses

To achieve the critical mass of courses necessary to become one of the new tracks in the English major, Transcriptions will have to add several courses to those it has already developed. For 2000-2001, the following six new Transcriptions courses have been approved by the English Dept.:

  • History of Written Culture (undergrad) (instructor: Charles Bazerman)
  • Hypertext Literature (undergrad) (instructor: Alan Liu)
  • Hypertext Literature and Literary Theory (graduate) (instructor: Alan Liu)
  • Business Culture (undergrad) (Christopher Newfield)
  • The Imperial Text (graduate) (Carol Pasternack)
  • Enlightenment Communications in England and America (undergrad) (William Warner)
  • Cyborg Genealogies: The Gothic (graduate) (William Warner)

These six courses (one more than the five developed for 1999-2000) will depend heavily on research assistants to help develop their Web sites and instructional technology. (In addition, two courses first taught in 1999-2000—The Culture of Information and Scroll to Screen—will be repeated. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a repertory of about 12-14 courses total.)

(II) Creating Lab Sections

Transcriptions has discovered a significant weakness in its curricular design: the need to consolidate and make more efficient the training of students in the technology skills necessary for class assignments.

As may be expected, the project takes great care to ensure that its students are adequately prepared for practical work with information technology. Each course gathers information about students's IT skills and access through an online course entrance survey (see http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/student-surveys/index.shtml). Knowledge gathered from this survey becomes the basis for devising a plan for technical training. But while some training is available through Instructional Computing, Transcriptions instructors have so far not found it practical simply to outsource the task because of the need to familiarize students with specific Web-authoring procedures, Web-page templates, Filemaker Web forms, and messaging environments needed for Transcriptions class assignments. Instructors have therefore devoted regular class time to this purpose and also scheduled extra technology workshops. This puts a substantial strain on instructors, who cannot devote too much instructional time to training without diluting course content (and diverting their time from other kinds of student advising). Nor is it fair to students to expect them to attend extra technology workshops in addition to regular classes (though many are eager to do so).

Transcriptions thus plans to revise its curricular structure by creating a regular series of technology "lab sections" (approximately three per quarter) that will be staffed by research assistants and taken for extra course credit by students. (The English Dept. Undergraduate Committee is currently working out the details for such an arrangement.) To maximize resources, these lab sections will be shared by concurrent courses. Two or three courses each quarter, in other words, would share the same lab sections. Some labs would occur in Instructional Computing and some in the Transcriptions computing studio.

Research assistants funded by Instructional Improvement would develop the curriculum and online resources necessary for these labs. In addition, research assistants would develop the means and liasions necessary to increase the project's use of central campus resources. For example, they would coach students on UWeb, HTML-editing programs available in Instructional Computing, etc. (Pilot technology "workshops" were conducted in 1999-2000 by research assistants to prove the concept.)

(III) Acquiring a Collection of Hypertext Literature on CD-ROM

Two courses scheduled for 2000-2001 focus on the single most important genre of contemporary literature to study in understanding the relation of literary study to information technology: hypertext literature (hypertext fiction, poetry, and theory). However, there are practical impediments to the study of hypertext literature in the collaborative, team-oriented teaching environments fostered by Transcriptions courses. While some hypertext fiction and poetry is beginning to appear online on the Web, the field is still dominated by works created on CD-ROMs—both because of the historical precedence of the Storyspace hypertext-authoring environment and of the technical limitiations of the HTML on the Web. In particular, the world's major collection of hypertext literature is consolidated in the publications of a single company: Eastgate Systems, Inc. (http://www.eastgate.com/). Included in Eastgate's collection, for example, are such now canonical works as Michael Joyce's Afternoon, A Story, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl.

Transcriptions would like to acquire a single copy of each work in the Eastgate library of hypertext literature for the development of courses on hypertext. There is no other practical way for instructors in the project to create assignments that encourage students to explore a wide range of hypertext fiction/poetry in the collaborative learning environment of the project's computing studio. The resources need to be physically present at the location where students are not just researching but also authoring their own hypertext assignments (it would thus not be possible just to send the students to the library).

6. Departmental Support

See the statement in the 1998 Transcriptions proposal for Instructional Improvement funding on continuing departmental support (http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/proposals/instructional-improvement-grant-1998.shtml#6).

7. Evaluation

See the statement in the 1998 Transcriptions proposal for Instructional Improvement funding on plans for evaluation (http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/project/proposals/instructional-improvement-grant-1998.shtml#7).

8. Budget

(for the rationale of requested items, see Plans for the Third Year of the Project above)

As indicated in the following table, Transcriptions is requesting funding for two graduate-student assistants for 2000-2001. The per-student amount for Fall-Spring is higher than that for Summer because of the need to bring the level of compensation during the regular academic year closer to that for normal Teaching Assistants in the English Dept (who also receive tuition offset, benefits, insurance, etc.)—close enough, specifically, for the English Dept. to achieve near parity by supplement Instructional Improvement with other funds. Such parity is a high priority because the English Dept. runs a graduate program in which all students receive 4-5 years of continuous support either in the form of TAships or (in some years) fellowships. This means that Transcriptions cannot recruit assistants with just the flat University "research-assistant" rate. (In general, Transcriptions believes its research assistantships are fully on a par with Teaching Assistantships in providing graduate students with professional expertise and intellectual enrichment. The work that Transcriptions assistants accomplish contributes directly not only to the development of the project but also to their own careers as researchers and instructors.)

In addition, Transcriptions is requesting funding to purchase works of hypertext fiction and poetry from the Eastgate Systems, Inc. catalogue.

 
Salary for Two Student Assistants  
Summer 2000 Assistance:
2 graduate students at $13.47/hr for 20 hrs a week for 10 weeks		 $5,388
Fall-Spring 2000-2001 Assistance:
2 graduate students at $18.88/hr for 10 hours a week for 30 weeks 		$11,328
Benefits at 4.9% for Above
($5,388 + $11,328) x .049		 $819
Hypertext Literature from Eastgate Systems, Inc. (1 copy of each work in their catalogue; total cost confirmed through correspondence with the firm in Feb. 2000) $899
Total $18,434

 

This page created by Alan Liu for the Transcriptions Team, 2/19/00 (revised 2/22/00)
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