Technical Details:
Subject: CD-ROM
At 10:54 6/2/97 -0500, Gerald Morine wrote:
>1. In the Student Access section, it says the students
>can check out CD-ROM's. Are these the Saunders General
>Chemistry CD's or have you "burned" your own CD's?
>If you have not put your presentations on CD's,
>what are your thoughts on the pro's and con's of
>doing so?
Yes, this is the Saunders CD-ROM that accompanies the textbook. I requested extra desk copies
from our sales rep, and placed several on reserve. For next year I have requested permission to
place some of the animations on our web server for easier access. One less activation energy
barrier for the students.
Although I have access to a CD-ROM writer, I have not used it. It is easier and less expensive
for me to post material on the web. In addition, I can continually modify and update the course
web page. If I tried to create a CD-ROM, it would have to be "put to bed" at the beginning of
the semester. I think this is the greatest disadvantage of a CD-ROM. The web based front end is
much more flexible and allows me to do things in April that I would not have dreamed of in
January.
Doing all of this on the web requires a VERY large disk quota on our servers. The capacity of a
CD-ROM and the speed are big advantages. This can be achieved on the web if you have a lot of
disk space and are working through a local network. Just HTML documents and gif images,
don't take up much disk space. But if you start adding animation, and data files the amount of
disk space increases dramatically. To provide some context, my web site contains about 20 MB
of HTML and image files, 100 MB of animations, and 150 MB of spectral data. We have just
upgraded our server so I now have a 1.5 GB quota. If my plans for the fall semester come
through (approval from publishers to use various multimedia resources) I will use most of this
space.
The other problem with CD-ROM's on our campus is that the large computer labs don't have
CD-ROM drives. I selected the web as a distribution medium because all the computers in the
student labs have access. At this time, the Web is a much easier for my students. It also allows
me to leverage a small commitment from academic computing (loading Netscape and a couple of
plugins) into a very flexible resource.
SUBJECT: HTML
At 17:11 6/2/97 +0600, Brian M. Tissue wrote:
>Are there tools for displaying or printing multiple HTML files?
Not that I am aware of, although it would be nice. It takes a lot of effort to produce effective
HTML documents. Right now HTML seems to be relatively static with the emphasis on plug-ins
and java. These provide lots of flexibility, but they do require more work to configure. Right
now I don't really expect to see anything like what Brian has described. One interesting
development is that Microsoft seems to be jumping onto the web bandwagon. I have seen the
Office '97 version of powerpoint, and it will convert a powerpoint presentation into a set of
HTML documents.
Subject: Netiquitte and Plagiarism.
At 16:04 6/2/97 -0500, Lynn Carlson wrote:
>3. I'm still a newcomer to this kind of use of technology. Often I see
>someone else's hard work on a web site, and would like to link it to mine
>for use by my students. What is the "netiquette" observed by people using
>other's work? Just adding a link feels like plagiarism or pirating,
>somehow.
If I am making a link to another resource, I try to clearly label it so that a user will understand
where they are going and who is responsible for the material. Once you connect to a new site, it
is usually obvious. Since I consider plagiarism unacceptable from my students, I try to clearly
identify sources. If I find a substantial resource that I really like and plan to use in a specific
context (not just a "bookmark") I usually ask for permission and let the author know what
context I am using it. In general, everyone I have contacted is happy to have the traffic and
appreciate knowing that their material is useful.
Subject: Course Management Software
At 19:01 6/2/97 -0400, Bill Jarvis wrote:
>I just attended a workshop on
>TopClass, a course management system (CMS)
<snip>
>Anyone use anything like this?
Thomas G. Chasteen replied:
>We have been using WEB COURSE IN A BOX since last year here at Sam Houston
>State University. It does what TopClass does (in the main).
For the web to be used in more classes, it needs to be easier to develop content. Programs like
this make it easier to set up and maintain a course web page. For it to be useful, however,
probably requires "selling" the concept to a group of faculty. For something like this to catch on
will require a critical mass.
Subject: Plug-in vs Java
At 09:10 6/3/97 +0100, Henry Rzepa wrote:
>Scott has gone the plug-in route (full of pitfulls, ie Netscape vs
>Internet Explorer, Windows vs Mac vs Unix etc). What are his
>views regarding Java?
I think Java is a great concept, but it has a couple of disadvantages. The greatest is problem for
me is that the student computer labs at Widener are all running Windows 3.1. Although there is a
beta version of Netscape for windows 3.1 that supports java applets, I have not found it to be
very stable. So the bottom line is that my student's can't use it yet.
The other major factor is content. Although java is an exciting concept, I have not found very
many java applets that accomplished what I want to do for teaching. In addition, I have not
learned how to produce my own content in this format. For now I'll keep watching to see what
happens.
The current advantage for plug-ins is that they do what I am trying. I use quicktime movies (since
I have found lots of them that seem useful), I use pdb files (which I can create using Hyperchem),
and I use acrobat documents (since I can generate these as easily as printing something).
So I will continue to use plug-ins. They do what I want and they are installed in the student labs.
I don't have to worry about the compatibility problems, because most of my audience is on
campus so I have everything configured for them.
>On a more specific point, he uses the proprietary Nuts program
>to view NMR data. What are his views on using eg JCAMP-DX
>(MIME Type chemical/x-jcamp-dx). We use Bob Lancashire's
>JCAMP Viewer (see http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/vchemlab/DATABASES/main.html )
>but admittedly, this does not handle 2D datasets.
For distributing material to a broad audience, a freely distributed viewer like JCAMP-DX is the
ideal solution. I have discussed a variety of ideas with Bob Lancashire and I use JCAMP for a
other types of spectroscopic data. I think this is great.
The problem with NMR data is that I did not have an easy way to export JCAMP files until recently. The latest version of Nuts will export JCAMP files and I have converted a set of them to try out:
http://science.widener.edu/svb/nmr/jcamp.html
The other consideration is what I want to accomplish. For my students in advanced spectroscopy
I don't want them to look at processed data. I want these students to start with the raw FID so
they need a full blown NMR data processing program. Nuts just happens to be the one that I use,
so that is the format for the data files. I have added some of the spectra for other's convenience.
I have experimented with other formats, (replica, acrobat, gif, jpeg) but I am glad that I can now
export to jcamp files.
Subject: URL's
>PS I routinely include URLS in e-mails (for my own records
>as well as the benefit of the recipient) because my e-mail
>program can resolve them in a single click. Is this standard
>taught practice amongst educators? )
For users fortunate enough to have e-mail software, this it is a great trick. A couple of comments to help make this work:
Place the URL is "in the clear" without any periods at the end.
Add the http:// Although the browser will use it as a default, other programs need this to identify that it is a URL.
For example: science.widener.edu/~svanbram/. Won't work with my software because of
the period. and since the http:// is missing it will not even try to load this into a browser.
Subject: Number of Computers
At 03:57 6/3/97 -0400, Mike Epstein wrote:
>2 - With a large general chemistry class, I would expect this to put a
>strain on your computer lab facilities. How many computers are available
>on your campus for students to access your WWW site?
We have two large open computer labs on campus (50 computers each). These are frequently
crowded and I know that students have a difficult time getting on in the evenings. There are also
several smaller computer labs (the science division has one lab with 12 computers, but it is only
open from 7:00am to 5:00pm). The university is hoping to reduce the pressure on the large labs
by wiring the dorms this summer so students will have access from their own computers. For
upper division chemistry majors we have a small computer lab (3 computers) and provide the
students with keys so they have 24 hour access. This has worked out very well from the student's
perspective and for the faculty. I think it is great to be able to discover a new program and load it
for the students the same day.
Subject: Netscape vs Explorer
>3 - Why Netscape rather than Internet Explorer?
Without going off on a diatribe about Microsoft.... The short answer is that when I started using
the web, Internet Explorer was not available. When academic computing finally installed a web
browser in the student labs (spring '96), Netscape supported the features I wanted. So Netscape
was installed in the labs. Netscape is free for academic use, so price is not an issue. Since it is
now the standard on campus, I will continue to design my pages to work with Netscape. I do
have a copy of Internet Explorer on my computer, so I try to check that documents work with it
(when I remember). The bottom line is that I use Netscape because I used Netscape. (Of course
I also use WordPerfect because I used WordPerfect, but I don't think that this is the place to
discuss religion. ;-))
Subject: PDB files
At 20:18 6/2/97 -0700, Charles Sundin wrote:
> Each I time I open up one of your PDB files, the image is a wireframe
>image. I would imagine that this is difficult for the novice to really
>see so you would then switch to another display format.
>If I am correct on that assumption, is there a pedagogical reason for
>doing so. It would appear that it would be more efficient to have the
>file open up in the desired format.
Yes it would be better to have them open in the desired format. When I designed these pages I
did not know how to do that, so I just used the default. And since Chime was not installed in the
student labs, I did not put much effort into this. Chime was just installed in the student labs a
couple weeks ago, so now it is time to rewrite the documents and add the appropriate code to
take full advantage of the plug-in.
Subject: Training
> (At the beginning of the term I could imagine that you would want to
>go through the various displays a number of times until student felt
>comfortable in using various display formats.)
They don't seem to have much difficulty with this. In class, they see what it looks like and I point
out a couple of details. The web browser is such an improvement in delivering material that the
"software activation energy" is much lower. Once everything is installed and configured (which I
admit is not trivial), this is easy to use. From the student's point of view, they just click on
anything that is blue.
Subject: Slide Shows
> I like your use of successive GIF images for a slide show
>presentation. I have been reluctant to use them for organic mechanisms
>because of the number (I could envision 10-20 per mechanism) and the
>time it would take to load as well as disk space to store.
>
> However, it still is a better format than what I am using.
>
>http://www.ems.uwplatt.edu/sci/chem/fac/sundin/363-7/image/l637-12b.gif
>
>Do you have any student data to convince me that it is worth the time,
>effort, disc space, etc.
No solid student data, since I have only tried this out a couple of times. Organic reaction
mechanisms would be an ideal application.
The disk space is almost trivial (especially compared to an animation). A single gif image of line
art is only a 5k file. As a result, they load fast, especially over a local network. As for the time
required to put this together.......
It will depend upon the software you have access to and how well you can use it. I spent a lot of
time playing with the atmospheric chemistry cycle sequence before I was happy with it. But now
that I have worked out the "concept", with some careful planning it would probably take about an
hour to put together a 15 step reaction mechanism. My suggestion is to give it a try and see if
you like it. Some things to consider when you plan this:
1. Decide ahead of time what size you want the image, if all the figures are not exactly the same
size it won't look good.
2. Work out the details to create the gif images. Keep in mind that the sequence of steps used will effect the clarity of the final product. The ability to create layers in a graphic image is very useful for this. Each addition to the image is another layer. The series of images is generated by selecting which layers to display.
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