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resources | hopper, 1990

Hopper, M. E. (1990). About CPIAECE. [See Hopper, 1993]

hopper, 1993 [abstract, toc, switchboard, references]

Courseware projects in advanced educational computing environments
Mary E. Hopper, Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

 
Context
 
Studied "samples of tomorrow" today!

Jackson, G. (1991) Conclusion Project Athena in the Evolution of Academic Computing at MIT. In C. Avril (Ed.), Windows on Athena: Vol.2: Project Athena's Curriculum Development Projects...And Beyond. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

"The Project Athena experiment embodied technological, pedagogical, and organizational questions: What does it take to design, implement, and operate a fully distributed, coherent, vendor-independent, academic computing environment for a university? How do faculty use such an environment educationally, and which of these uses prove effective? Who should manage the environment, support faculty and student users, and provide appropriate incentives and financing for academic computing to flourish? Like all experiments, Project Athena also sought to identify unrecognized issues, costs, and benefits surrounding advanced academic computing."

[See the previous expedition, A&E-KS and the Introduction Overview for more detail and further information about the general background, literature review and problem statement of this phase.]

 
Methods
 
Formal  Ethnographic (Qualitative)
 
Projects
 
Educational computing projects in academic settings using advanced computing technology across a variety of disciplines.
 

The following projects, organizations and participants were the focus of this study:   Project: ESCAPE (HyperCard and HyperNews) Organizations: Educational Research and Information Systems (ERIS, Purdue) Participants: Hopper, Lawler, LeBold, Putnam, Rehwinkel, Tillotson, Ward   Project: TODOR (BLOX) & Mechanics 2.01 (cT, Athena) Organizations: Athena and Academic Computing (AC, MIT) Participants: Bucciarelli, Daly, Jackson, Lavin, Schmidt   Project: Physical Geology Tutor (AthenaMuse) Organizations: Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI, MIT) Participants: Davis, Kinnicutt, Lerman, Schlusselberg   Project: Context32 (Intermedia, StorySpace) Organizations: Institute for Research and Information Scholarship (IRIS, Brown) Participants: Kahn, Landow, Yankelovich   [See the Switchboard for further information.]

 
Data Type and Collection
 
There were 19 interviews (and more),
but used mostly quotes from published documents.

Notice the number of passages vs. the number of interviews.

Often interviews were not just about finding out what happened,
but also being told how to find tiny places in print where someone
had basically already said the same things.

This was particularly true for  the more difficult truths.

Also, if I laid out the passages, and found one from an existing publication,
I would use it to avoid the extensive process of editing and clearing passages from my busy participants.
 
Researcher Role
 
In the data table, it is clear that the amounts and level of
data varied relative to the level of access I had to the project.

The most detailed and extensive was the ESCAPE project at Purdue.
(Most in depth were videos rather than audio tapes because I could impose.)
 
Technology in Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting
 
One of the things I have done consistently across my research is use technology to support  my research process.

In my first adventure, I used really advanced technology for this: HyperCard :)

[See the more detailed overview of methodology of this study: Methods]

Educational (Content)
Computing (Technical)
Projects (Organizational).

Projects are carried out in an educational context, they use computer
technology by definition, and they are carried out within the social
and economic structures of the organization in which they take place.

 
Summary and Discussion
 
Projects were characterized by simultaneous
attention to a consistent set of key factors across all three contexts. 
The challenge was to maintain a balance between the contexts and manage
the relationships among factors!

[See 6.1 Relationships Among Contexts of Advanced Courseware Projects.]

The factors in the organizational contexts were far more critical than had been anticipated prior to the initiation of this research. (Indicated  by placing organizational  issues at the base of the model, and representing them visually with the largest area.)

The projects consisted of complex technical environments that required regular use and maintenance to survive, so authors had to become managers of all of the complex substantive, technical and organizational aspects of projects.  Particularly because survival depended upon finding a way to regularly obtain resources for supporting continuous maintenance and delivery.

 
Conclusions and Pointers to Next Phase of Expedition
 
Future projects viewed as  opportunities to further develop model of factors and relationships.
 
[See 6.5 Implications for Research about Future Courseware Projects.]
 
[See the overview of the next phase, EOTEF.]
 

© Mary E. Hopper [MEHopper] | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 00/00/00 | revised 02/02/02]