Tools Available to the Tufts University Community:
These are widely adaptable tools provided by UIT to the Tufts community.
Based on SixApart's Movable Type blogging system, SparkBlogs allows any member of the Tufts community to easily create and maintain an online journal to document and share expertise, experiences, research, and resources with the Tufts community.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
Classroom Response System (CRS)
Commonly referred to as classroom response systems (CRS) or audience response systems (ARS), these innovative, interactive tools have become increasingly popular on university campuses in the last five years. Students use hand-held CRS clickers, similar to a t.v. remote control, to respond to multiple choice or polling questions that the instructor posts as part of his or her daily lecture. The responses are gathered by a central receiver, tallied, and can immediately be projected back for all to see. Faculty can craft questions to inspire class discussion, analyze the true level of understanding on a given topic, and review the previous day's material. Building on a successful Spring 2006 pilot, Classroom Response System (CRS) is now available to the entire Medford campus, and Tufts Schools in Boston and Grafton are also ordering CRS kits for their faculty and students to use. The Tufts bookstore is now accepting orders from faculty in Arts & Sciences, Engineering, The Fletcher School, and Nutrition on the Medford campus, and students will purchase their clickers through the bookstore for use in courses throughout the term.
For more information, contact:
Haejung Chung, Senior Educational Technology Specialist
Phone: 617.627.0387
E-mail: haejung.chung@tufts.edu
Digital Library
http://dl.tufts.edu/
The Tufts Digital Library supports the creation and maintenance of digital library collections and the tools to access those collections and provides training and support in the use of these tools. The Tufts Digital Library is a collaborative service of the Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) and UIT Educational & Scholarly Technology Services (ESTS).
For more information, contact:
Phone: 617.627.3737
E-mail: archives@tufts.edu
Based on Sakai’s JForum system, SparkForums enhables members of the Tufts community to create online discussion forums for course or other collaboration activities. The Forums support the ability to attach files to forum messages, as well as the option for email notification when new messages are posted.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
The Spark Map tool uses GoogleMaps technology to allow you to create,
define, and manage collections of geographically located data sets. Once a
collection has been defined you can choose to share your map with others,
either privately via a Spark login or more widely via a public web address.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
MediaMarkups
https://spark.uit.tufts.edu/help_media.jsp
The Spark MediaMarkup tool allows users to provide commentary, feedback, and reflections, at specific time locations within web delivered digital audio and video files. The media and its annotations can be kept private to individuals, groups, or the entire Tufts community. They can also be made public to the entire world if needed. We see this tool being useful for a wide variety of purposes, including:For assistance, contact:
- providing feedback to students on their recorded performances
- for creating indexes that allow users to jump to specific locations in the media
- for allowing viewers to annotate recordings of lectures, presentations, or meetings
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
The Spark PodCasts service provides members of the Tufts community with a simple way to publish Tufts-related podcast titles to which others can subscribe. A podcast is a downloadable audio or video file that community members can listen to, or view, on their computers or on portable players. For each podcast you publish via Spark, an RSS feed is created so that you can share your podcast episodes with others via RSS readers, iTunes, or Spark.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
The Spark web site provides the Tufts community with an integrated, single point of access to a suite of tools that allow users to share ideas and resources, communicate, and collaborate in new ways using the latest web-based technologies. Spark has been designed as an extensible system that will allow UIT's Academic Technology department to integrate new tools as they become available. Spark launched in September 2006 with its flagship toolset featuring blog and wiki systems.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
Tufts Digital Repository
http://dca.tufts.edu/tdr/index.html
VUE: Visual Understanding EnvironmentThe Tufts Digital Repository is a repository system allows the Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) staff to preserve and manage digital content of enduring value created at Tufts University or used in teaching and research at Tufts University. This digital repository is based on Fedora, an Open Source digital repository architecture.
For more information, contact:
Phone: 617.627.3737
E-mail: archives@tufts.edu
http://vue.tufts.edu/
Providing faculty and students with flexible tools to successfully integrate digital resources into their teaching and learning is the primary focus of the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) project. VUE leverages the open and extensible development platform of the Open Knowledge Initiative and the FEDORA digital repository system to develop a visual environment for structuring, presenting and sharing digital information. Through VUE, faculty and students use a visual, concept mapping interface to design customized, resource-linked semantic networks that can be viewed, shared and edited online. AT received support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For assistance, contact:
vue@elist.tufts.edu
Web Meetings
http://spark.tufts.edu/meeting_overview.jsp
A web meeting is an online environment allowing people to conduct
discussions, share presentations and collaborate with geographically
dispersed participants.UIT is offers a production service of Adobe Connect to support Tufts community web conferencing needs.
Wikis
http://spark.uit.tufts.edu/wiki.jsp
Based on Atlassian's Confluence wiki system, SparkWikis provides members of the Tufts community with an easy-to-use collaboration tool. A wiki is simply a web page or site that is fully editable from a browser using a very simple "mark-up" language. Its strength is that it allows small groups to add, revise, and edit web content, so it is a natural tool for most collaborative writing, research, and development activities.
For assistance, contact:
David Grogan, Senior Solutions Specialist
Phone: 617.627.2859
E-mail: david.grogan@tufts.edu
Experimental Tools:
These are flexible tools for which UIT sponsors pilot partnerships with interested faculty and programs.
ActiveWorlds
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/devtech/vclc/CHZora_screenshots.html
Zora, built upon the ActiveWorlds platform, is an interactive, multi-user, 3-D environment explicitly designed to help young people explore issues of identity and to promote positive development through the use of technology. A virtual reality building platform, Zora allows users to populate a virtual world with their own creations, ascribe attributes to them, and interact with other users and their creations. Zora was developed by UIT Academic Technology to support the research of faculty member Marina Bers and her project team in the Department of Child Development.
Computer-Assisted Language Testing
https://calt.atech.tufts.edu/
Academic Technology worked with the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures to implement an online language placement testing system, using the QuestionMark technology.
dotProject
An open-source, Web-based project management system, dotProject can support the collaborative project work of small teams or programs. The Feinstein International Famine Center, part of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, is currently exploring use of dotProject to support a curriculum development project with program staff located around the world.
Tools and Modules Focused on a Particular Area of Intellectual Inquiry:
Artifact
http://artifact.tufts.edu/artifact/
Artifact is an interactive web-based curriculum tool originally created for Art History courses at Tufts. It has a continually expanding database of slides.
For assistance, contact:
Eva Hoffman, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History
Phone: 617.627.5287
E-mail: eva.hoffman@tufts.edu
Boston Subsurface Project
http://bostonsoil.atech.tufts.edu/
In collaboration with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, the Geology Department, and Tisch Library, Academic Technology developed a geotechnical database of Boston data for use in engineering education and research at Tufts University. This project has also received funding from the Tisch Library's Berger Grant. By integrating the analysis capabilities of a Geographic Information System (GIS) with Environmental Visualization Software (EVS), students and researchers are able to explore civil engineering constraints for construction in downtown Boston, caused by the historic filling of land in Boston's peninsula. Academic Technology created a customized Desktop GIS and Internet mapping application that will enable two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) visualization of Boston's subsurface soil database, which was acquired through the Central Artery's "Big Dig" project.
ConStats
http://constats.atech.tufts.edu/
Very little software exists that teaches statistical concepts, as distinct from data analysis. ConStats is such a concept tool, explicitly designed by an interdisciplinary group of Tufts faculty in collaboration with AT to promote understanding of fundamental statistical concepts. ConStatS is unique in that it encourages students to actively experiment with statistical concepts, and requires them to carefully consider their own decisions as they use the software.
Crime and Punishment
http://at.tccs.tufts.edu/apps/candp/
Designed by Kent Portney and Jerry Goldman in collaboration with UIT Academic Technology, Crime and Punishment is an example of Advanced Multimedia-Based Experimental Research (AMBER). The Crime and Punishment program is a multimedia simulation of the criminal court sentencing process for use in college courses on criminal justice, criminology, judicial politics or process, law, and related courses. In it, students interactively assume the role of the judge charged with the task of imposing sentences on convicted felons in six separate cases. Students are provided with the same array of visual (including full-motion video), audio, and textual materials available to judges in actual criminal sentencing situations. Students then must proceed to render their decisions (sentences). The purpose of the simulation is to enable instructors to investigate with their classes, using an experimental design, the potential influences of non-legal case characteristics, such as the race, gender, appearance, and demeanor of the defendant, on the severity of sentences imposed. Our intention is to produce a simulated forum in which students are asked to confront the often-difficult decisions concerning appropriate sentences for criminal defendants. The purpose is not to perfectly re-create the exact sentencing process used by judges around the country.
EcoLinkUp
http://ecolinkup.atech.tufts.edu/
EcoLinkUp is an online communication and collaboration tool dedicated to connecting Tufts University's Environmental Community. It provides Tufts' faculty, staff, students, alumni and external partners with a way to participate in university-wide environmental interdisciplinary research, education, citizenship, and outreach programs.
Interactive Lecture Demonstrations
http://ild.tccs.tufts.edu/
In collaborating with the Tufts Center for Math and Science Teaching, Academic Technology developed an online version of the Center's Interactive Lecture Demonstrations in Physics. This instructional approach has proven highly effective in increasing student comprehension of Newton's Laws. ILD Online is bringing the benefits of this instructional strategy in science education to students studying at a distance.
International Research Network (IRN)
http://irn.tccs.tufts.edu/
The Tufts International Relations Program worked with Academic Technology (AT) to develop the International Research Network (IRN), an online learning community for students conducting international research. The IRN is designed to support students who want to do capstone international research projects, such as senior theses, Fulbright proposals, and directed-research studies. One of the goals of the project is to help IR students leaving Tufts for a year of overseas study to keep their connection with the university's resources, faculty guidance, and the practice of research writing.
Neurologic Examination
http://www.tufts.edu/vet/neurology/
Part of a thorough veterinary physical examination includes assessment of the patient's neurological system. Many students are overwhelmed when attempting to perform and interpret the multiple, unfamiliar procedures making up the neurological examination. The Neurological Examination is a student-driven interactive computer-based tutorial demonstrating the performance of the neurological examination, illustrating normal and abnormal findings and finally integrating this newly gained knowledge. This tutorial will allow a student to learn, step-by-step, the examination procedure as well as the scientific theory that accompanies clinical application.
Usability Lab
The Human Factors Usability Lab forms an integral part of the Human Factors Program at Tufts. It provides the facility to build and test prototypes (both physical and computer generated models), evaluate user interface designs, and validate performance results in more formal settings. This Usability Laboratory gives all human factors students an opportunity to perform hands-on experimentation and usability evaluation of their design projects and honors thesis projects, ranging from consumer products to software interface to protocols for managing information systems. Academic Technology developed a data logger for the Usability Lab system.
