Thursday, December 7, 2006

Define an electronic Academic Domain

1. First, purely for explanatory reasons: a broad selection of tools and resources, some physical, some electronic. It could include the tools usually used with computers (word processors, spreadsheets, etc.), video and audio materials, interactive materials on CD-ROM, a language learning facility, science and mathematics apparatus, communications facilities, dictionaries, access to libraries, advising records for faculty, pictures of people, specialized data files for courses, reserve `readings' and a host of other options.

2. The domain would also include places: microcomputer rooms for word processing, study suites in dorms, electronic classrooms, `workshop' science labs, dorm rooms with data connections, offices. To look at it another way, it seems logical to integrate much of the campus into, connect it with, this `Domain.'

3. The domain also involves processes: ways of doing things, ways of using things, strategies. Some of these would be institution-wide, others highly idiosyncratic.

4. One should expect such a domain to be in constant flux.