REACH, February 1990 -------------------- Research & Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities ----------------------------------- Newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California at Santa Barbara ------------------------------------------------ COLLEGE SETS GOALS IN HUMANITIES COMPUTING Humanities computing will be one of the fastest growing areas of academic computing in the next several years, and the College of Letters and Science is doing its utmost to provide the necessary central support to the development of the appropriate pattern of resources at UCSB. According to Llad Phillips, the Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Science who has been coordinating the humanities computing initiative, "the aim of the College is to provide maximum possible support to the efforts of the humanities faculty, students, and departments in the development of their uses of computers in research and instruction." Increasingly, humanities computing requires the more sophisticated types of computing equipment, and the only practical way to make this kind of equipment available is to develop a shared form of resource. As Phillips says, "This is what the College has done by setting up the Humanities Computing Facility, with its two locations in South Hall and Phelps Hall, conveniently located close to the majority of the humanities departments. These locations will be used to house the shared advanced equipment necessary for further development." As a next step, the College intends to link the faculty members in the various humanities departments with the two Humanities Computing Facility locations and with other resources on the campus, such as the Library and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, using the central campus backbone communications network. The College hopes that the Humanities Computing Facility, suitably equipped with advanced computing machinery and staffed by graduate students and undergraduate honors students from the humanities departments, will provide the foundation needed to support emerging innovative ideas for research and courseware development. Phillips suggests that "making these human and machine resources available should provide an effective complement to the efforts of Instructional Development in supporting proposals presented by faculty for innovative instructional improvement projects in the humanities." Phillips indicates that the College is very pleased with the progress made in opening and initially equipping the two locations of the Humanities Computing Facility. "Eric Dahlin has played a major role in successfully bringing these sites online," he notes, and adds "the Advisory Committee is now examining the needs of humanities computing, and is making recommendations for the acquisition of the equipment and software needed for further development of the Facility." New equipment in the form of a Kurzweil scanner, high end microcomputers for text analysis, and examples of CD-ROM text material will soon be installed. I'm hoping that faculty members with ideas for computer projects in the humanities will communicate them to me," says Dean Phillips. The College wants to try to provide every support it can to new computing initiatives in this developing area." ------------------------------------------------------------ FULL HOUSE AT MICROCOMPUTER EXHIBITION An overflow crowd attending the January 29 exhibition of the instructional uses of microcomputers in the UCEN Pavilion saw a wide range of demonstrations by academic exhibitors from many UCSB departments, as well as numerous displays of software and hardware from various leading commercial vendors. Presented by the UCSB Office of Instructional Development and sponsored by the College of Letters and Science, the College of Engineering, the Microcomputer Laboratory, and Apple Computer, Inc., the event was designed to provide UCSB faculty members with the opportunity to share their ideas and experiences in the use of microcomputers for a variety of instructional purposes. Of particular interest to attending UCSB humanists were demonstrations of computer programs in classical studies, foreign languages, linguistics, music, drama production design, and English composition. It is hoped that the exhibition will become an annual event. ------------------------------------------------------------ INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT FUNDS AVAILABLE Humanists interested in exploring the possible instructional uses of computers in their particular disciplines may find significant support through the program of Instructional Improvement Grants and Minigrants administered by the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs, Ronald W. Tobin, and the Academic Senate Committee on Effective Teaching and Instructional Support (CETIS). The grant program is supported primarily by special instructional improvement funds from the state legislature and the Regents, and is designed to support faculty efforts to improve the quality of instruction through experimentation with new ideas, methods, and technologies. Goals may range from making minor revisions in individual courses to the complete restructuring of entire academic programs. Instructional Improvement Grants are awarded once a year to faculty engaged in major modifications of courses or programs. Funding can cover such areas as faculty summer stipends, student assistance, supplies, and materials and service. Equipment purchases are not funded. In 1988-89, 36 proposals were submitted, and 27 of these received at least partial funding. Average funding was approximately $9000. Minigrants are awarded throughout the year to faculty members interested in making minor revisions in individual courses or in developing materials or procedures to improve one or more courses. The maximum award is $1000, and the funds may be used for student assistance, supplies, and material and services. They do not cover purchases of any equipment. The Minigrants will be of particular interest to those humanists who want to experiment with the instructional uses of computers, according to Stan Nicholson of the Office of Instructional Consultation. "They are designed for those who want to test new ideas and explore the uses of emerging technologies," says Nicholson, who welcomes questions from faculty wanting to examine the possible uses of computers in curricular innovation in their disciplines. "The Minigrants are ideal instruments for the development of pilot projects of a completely experimental nature," suggests Nicholson. "The application process is simple, and decisions are usually announced within a week of the receipt of the proposal." In addition to the funds being made available through the Instructional Improvement Program, partial funding for computer related instructional projects may also available through the College of Letters and Science. Those considering such projects should communicate with Associate Dean Llad Phillips. For humanists who want to explore instructional computer uses, broad levels of information, consultation, and support are available through the Office of Instructional Consultation. Demonstrations of new techniques, such as computer control of laser video and sound presentations and the use of the Macintosh HyperCard program to create computerized instructional materials, can be readily arranged. Interested faculty members should telephone either Stan Nicholson at Extension 3523 or Rick Johnson at Extension 2828. ------------------------------------------------------------ 120 COMPUTERIZED PHILOSOPHY TEXTS HUMANIST recently carried a list of all the philosophy texts currently available in machine readable form, which allows you to use them on your computer in conjunction with various text analysis programs. Prepared by Leslie Burkholder of Carnegie Mellon University, the list ranges from Abelard to Wittgenstein, and contains some 120 entries. A copy of the list is available for examination in the HCF. ------------------------------------------------------------ CONVERSATIONS ON HUMANIST INTRIGUING The daily communications of the electronic discussion group HUMANIST encompass a ceaselessly fascinating range of subjects. In the last several weeks there have been conversations about the varieties of other discussion groups, the possibilities of electronic journals, text scanning software, the vagaries of institutional computer support, ESL software, available machine readable texts in philosophy, programs for teaching Japanese and Chinese characters, the mysteries of electronic mail addressing conventions, and the benefits of electronic access to the catalogues of distant libraries. The issue of electronic discussion groups is particularly intriguing to those just beginning to explore the marvels of computerized communication. There are nearly 2000 such groups on Bitnet, the academic electronic network, dealing with a remarkable collection of topics. Among those of possible interest to UCSB humanists are discussion groups on _Finnegan's Wake_, the Gaelic language, Esperanto, philosophy, the English language, history, film making and the cinema, literature, the Nota Bene word processing program, folklore, Dante, and the records of early English drama. More complete information on the range of electronic discussion groups is being developed and will be made available in the HCF. ------------------------------------------------------------ DO STUDENTS WRITE BETTER ON IBM THAN ON MAC? An article in the January 1990 issue of _Academic Computing_ suggests that students write better when they are using the verbally oriented IBM-PC than when they are using the graphically oriented Macintosh. The author, Marcia Peoples Halio, Assistant Director of the Writing Program in the English Department of the University of Delaware, remarks that although "the Mac design is well suited to the prewriting stages of composition, where emphasis is on unblocking ideas and getting a paper going . . . it may be less well suited to the later stages of composing when writers need to refine and polish their product." At the University of Delaware, the sections of freshman composition in which students can use computers to do their essays are identified as either Macintosh or IBM-PC sections in the catalogue. Students choose the computer they prefer to use for their writing by enrolling in an appropriate section. In 1987, after teaching freshman composition for several terms using the IBM-PC, Halio switched to a section using the Macintosh, and was immediately and unpleasantly surprised by the sloppiness of the first set of essays she received. Although the Macintosh papers were often creatively illustrated, Halio says, "Words were misspelled; commas were placed haphazardly; semicolons were virtually nonexistent or placed by means of `breath' punctuation rules; and such fine points as quotation marks, apostrophes, and question marks were treated with gay abandon." The following year Halio asked several instructors who had taught both IBM and Mac sections if they had noticed any differences in the writing of the two groups. Two replied that "the sections we have been complaining about all semester because of the sloppy writing and the fluffiness of the topics are Macintosh sections. We don't have the same complaint about the IBM sections." A third instructor remarked, "Students write differently on the Mac--frankly, I think their writing is worse, and I don't think it is because they are essentially worse writers. There's something about the large print and big margins on the Mac that seems to encourage a simple sentence structure and childish vocabulary." Halio later ran twenty randomly selected essays from both Mac and IBM sections through the Writers' Workbench Text Analysis program, and found what she considered a confirmation of her initial impressions. Halio concludes her article with some interesting speculations about the possible sources of these apparent differences. She is now conducting a more controlled experiment to explore the area further. As might be expected, the article has generated a certain amount of vigorous comment on the electronic discussion group HUMANIST in recent days. A copy of this issue of Academic Computing is available for examination in the HCF. ------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR FACULTY COMPUTER WORKSHOPS SLATED In March and April, the Instructional Improvement Program and the Microcomputer Laboratory are sponsoring a series of computer workshops for faculty and graduate students. Topics both for IBM-PC and Macintosh personal computer users will be included. Reservations are necessary. The first in the series is a Macintosh workshop designed for faculty members interested in exploring the possible uses of the HyperCard program to develop instructional materials. It will be held on Saturday, March 3, in the Microcomputer Laboratory, Phelps 1518, and will consist of a two-hour morning session, starting at 10:00 am, followed by a two- hour afternoon session starting at 1:00 pm. A second Macintosh workshop, an introduction to the PageMaker desktop publishing program, will be offered on Saturday, March 10, in the Microcomputer Laboratory, Phelps 1518, in a single four-hour afternoon session starting at 1:00 pm. Some previous Macintosh computer experience is expected. Two IBM-PC workshops are scheduled for the last week in March and the first week in April. The first, an introduction to DOS for beginners, will explore the basic operations of IBM-PCs and compatible computers. It will be held on Saturday, March 31, in the Social Science Computing Facility, Ellison 2626, with a three-hour session starting at 9:00 am, followed by a one- hour afternoon session starting at 1:00 pm. The second IBM-PC workshop, this one for intermediate users of DOS, will be held on Saturday, April 7, again in the Social Science Computing Facility, Ellison 2626, with a three-hour morning session beginning at 9:00 am, followed by a one-hour afternoon session starting at 1:00 pm. For More Information To obtain more detailed information about the content of any of these workshops, or to arrange reservations in one or more of them, please telephone the Office of Instructional Consultation at Extension 2972. ------------------------------------------------------------ A TYPING TALE How's your typing technique these days? I was asked recently about computer programs designed to help improve typing skills, and thought I'd tell you about my favorite. A year or two ago, when I decided I really had to do something about my own erratic and inefficient method, I discovered a program called Typing Tutor IV which proved to be both helpful and amusing. The program starts you off easily with simple letter combination keyboard drills, and then advances you to increasingly difficult sentence exercises as your skills improve. It constantly adjusts the exercise material to give you additional practice with what it detects as your weaker areas, and maintains a record of your speed and error rate. An unusual vocabulary helps to hold your attention during the practice periods. I continued my sessions faithfully until the wretched thing tried to train me to use the number and symbol keys on the top row of the keyboard, at which point my interest declined sharply, since I practically never use those keys in everyday work and resented having to suffer terrible bouts of indecision trying to get the correct finger placed on the particular key containing the ampersand, or whatever it happened to be at the time. At that stage, I found the program had another useful feature. You can actually create your own practice text with your word processor, transfer it into Typing Tutor IV, and then have the program use your text in place of its own material. Ah, relief from the dreaded top row! The program even has a game built into it! Words drop on you one by one from out of the sky at the top of the screen, and you have to type each one correctly before it hits the surface of the planet and blows a chunk of it out from underfoot. At first the words are short and drop slowly. Confidence develops. But now the words multiply and grow longer and fall faster, and the fingers start to falter. Finally, down come those ultimate images of evil, the feared top row numbers and symbols. Who will win, you or the dreaded Letter Invaders? The program is available for both the IBM-PC and the Macintosh, and, if I remember, cost about $40 at the time I bought my own copy. It may have advanced beyond the IV stage by now, but I assume that it still exists and expect that you will be able to find it in its current incarnation through most of the usual software channels. --Eric Dahlin ------------------------------------------------------------ HCF Locations: South Hall 4421 Phone: 805/961-2208 Phelps Hall 5215 Phone: 805/961-8036 ------------------------------------------------------------ REACH is published monthly by the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Advisory Committee: William Ashby French & Italian Alva Bennett Classics Edward Branigan Film Studies John DuBois Linguistics Gunther Gottschalk, Chair Germanic, Oriental & Slavic Allan Grapard Religious Studies Barbara Harthorn Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Gerald Horne Black Studies Albert Lindemann History Ursula Mahlendorf Women's Studies Michael O'Connell English Giorgio Perissinotto, Vice Chair Spanish & Portuguese Nathan Salmon Philosophy Guadalupe San Miguel Chicano Studies Burr Wallen Art History ------------------------------------------------------------ HCF Coordinator & Editor of REACH: Eric Dahlin Phone: 805/961-2208. E-mail: hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ REACH is produced on an IBM-AT, using Microsoft Word, Version 5.0, and Xerox Ventura Publisher, Version 2.0, with camera ready copy printed on an HP LaserJet II. Printing is by UCSB Printing & Reprographic Services. ------------------------------------------------------------