At Bowling Green State University -- Firelands College, the installation of a dedicated local area network (LAN) of personal computers will be used to create an innovative economics curriculum in which new classroom experiments will be conducted in international finance, public goods, and bargaining. With these and other previously used economic experimental designs, undergraduate students will use the scientific method to empirically verify economic theories. This lab may also be useful in generating data for assessing whether using classroom experiments in economics enhances retention of knowledge versus using only standard lecture teaching methods. The lab will also be used for statistical data analysis not only in economics, but also in statistics, psychology, and sociology courses. The LAN will have a file server, instructor's machine, and 20 workstations with Pentium microcomputers. This LAN will be connected to the university-wide TCP/IP backbone. Consequently, this LAN can be connected to the pre-existing LANs at other locations within and outside the university. This will allow for real time interaction between two or more LANs. This means that two or more sections of students will be able to jointly participate in a market experiment. In all, 500 students per semester will use the lab. Firelands College serves a distinctive student body, with women comprising 67.1 percent. The Humanistic Educational Learning Process Program assists over 120 women each year who are recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children to receive associate degrees and gain employment. Nearly all of these Program participants will use the lab.
