Collaboratory for Oceanographic Research Instrumentation as On-line Laboratory Instruction Sources (CORIOLIS)
This project is building and testing an on-line instrumented collaboratory for use in college-level oceanography courses. The goal is to test the educational merits of conducting laboratory exercises online, relative to traditional hands-on access to instrumentation. Instrumented systems that can be accessed via the Internet, and from which students will be able to remotely control instruments, monitor data and sample collection, share and analyze their data, and use links to on-line information sources are located at teaching laboratories. For two consecutive semesters, laboratory sections of the same oceanography course will be used as test groups (on-line laboratory users) and as control groups (in-house labs). The project will be assessed for both technical success (construction of a functioning collaboratory) and student outcomes. The collaboratory also provides a proof-of-concept for sharing access to expensive scientific instrumentation via the Internet (for education or research). Sharing allows concentration of expensive resources at centralized on-line facilities eliminates the prohibitive costs of purchasing and maintaining instrumentation at thousands of educational institutions.
