The project, a collaboration involving Arizona State University (ASU) as the lead institution, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), University of Washington-Bothell (UWB), Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT), is expanding the use of an award winning software package (J-DSP) and instructional approach into a broad set of new areas including digital signal processing, earth systems and geology, renewable energy systems, arts and media, ion-channel systems, and genomics. Online modules are being designed, deployed, and assessed by a geographically-diverse multidisciplinary team. This educational technology provides free and universally accessible web-based Java software with an intuitive interface that enables instructors to create web-based lectures with synchronized online simulations and animations and to monitor student progress and preferences. It allows students, including distance learners, to conduct online laboratories and collaborate across disciplines, to perform simulations anytime anywhere, and to collaborate online with their colleagues at other universities. The evaluation effort is using self, peer, and instructor assessments to measure the quality of student learning by adapting a set of on-line assessment instruments developed on a previous grant dealing with a set of signal processing courses. The project team is working to disseminate the instructional materials by postings on the project's website and on a discipline-based site (CNX.ORG), by links with the NSDL, by faculty workshops, by conference presentation and journal publications, and by high school and industrial outreach. Broader impacts include an involvement of two MSIs, an outreach effort focused on minorities, multifaceted dissemination involving faculty workshops and web posting on several sites.
