Susan M. Blanchard and S. Andrew Hale
North Carolina State University
According to the first page of the April 1994 edition of CONNECT, a newsletter published by the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Computing Center, ``the World Wide Web (WWW) offers us wings so that we can fly instead of climb.'' The WWW, which was started in 1989 at the European Center for Nuclear Physics (CERN) [1], uses client-server technology and hypertext (internally cross-referenced written information that allows a user to jump from topic to related topic) to provide formatted text, color, images, sound, video, and multiple links to other sources of information. Instead of being approached hierarchically like moving from a tree's trunk to its branches, the WWW allows users to flit from limb to limb like a bird by using hypertext links that allow direct jumps from one point to another. With the WWW and a browser like Mosaic, a graphical user interface introduced in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, users can display formatted text and images and move easily from one document to another.
Client-server technology, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Universal Resource Locators (URL), and browsers (such as Mosaic and Netscape) are important concepts for understanding the WWW. A webserver is a computer that runs special software and makes material available to the WWW. Client machines access text files located on webservers and use browsers to decode the HTML in those files for displaying documents as text, sound, or graphics and for defining hypertext links among documents. Browsers differ depending upon the type of computer and interface. Since the information can be located on servers in different geographical locations, the WWW uses a common naming scheme, the URL, to locate documents. The URL can point to Gopher, ftp, WAIS (Wide Area Information System), and telnet sites as well as webservers.
The Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department developed the first departmental webserver on the NCSU campus in late 1993. By the spring of 1994, the department was using the WWW to distribute information about faculty, staff, courses, and curricula and to make special presentations (http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/bae/). During the same time period, the computer network used by the NCSU engineering community provided the Mosaic browser to all users which made it possible for instructors to use the WWW to distribute materials to their students. One of the first courses to take advantage of the WWW for instructional purposes was BAE121: Computer Applications in Agriculture and Life Sciences (http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/bae/courses/bae121/) which has a button-selectable menu of topics covered in the course. Two courses in the Biological Engineering curriculum, BAE235: Engineering Biology and BAE465: Biomedical Engineering Applications, also use the WWW extensively as an instructional aid. The high quality images, movies, and sound which are available through the WWW can be used to supplement lectures and homework problems and as the basis for student projects.
BAE235 has both engineering and biology components in order to satisfy ABET accreditation requirements for the new Biological Engineering curriculum which went into effect in the fall of 1994. This course, which will be taken by sophomores in the new curriculum, was taught for the first time in the spring of 1995 to a class that was nearly equally divided between sophomores and upperclass students. Prerequisites for the course include one semester of inorganic chemistry, three semesters of calculus, and one semester of physics in addition to concurrent registration in the second semester of physics. On the first day of class, students were shown how to use the Mosaic browser to locate the syllabus and instructional objectives for each topic (Figure 1), course policies, and homework assignments. At NCSU, all engineering students have access to workstations which have the Mosaic browser for connecting to the Internet. Exams and supplementary reading assignments were the only materials distributed on paper during the semester.
At the beginning of the term, the class was divided into lab groups that contained 3 or 4 students. The instructors established these groups based on lab section, gender, and academic class as well as information solicited from the students, e.g. grades in prerequisites, need for an on-campus group, work hours, etc. All homework and laboratory assignments were done in these groups. No credit was given for individual work. Opportunities were provided for students to evaluate the contributions of the members of their groups so that grades could be adjusted individually to reflect inadequate participation. Groups were encouraged to study together to prepare for exams by awarding extra credit (5 points) to groups in which three members scored 85 or better on an exam or improved by at least 15 points over the base score (before extra credit) of the previous exam.
