The Geography Virtual Department: Building and Linking Geography Curricula Nationally Using the Internet and Worldwide Web

要求提供资金，以举办讲习班和研讨会，规划和编制将利用因特网和万维网将美国各地地理系的袖口连接起来的教学材料。 该项目的目标是构建高质量的课程材料，包括“电子”教科书和互动模块，这些模块：1）涵盖整个本科课程，2）进一步利用现有互联网资源的潜力，以及3）充分利用超媒体万维网的格式。 该项目将使许多大学的地理学家朝着共同的目标努力，并分担开发超媒体课程材料的时间和费用，这些材料可能成为21世纪高等教育的标志。 该项目解决了当代高等教育面临的三个重要挑战：1）为教师提供创建超媒体教学材料和有效使用万维网所需的技能，2）为支持“虚拟”部门甚至“虚拟”大学的出现的特定学科教育资源的开发设定目标，3）帮助万维网从一个临时的和即兴的材料集合转变为一个有序的和系统开发的教育和研究资源。 为了实现这些目标，将于1996年、1997年和1998年夏季在得克萨斯大学举办为期两周的讲习班，汇集来自全国各大学的30名教员。 参与者将为新材料的开发设定目标，获得超媒体创作的技能，并编写第一个模块。 在国家地理教育理事会和美国地理学家协会的全国会议上还将举行为期一天的研讨会，以：1）评估和改进材料，2）向更多的专业观众介绍新材料，3）提供实践培训。

Funds are requested to convene workshops and seminars to plan and develop ilstructional materials that will use the Internet and Worldwide Web to interlink the cufficula of geography departments throughout the United States. The goal of the project is to build high quality curriculum materials including "electronic" textbooks and interactive modules that: 1) span the entire undergraduate curriculum, 2) exploit further the potential of existing Internet resources, and 3) take full advantage of the hypermedia format of the Worldwide Web. The project will allow geographers at many universities to work toward common goals and share the time and expense of developing the sorts of hypermedia curriculum materials that are likely to become the hallmark of higher education in the twenty-first century. The project addresses three important challenges facing contemporary higher education: 1) to provide faculty with the skills needed to create hypermedia instructional materials and use the Worldwide Web effectively, 2) to set goals for the development of the discipline-specific educational resources that will support the emergence of "virtual" departments and even "virtual" universities, and 3) to help transform the Worldwide Web from an adhoc and improvised collection of materials into an orderly and systematically developed resource for education and research. To reach these goals, two week workshops will be held at the University of Texas during the summers of 1996, 1997, and 1998 to bring together thirty faculty from universities across the nation. Participants will set goals for the development of new materials, gain skills in hypermedia authoring, and write the first modules. One day seminars will also be held at the national meetings of the National Council for Geographic Education and the Association of American Geographers to: 1) evaluate and refine materials, 2) present the new materials to a larger professional audience, and 3) offer hands-on training.