In the Fall of 1997, Dr. Tom Edgar, as Interim Director of Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services, began a seminar series designed to keep University of Texas faculty, staff and students abreast of the latest innovations in information technology.
A Seminar Steering Committee, consisting of the following members Dr. Tom Edgar (Interim Director of Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services), Kenneth Foote (Chair, Faculty Computer Committee), Tim Rowe (Director, Center for Instructional Technologies), Brian Roberts (Chair, Telecommunications and Networking Committee) and Kamy Sepehrnoori (Co-Chair, Digital Facilities Committee), agreed to a policy of joint sponsorship of seminars when possible so as to optimize publicity and attendance.
Upon agreement by the committee members, the seminar series came to be known as the Information Technology Colloquium Series. A list of the seminar dates, the presenters, and the seminar topics follows:
The results of the efforts of the Seminar Steering Committee to bring some of the best in the field of information technology to the UT campus are encapsulated below.
Lee G. Caldwell is Director of Internet Technology Strategy of the IBM Corporation. Dr. Caldwell spoke to the University community on issues related to Internet II. Please visit IBM's Internet site for more information. If you would like additional insight into IBM's Internet strategy, visit the homepage of the Chief Technology Officer for IBM's Internet Business, John Patrick.
Before Dr. Caldwell began working for IBM in June of 1995, he was Associate Vice President of Indiana University and Dean of Academic Computing at Indiana University, Bloomington. He was also a Professor of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. in Strategic Management from Texas A&M University in 1982, a J.D. from Brigham Young University in 1978, and a B.A. from Utah State University in 1972. He served on the faculty of Sam Houston State University and the University of Utah where he also served as Assistant Dean of the College of Business and Graduate School of Business. Lee was also Director of Education Marketing for Novell, Inc. He also served as Education Relations Program Manager at Unisys. He has been active in international networking efforts and served as the first chair of the Advisory Council of the Internet Society. He also served as co-chair of the developing countries committee. He publishes extensively in technology and management journals. (Presently, Lee Caldwell is serving as the Vice-President of Networking Standards Division of IBM.)
Jonathan Knowles, Apple Computer's product manager for "Way Cool Technology," gave a presentation entitled "Multimedia: Delivering the Future."
In his presentation, Mr. Knowles addressed the use of multimedia technology in the curriculum and learning--how "Way Cool Technology" makes a difference in the classroom for faculty and students. The directions of Apple's QuickTime Media Layer and future technologies, and Apple's cross-platform standards for multimedia content were also discussed.
Mr. Knowles is part of Apple's team for QuickTime, the multi-platform standard used by video and filmmakers, multimedia software tool developers, content creators, and webmasters.Before moving to Apple's Corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Mr. Knowles worked as an engineer for Apple while based at Caltech (the California Institue of Technology). While in southern California, he worked with Caltech, the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, and The Art Center College of Design in the development of their respective media labs. (A videotape of this presentation is available at the Center for Instructional Technologies.)
Information Technology: Changing Paradigms in Higher Education
As the information technology revolution continues, many questions are raised about the most effective method by which to harness its power within education. Acknowledging the redefinition of education inherent in this revolution, Patt Montgomery addressed several critical questions:
As Senior Director of Apple Computer's Worldwide Education Market Division , Patricia H. Montgomery leads the strategic marketing for elementary, secondary and higher educational institutions worldwide. Specifically, Montgomery drives the efforts that produce the marketing materials and programs throughout the educational developer, policy maker, customer and Apple sales groups. Her responsibilities include customer marketing, marketing communications, public relations, government relations, national programs and developer marketing.
Steve Director, Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan and former dean at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Director discussed the expectations that surround technology-enhanced learning, what has been accomplished so far, and the outlook for its future.
Director left the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon in June of 1996 to become Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan. While at Carnegie Mellon, he founded the SRC-CMU Research Center for Computer-Aided Design and served as its first director. He has received numerous awards for his research and educational contributions, including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the IEEE Education Society in 1995. He was the first recipient of the Aristotle Award from the Semiconductor Research Corporation in 1996.
Dr. Ted S. Hasselbring, Professor of Special Education and Co-Director of the Learning Technology Center, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, discussed the Use of Videos as a Learning Anchor in K-12 and in Higher Education. He also discussed will be the Peabody Technology Initiative, a joint effort by 10 faculty members at Peabody College to incorporate the use of technology in all of the introductory courses.
Over the years , Dr. Hasselbring has received a number of honors and awards for his work in technology. In 1988, he was selected by the United States Information Agency as one of four U.S. educators to travel to the Soviet Union to conduct a seminar for Soviet educators on the use of technology in American schools. In that same year he also traveled to China as a visiting scholar and conducted a series of workshops on technology use for children with disabilities. Most recently, he and several of his colleagues were recognized by The Johns Hopkins National Search for Technology to Assist Individuals with Disabilities for their multimedia adult literacy program. Currently, he serves as an international member of Japan's National Institute of Special Education which is conducting an international research program on the Development and Validation of Instructional Methods and Support Systems for Students with Learning Difficulties. He also serves on the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Goals 2000 and the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of several professional journals and is the past president of the Technology and Media Division of the Council for Exceptional Children. (A videotape of this presentation is available at the Center for Instructional Technologies.)
IBM Video Servers: Today and Where We Are Headed.
A presentation which described IBM's current generation of video servers and some of the related products such as IBM Digital Library, and also discussed where video is headed in the commercial market place.
Presented by Kenneth Kalinoski, IBM
senior Program Manager, responsible for all development efforts
associated with IBM Video Servers.
Based in Austin, Ken leads the development of hardware and software
required to deliver video over networks, satelite, and other terrestrial
formats. The Austin team is augmented by several IBM Research
groups including Almaden, Hawthorne, Yorktown, Haifa, and Heidleberg,
Germany. Ken has spent the last 15 years in IBM development moving
between software and hardware assignments. Prior to the formation
of the new video unit, Ken managed the entire AIX (Unix) Operating
Systems Development organization, also located in Austin, Texas.
Performance, Availability, and Scaling: Clusters' Golden Triangle.
This plebeian form of lowly parallel processing is already a multi-billion dollar industry segment and is poised to grow substantially in the near future, fueled by three elements: The performance of individual processing nodes, an increasing need for high availablility, and a form of performance scaling that is often different in motivation from that of traditional parallel processing.
A presentation by
Dr. Gregory Pfister, Senior Technical Staff Member in the IBM Server Group working on clustered systems and technical strategy.
Based in Austin, Dr. Pfister received his Ph.D. from MIT, has taught at MIT and Berkeley, and has worked on parallel computing for over 15 years. His numerous published papers include two that received awards at major international conferences. He has been a Distinguished Visitor of the IEEE Computer Society, and has been elected to the IBM Academy of Technology.
A seminar by The MathWorks, Inc. showcasing MATLAB 5 with the following New Features:
Cleve Moler, Chairman, cofounder, and chief scientist of MathWorks, Inc., has over 30 years of experience in the fields of mathematics, scientific computation, and computer science.
He is one of the authors of the widelyused LINPACK and EINPACKscientific subroutine libraries. Before joining The MathWorks, Dr. Moler served as Professor of Mathematics and Chairman of the Computer Science Department at the University of New Mexico, manager of Applications Research at Intel Scientific Computers, Vice President for Scientific Software at Ardent Computer, and as a consulting professor at Stanford University.
Dr. Moler is the author of six books and numerous papers, and has consulted for organizations such as the IBM Scientific Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Mario Gonzalez, Vice Chancellor for Telecommunication and Information Technology,
Provided an overview of UT Systemwide Initiatives on Information Technology:
Dr. Stephen J. Wright, Director of Distance Education Programs, Penn State University
A Look at the Vision of the Penn State World Campus --
A University-wide initiative with no walls, where learning is accomplished via the Internet and other new information technologies.
To date, the World Campus is on the cutting edge of a growing distance education movement. As envisioned by University leaders, it will be a distinctive outreach campus of the University and will offer a broad spectrum of educational activities to the global community beyond the existing Penn State system. To meet this challenge Penn State will:
Dr. James J. Dudersdadt, President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan
The Future of the Research University in the Digital Age
Although the great diversity of our colleges and universities will dictate an array of different strategies in the years ahead, all must cope with a future of unprecedented change, presenting both unusual challenges and opportunities. This era of change will pose a particular challenge to the dominant institutional form of the 20th Century, the American research university.
Dr. Ken Kennedy, the Ann and John Doerr Professor of Computational Engineering Department of Computer Science at Rice University. He currently co-chairs President Clinton's High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology and Next Generation Internet Advisory Committee.
Federal Investment in Information Technology: A Strategy for the Future
Most of the the advances in information technology have been as a direct or indirect result of Federal research and development investments. If we are to continue that growth, the Federal government must continue to make the kinds of investments that will fuel the information technology boom a decade or more from now.
Murray Goldberg, the founder and leader of the WebCT project; software that allows instructors to build rich web based learning environments.
This presentation will be a demonstration of WebCT and, time permitting, will also provide some of the results of our evaluation of educational effectiveness and student reaction to the web as a learning resource.
Don Olcott, Leader in the Field of Distance Education.
Marian Moore, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .
Ms. Moore discussed the Carolina Computing Initiative. At the center of the initiative is the requirement that, beginning with freshmen in the fall of 2000, undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill must own laptop computers that meet university specifications.
Greg Astfalk
Chief Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Hewlett-Packard Company
It is well established by precedence and current practice that the demand(s) for higher computer performance continues to grow. Note that when we say "computer performance" we are considering the system view; processors, infrastructure, peripherals and networks. The feature set of the computer system that is desired by the end-user is well understood. The ability of the computer industry to provide these features in a timely fashion at a reasonable, and affordable, price is well understood; by the vendors. There is a gap between the two views.
We comment on the technological issues in both hardware and software that are being provided and will be provided in the future. It is the speaker's view that the gap between the "needs" and the "products" will grow larger in the future. We will explain why. This growing gap implies that either users or the computer industry must change. We will leave the answer to this question unstated until the seminar.
Last revised: 20 August 1999.
Please send any questions or comments to Mark Decker.