Electronic Teaching

(Rick Adrion, Jim Kurose, Beverly Woolf)

Electronic Teaching involves computational systems that communicate and cooperate with learners at many levels. These systems might use the World Wide Web or CD/DVD-ROM and asynchronous learning environments to provide lectures outside the classroom. They might provide customized responses and on-demand advice through intelligent interfaces, inference mechanisms and cognitive models of the learner. Much of the machine teaching research in computer science is multi-disciplinary, with strong ties to research in cognitive science, education, engineering, and to other computer science researchers in artificial intelligence, networking, machine learning, information retrieval and multimedia. Target applications include undergraduate and K-12 curricula, as well as industrial and medical training. Dozens of systems and courses have been deployed and evaluated, with tens of thousands of users across dozens of universities.

Advanced Computer Networking Research Group
Research in the Computer Networking Research Group focuses on communication protocols (particularly for multimedia servers, live multimedia, and multicast), quality of service issues including call admission, and performance modeling.

Center for Knowledge Communication
The Center for Knowledge Communication (CKC) investigates knowledge-based educational systems, integrating theoretical principles into research systems for empirical evaluation and theoretical analysis.

RIPPLES
The Research in Presentation Production for Learning Electronically (RIPPLES) project is investigating how to most effectively use the World Wide Web and CD/DVD-ROM to deliver lectures and course materials outside of the classroom. Its focus is on asynchronous learning environments in which students proceed at their own pace and are not assumed to be accessing the same material at the same time. Students can access lectures as digital audio or video, synchronized with slides, overheads or other materials.