TECHNOLOGY AT BOSTON COLLEGE

Complete video-voice-data technology available directly from the dorms; accessing personal records via ATM; composing music on computer keyboards; experimenting with robotics. At Boston College, these are only a few of the ways that students, faculty and staff use technology. Cutting-edge technology enhances student services, in addition to teaching, research and administrative tasks at BC, and reflects the University's commitment to provide state-of-the-art services and facilities, and to create a wireless campus.

In Ancient Greece, the "agora" was where the community gathered to transact commerce and hold discussions. Thanks to the Agora at Boston College project, students, administrators, faculty and staff across the University can communicate electronically, retrieve personalized information and conduct business, at any time. The result of a broad planning effort encompassing University offices and various technology and telecommunications firms, Agora was launched in September of 1995. The first phase of Agora enabled undergraduates to have direct access to innovative video, voice and computer technology from their residence halls: Students can view cable television—including six channels devoted to BC-specific programming; send or receive electronic mail and voice mail; and log onto the campus wide information network and the Internet all from within their dorm rooms. Agora also made it possible for faculty to organize and run teleconferences directly between classrooms, both on and off campus, and to contact their students through voice mail or e-mail.

Agora services are accessible through the Boston College "InfoEagle" World Wide Web site [http://www.bc.edu/iehome]. By entering their usernames and PINs, individuals are presented with a series of dynamically generated web pages related to their role at Boston College. For example, students can view their course history, current schedule, grades, financial aid application and awards, and other academic or personal information, as well as complete their medical insurance waiver, and create or add to a dining services account. Faculty can view class lists with photos and information on advisees, and all University employees can view or change addresses and directory preferences, create voice mail distribution lists, and examine information relating to their benefits, payroll status, e-mail account, vehicle, and billing to their Eagle One card. In future phases of Agora, the University's "virtual community" will expand to include alumni, parents, prospective students, neighbors and schools in the community.

Interest in Agora prompted BC's Information Technology department to begin sponsoring "Agora Days" in 1995. Nearly 170 visitors from schools, colleges, universities and the business community came to campus to see the system at work. The department also held monthly Agora Days during the 1996-97 academic year. Although IT no longer sponsors Agora Days, the department makes much of the information accessible to the public through its World Wide Web site.

DESKTOP 2000

In 1999, Boston College announced a sweeping plan to replace the primary desktop office computers of all employees with high-power systems and up-to-date University standard software. The plan, known as "Desktop 2000," calls for routine replacement of these desktop computers every three years, new servers and printers every four and five years, and upgrades of University standard software on an ongoing basis. Desktop 2000, which formally began during the summer of 1999, will enable BC to move administrative departments to a Windows-based computing environment, replacing Apple Macintosh desktops in administrative offices with IBM personal computers. Faculty in general will have a choice as to whether to use an Apple Macintosh or an IBM Windows machine, however, with those choosing to remain with Apple receiving new Mac desktops. The plan is the first phase of the Enterprise Technology Resource Management project, a comprehensive new program for handling departmental computing needs on campus.

Boston College offers its students, faculty and staff a link to the Internet through EagleNet. The campus-wide network connects the University's large mainframe computers, workstations, desktop machines and the personal computers of individual users and departments and, in turn, provides access to the Internet. Prospective students and their parents, alumni and friends of Boston College can access information about the university via the Internet. In 1993, Boston College entered cyberspace with its "InfoEagle" Gopher site on the Internet. The University added a World Wide Web version of its home page in 1994, which has since undergone several redesigns and revisions, with links to home pages for Boston College's various schools, departments, programs and offices, as well as the University's internal newspaper, the Boston College Chronicle. Information about upcoming University events, University statistics, undergraduate application process, academic offerings, library holdings and special projects is available on-line. The University has also established its own hierarchy of USENET news groups, some of which are forums for discussion—on information technology issues or general topics related to BC—while others are created by faculty members for individual courses; they use them to announce assignments, examinations or other related news, or to augment classroom discussions.

In early 1998, the Information Technology division introduced a new access service to offer off-campus users the option of using a new modem connection to the University's Internet service. Through an agreement with IBM, Boston College now provides a fee-based dial-up option through IGN, IBM's global access network service. The service supports both PC and Macintosh platforms, and it is possible to use both the IGN option and the current dial-up service.

In 1998, the University established an Internet Development Advisory Council to assist with the coordination of its World Wide Web activities and resources. Composed of 21 members, including a five-person executive committee, from a range of academic and administrative areas, IDAC will discuss areas such as marketing strategy, aesthetics, resources, technology platforms, tools, training and centralized support versus dispersed support.

In 1998, Boston College installed nearly 50 network computers in various campus locations, providing users with a fast, convenient way to perform tasks such as accessing e-mail and University Libraries. Students also can check their grades, register for courses or log onto the World Wide Web. Essentially a terminal with a monitor and keyboard connected to a central campus information server, network computers have bright color monitors and are simple to operate: A touch of a button brings up a main browser, with links to e-mail, online library catalogues and other information services. No password sign-on is required to browse the Internet. If the machine crashes, it is relatively easy to re-start, with clear instructions posted by the screen.

Project Delta--launched in 1995 to promote efficiency and improved service while reducing costs--has given technology a major role in reshaping the way Boston College operates. Several Delta initiatives launched during 1997 utilize technology such as the World Wide Web and voice response units (VRUs) to make it easier to provide or receive information, and perform other tasks. Students can now check their grades from any where in the word over a touch-tone telephone through a VRU, for example, while faculty or other University personnel can use voice-mail distribution lists to contact large numbers of students.

Under the aegis of Delta, BC also has adopted a strategy laying out priorities for Information Technology over the coming year. It includes developing applications to meet Delta initiatives, like Year 2000 modifications and student service needs, some of which have been or soon will be implemented. Also as part of a Project Delta initiative, the University established a Local Service Center system during the 1998-99 academic year to provide various kinds of support to different areas of campus. In the first phase, technology consultants were assigned to help BC's schools, programs, offices and departments determine how to best integrate computers and other forms of technology into their assorted tasks. The TCs, as they are called, also "trouble-shoot" as needed.

RECOGNITION

In 1999, Internet Life magazine, published by the Yahoo! World Wide Web site, included Boston College among the "100 Most Wired" colleges and universities in the nation, the University's first appearance in the annual survey and rankings. BC placed 55th in the report, whose criteria included computer-student ratio, recent computer purchases, availability of wired dormitory rooms and campus technical support. The publication also noted that students and faculty get free voice mail and can see a list of, and listen to, the messages via the World Wide Web. In addition, BC Law School is among the nation's best at providing computer connectivity to its students, according to a recent survey by the magazine National Jurist. The survey, which measures the use of computers in legal education, ranks BC Law fifth among the nation's law schools.

Boston College's innovative use of technology in academic, administrative and other areas has been recognized through several awards honoring its Information Technology unit and Associate Vice President for Information Technology Bernard Gleason, Jr. Gleason won a 1996 Partnership Award of Excellence from Beyond Computing for his leadership of the University's Agora initiative. Beyond Computing presents three Partnership Awards a year to honor enterprises that benefit from combining information technology and business objectives. He was also among five recipients of the prestigious Achievement in Managing Information Technology awards, which recognize outstanding contribution to organizations and industries through the "exceptionally effective use of technology." Cause, the association for managing and using information technology in higher education, selected BC as winner of its 1996 Award for Best Practices in Applications for the University's development of a telephone service self-activation system called "5-DIAL." The system, introduced in 1995, enables residence hall students to activate their own telephones for faster, more efficient service. Gleason previously had won the Cause ELITE (Exemplary Leadership and Information Training Excellence) Award.

VICE PRESIDENT FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

In 1998, Boston College announced the appointment of Kathleen Warner as its first vice president for Information Technology. A former manager at Compaq-Digital Equipment Corp., Warner's accomplishments in the innovative application of existing and emerging technologies have been recognized with several "best of the best" awards in the industry press. Several of her projects have been included in text books as case studies in Internet/intranet technology development.

A few months after her appointment, Warner announced a major restructuring of BC's Office of Information Technology designed to place greater emphasis on World Wide Web development and customer service. As part of the reorganization, new groups focusing on Internet services and strategic planning were created, with staff formally assigned to managing the increasing demand for IT services on campus.

WIRELESS CAMPUS

Kathleen Warner , Information Technology Vice President envisions a "wireless campus" in 2000, where a faculty member could sit outside and use a laptop computer to grade papers, research a book or chat with students or colleagues around the globe. Small sensor boxes will be installed on each floor of every building on the campuses in Chestnut Hill and in Newton to allow wireless radio transmission between computers and servers anywhere on campus. The technology was successfully tested by the Biology Department in the summer of 1999.

Boston College's official World Wide Web pages will become more easily navigable and will sport a more consistent look in the future, as a result of a project launched by University administrators in 1999. Under the plan, administrators say, graphic design firm Sametz Blackstone - whose clients have included Raytheon Corp., Digital Equipment Corp. and Yale University – will develop a new Web design template system that can be integrated into a new or existing Web page.

In 1996, BC established a World Wide Web server that allows administrators, faculty, staff and students to create their own personal home pages. Unlike web pages maintained by University offices and departments, these pages are intended for private, non-official use by members of the BC community. Within its first several months of operation, the server [http://www2.bc.edu/] had almost 1,400 active accounts and had logged over 1.8 million "hits," according to the Information Technology office; by July of 1998, the office reported, on average the server was handling over 5,200 requests and transferring more than 155,000 kilobytes of data every day.

In 1994, Boston College employees and students began using an innovative form of identification known as the Eagle One card. Eagle One provides University community members with access to a host of campus facilities, such as the libraries and dining services, and, as part of the University's Agora at Boston College project, will support future services such as controlling access to doors or operating devices like copying machines or computers. The card also provides users the option of using the MCI Masters long-distance calling system.

The approximately 7,500 Boston College students who receive financial assistance through the federal Stafford Loan and/or the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) programs are finding it easier to have their loan funds credited to their student account through an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system pioneered by Boston College and American Student Assistance (ASA). Previously, funds arrived at Boston College in the form of check disbursements each semester which had to be endorsed in person by the borrower, resulting in long lines and delays in the crediting of loan funds to student's accounts. The EFT system simplifies this delivery process, allowing disbursements to be delivered from the student's bank of choice to ASA, who then sends the funds to Boston College electronically via wire transfer. A system-generated postcard notification of the loan status is then sent to the student—including any outstanding requirements which must be satisfied prior to the loan being negotiated on the student's behalf. Students can also receive their loan status using the U-VIEW system. Once any outstanding requirements have been resolved, the payment is automatically applied to the student's account. At present, approximately 75 percent of all student loans at Boston College are processed using this "Fast Fund" procedure.

In July of 1996, Boston College upgraded its campus telecommunication and data systems, adding significant new capabilities which allow Boston College employees to hear voice-mail messages on their computers and students to pay tuition by credit card over the phone.

The University installed the IBM DirectTalkMail system, integrating its telephone and computing structures. Besides offering voice-mail service, DirectTalkMail allows faculty to obtain complete distribution lists for their classes, which change automatically as students drop and add courses. It also has the potential to take information on the Boston College computer system and use it to generate automatic voice mail messages to deal with overdue library books or incomplete student loans, for example. Users can also review and store voice-mail messages on their computers through Netscape, the World Wide Web browser. Furthermore, DirectTalk—the parent software for DirectTalkMail— allows families to obtain student account information and pay tuition over the phone with a credit card. The system is accessible via an 800 number, so it can be dialed from anywhere in the country, and provides nearly simultaneous responses to transactions.

The University's Tech Products Store is a member of both the Apple University Consortium and the IBM Campus Technology Commitment. These agreements allow BC to offer all full-time faculty, staff and students the opportunity to purchase Apple or IBM computer systems at the lowest possible price. The Tech Products Store also stocks software packages that are being used in classes on campus as well as a variety of supplies, such as computer disks, glare screens and paper.

In 1989, U-BUY—a computerized system for initiating and completing financial transactions—was introduced on campus. The system has been hailed as a replacement for paperwork, enabling BC employees to cut through red tape and keep departmental books up to date more efficiently.

Boston College students can utilize their Eagle One cards for speedier check-outs in campus dining halls. The U-DINE system, introduced in 1988, replaced long lines and coupon books previously used to administer meal plans. According to BC Dining Service personnel, the flexibility and ease of this new technology has resulted in its expansion to many areas of campus, including concession stands and vending machines.

U-REGISTER, begun in 1992, enables students to register for, drop or add courses at any of the public-access computer terminals located on campus. Both undergraduates and graduate students can also use another computerized system—U-DIAL—which enables them to drop and add courses via touch-tone telephone. U-DIAL connects students—up to nearly 24 at a time—to BC's mainframe computer after they dial a special number and enter their Eagle One card number on the touch-tone buttons. The students enter the course index number and an automated message gives the status of the course—open, closed, requiring departmental permission, etc. U-VIEW Plus—another registration option—utilizes campus computer terminals, and shows users the current status of classes.

U-REGISTER allows students to select courses by utilizing a mouse to click on appropriate computer icons—a user-friendly process for students accustomed to working with Apple Macintosh computers. When a first-choice course is closed, the student may call up an up-to-the-minute listing of related courses—including their status and departmental restrictions. When the student points and clicks on the desired open course, it is automatically inserted into his or her schedule. The graphical, icon-based system makes U-REGISTER—which complements, rather than replaces, U-DIAL and U-VIEW Plus—easier and more efficient to use.

Accessing grades and personal records at Boston College is as easy as getting cash from an automatic teller machine. Via the University's system, students can insert their Eagle One cards into special consumer transaction terminals at a number of campus locations to get current information on grades, course offerings, class standing, financial aid, tuition payments and fees. BC was the first university in the nation to utilize such a system. U-VIEW is the same machine banks use, without a cash-dispensing unit. U-VIEW services also are available with a web front end in Agora.

Desktop videoconferencing systems are now available at five sites around campus, allowing administrators, faculty and students to participate in long-distance, face-to-face discussions without leaving campus. Using this technology, students can sit in on lectures via cyberspace from universities across the world, while administrators and faculty can hold simultaneous face-to-face conferences with colleagues in far-flung locations. In addition, the system could be used in scientific research projects for controlling remote cameras that enable users to monitor the progress of an experiment.

With the aid of technology, vision-impaired individuals can read and gain access to numerous computer applications. At BC's Information Technology Help Center, for example, a vision-impaired student can use a headset at a computer terminal, equipped with earphones, that allows the student to hear what others read. The software converts digital characters into speech, and a board installed in the computer acts as a synthesizer and produces the actual speech, which is amplified via a headset or speaker. Also accessible to vision-impaired students is the popular U-VIEW system, through the University's IBM mainframe. A Braille printer allows vision-impaired individuals to print out materials they wish to "read," and a software package converts files into Braille.

In addition, the independent student newspaper, The Heights, is available via diskettes whose files can be translated into a variety of computer formats, Braille, cassette or large print, depending on the preference of the reader. The "Job Locator Program"—which assists students in obtaining off-campus employment—also is available on disk, via BC's Student Employment Office. Files can be converted into several formats.

As computers become an integral part of physics research and instruction, BC's Physics Department computing facilities recently received two state-of-the-art additions. A Computational Physics Instruction Laboratory allows students to learn to use computers to model and solve physical problems, and provides them with the opportunity to observe and create advanced graphics displays directly related to material being covered in their courses. The CPIL enhances the quality of instruction, and makes the department more competitive in attracting students to major in physics and in encouraging non-majors to fulfill science core requirements with physics courses. The lab is used in a wide range of courses within the department; users include graduate and undergraduate students. The department's second new computing resource is a powerful computational workstation—a system necessary to support the research of faculty members whose work requires intensive numerical computations. Previously, typical computations took a day to process. With the new workstation, the same calculations are executed easily five times faster.

Biology and nursing students at Boston College broaden their learning experiences with the computer technology at the Davis Laboratory of Computational Biology in Higgins Hall. Funded in part through a $248,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation, the lab offers 14 computers for students and features a wide array of ancillary equipment, such as high-quality color laser printers, a mini-cam, color scanners, laser disc players and an LCD panel for overhead projections. Students can use the computers to gain access to the international GenBank—a global database containing all known information about human genes—and to programs enabling the detailed study of human anatomy. The computers can also help students perform or observe experiments more comprehensively. In addition, a $130,000 matching grant Biology Associate Professor of Biology Grant Balkema obtained from the National Science Foundation and BC, allows undergraduate biology and nursing students to perform dissections and related procedures by computer. Besides enabling the department to add 48 new workstations to its wet laboratories, the grant also supported the purchase of a software program which uses sophisticated animation to simulate the dissection process of a human or animal cadaver.

Among the Geology and Geophysics Department's resources is its state-of-the-art Geoscience Computing Network and Geoscience Information Laboratory. The lab obtained two Alpha computers to replace its VAX 3800 server and DEC window terminals, and these continue to provide BC scientists and students with a sophisticated means of information exchange. The network is linked to a national network of computers, and the lab is equipped with workstations, terminals, a digitizer and laser printer. The department also offers courses in how to use the network.

Boston College undergraduates studying Spanish no longer have to visit the campus Language Laboratory to use audio instruction programs. A pilot project begun in the fall 1998 has made it possible to access the programs through the World Wide Web in residence halls or other campus locations.

Students in the pilot project said they were able to do assignments in the tutorial, Fuentes Audio, almost any time they wished and often without having to step outside their rooms. As many as 40 logged onto the Web site overnight during one period in the spring 1999 semester.

Access to the program, which runs with the Quicktime application and has a companion textbook, was restricted to the 585 students enrolled in intermediate Spanish. Users could choose to work on individual activities within each chapter, or download the entire chapter at once.

The activities include pronunciation exercises, fill-in-the-blank sentences and completing paragraphs.

Formerly known as the Instructional Research and Development Laboratory, the Interactive Multimedia Lab (IML)—a diverse, state-of-the-art high-tech classroom and faculty resource center—has drawn attention from international and American educators and business leaders who have traveled to BC to tour the facility since it opened in 1990.

International visitors—including educators from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Australia, Japan, Europe and Canada—have toured the IML with an eye toward learning how to incorporate technology into the teaching and learning process. The lab also has attracted attention from area colleges, universities and school systems, including Harvard, MIT, Boston University and Brookline Public Schools. And, managers from businesses including IBM, Continental Cable, Polaroid Corp, GTE, Digital Equipment Corp. and Apple Computer—interested in BC's new approaches to both instruction and the use of physical facilities—have toured the IML.

"We've been told by visitors that BC's IML is the only facility of its kind in the country," said IML Director Peter Olivieri. "It encourages faculty to put multimedia video technology and computers into the classroom." The IML's cutting-edge technology provides faculty and other campus users with instruction in and assistance with various kinds of video and computer-related technology. The lab consists of three sections: a faculty development area; an experimental learning environment; and a multimedia production facility. The IML has been a catalyst for instructional software development at BC and has encouraged a greater infusion of computing into the curriculum.

In late 1998, the Boston College Law School opened its new East Wing facility, boasting technologically advanced classrooms, offices and meeting areas. Among the highlights of the four-story structure are its three large first-floor classrooms - one with a capacity of 120, and two 150-seat classrooms which can be converted to a single 300-seat. Like the building's other two classrooms, these contain power and data connections at each seat that allow students using laptop computers to access Internet-based legal materials during class. Using a small, touch-sensitive control screen at the front of the room, faculty or other presenters can easily operate video, computer and film projections.

Academic Development Center

Housed in O'Neill Library, BC's Academic Development Center includes state-of-the-art computer technology, tutoring and classroom space, and is designed to enrich the academic experience of all Boston College students.

Members of the Boston College community who have vision impairments can use the Libraries' electronic databases via computers equipped with adaptive software. The O'Neill Library Media Center has an IBM workstation with a speech synthesizer (Accent) and speech software (JAWS). In addition, the Center has a Kurzweil Personal Reader which may be used to listen to texts or to download text to an audiocassette or a computer diskette. Variable speed audiocassette players are available to students using Talking Books for the Blind or playing their own tapes of class notes.

The Educational Resource Center is a state of the art PreK-12 curriculum materials center. Located in spacious quarters in Campion Hall, it includes a wired classroom, a 20-station computer laboratory to preview educational software, a scanner and a laminating machine. Its collection includes fiction and non-fiction children's books, PreK-12 textbooks, teaching guides, instructional manipulatives, educational and psychological tests, educational software, audio and videotapes.

Computer-Accessible Data Sets

The University provides access to many computer-accessible data sets for research in various fields. The sets to which the University subscribes include: the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which makes available machine-readable data on social phenomena occurring in over 130 countries; Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), which includes information on securities traded on the New York and American Stock Exchanges, and the NASDAQ system; Standard & Poor's Compustat (SPC), a database providing more than 300 annual and 100 quarterly income statements, balance sheets, statement of cash flows, and supplemental data items on more than 7,500 publicly held companies; the IFS database, containing financial data on approximately 230 nations and groups of nations; the DRI Basic Economics database, which contains data from the financial, manufacturing, and government sectors; and the Trade and Quote (TAQ) database, which contains intraday trades and quotes data.

Electronic Information Center

Over the past several years, the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. research library--the flagship facility in the Boston College Libraries system--has added numerous electronic database reference systems. Many are accessible via campus network, including to faculty offices and dorm rooms, while others are available only in the library. The Electronic Information Center (EIC), designed to provide access to all electronic resources in one convenient place, has recently been reconfigured and upgraded, to make it easier to locate specific electronic resources. The EIC now has over 40 workstations in the reference area for access to all of the Boston College Libraries' networked resources, including the library Web page, Web-accessible databases and networked CD-ROM databases.

Virtual Library Guide

Two administrators in the Boston College Libraries, Pearl Alberts and Barbara Mento, were awarded the Special Libraries Association's 1995 Meckler Award for Innovations in Technology for a comprehensive virtual library guide they helped develop for finding free business information resources on the Internet. Senior Reference Librarian/Bibliographer Alberts, now retired , and Mento, Government Information Manager and Senior Reference Librarian/Bibliographer, worked with a group of nine colleagues from across the country on producing the guide, "Business Sources on the Net," the first of its kind and on the brink of a third edition. The publication directs users to free information on such topics as economics, statistics, management, computers, finance and personnel, and is particularly useful for librarians working in the virtual library environment.

O'Neill Library's Media Center houses the non-print collection including videocassettes, videodiscs, 16mm films; CDs, audiocassettes, and phonodiscs; CD-ROMs and books-on-tape. Two Media classrooms or a preview room may be reserved by faculty.

The Quest online catalog, part of the BC Libraries' current library automation system, provides easy source searches for faculty and student researchers. Quest can search for titles, authors, subjects, and keywords. Researchers also can use Quest as if they are browsing the library shelves, via a call number searching feature, which commands the screen to indicate what came before and after a particular call number on the shelves. Advanced features enable researchers conducting a search on Quest to save, revise and recombine it with earlier searches for a more focused search. More information on cross-references also is offered, so researchers have more options to pursue. Users looking for publications released within the past three months may now use Quest's new title catalog, NEWT, which automatically updates the entries. In recent years, index and full-text databases that were previously accessible only through the library's CD-ROM network have been integrated with Quest, which includes more than 30 databases.

Digital Library

The BC Digital Library is an aggregation of services, collections, and information resources in electronic format. The focus of the Digital Library is on BC's research strengths and on new or existing services of particular importance to BC students and researchers. Among the components of the Digital Library are web-accessible collections of photographs from the John J. Burns Library, electronic course reserves, and online document-delivery services using Ariel 2 software. Additional information about the Digital Library is available at: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/ulib/cs/digproj.html.

Library news, information, and resources are available via the World-Wide Web at the libraries' Web site: http://www.bc.edu/libraries.html. The site provides easy access to information about library services, programs, staff, collections, and other resources. Users may renew books, place requests for interlibrary loans, and ask reference questions via the Web site. A variety of additional web-based services are in development.

The BC libraries will be replacing their current library management system with a new, state-of-the art integrated system. The new system is expected to be available in test mode during Spring 2000 and for full use by students, faculty, and staff at the beginning of the 2000-2001 academic year. Among the many benefits of the new system are user-friendly, web-based access to the Libraries' catalog and databases; numerous patron-enhancement features that allow faculty and students to access library services and materials at any time and from any location; and increased integration of full-text and multimedia resources and collections. Information and progress updates are available at the Libraries' web site: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/ulib/sys/home/new_system.html.

A scanner in BC's Vision Resource Center—part of O'Neill Library's Media Department—allows visually impaired students to scan textbook material onto audiocassettes or to download onto disks. Equipment also is available for low vision students, via a unit which provides large print display. Material placed on the device is projected onto a large screen monitor. The VRC also has a device which is used to access Quest, and allows individuals to connect to the BC computer network via a data connection. Print-impaired students also have access to several informational resources—including such applications as obtaining telephone numbers, electronic mail, and U-VIEW.

In 1998, the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections digitized hundreds of photographs from the collection of Boston Gas Co. photos and documents in its archives and posted them on its World Wide Web site. The photos, taken during various construction projects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, also offer a portrait of Boston life and times. The Burns site recorded 500 hits from visitors across the country during the first week the images were accessible. In addition, more than 700 items from the University's Liturgy and Life Collection have been posted online as part of an project to create a "visual archive" of the pre-Vatican II American Catholic Church. With thousands of missals, prayer cards, statuettes and other Catholic religious items that pre-date the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, this collection, founded by BC's William Leonard, SJ, offers what Burns Librarian Robert O'Neill calls "perhaps the world's most complete guide to what it was like to be Catholic in America in the middle half of this century."

Burns also made available records of its holdings of collected papers of past Boston College presidents through the Online Computer Library Center, a national library data base. The collection includes papers belonging to University founder John McElroy, SJ, and 17 of Boston College's 25 presidents. While much of the collection relates to institutional affairs, other papers relate to issues of local and national interest. Among the materials is a copy of the diary Fr. McElroy kept as an Army chaplain during the Mexican War, while the papers of Boston College's first president, John Bapst, SJ (1863-69), include materials on the Penobscot Indians of Ellsworth, Maine. The collection also has correspondence to the University from Jesuit archaeologist Joseph Doherty, SJ, who led a dig in Ksar Akil, Lebanon in the early 20th century, assisted by Boston College students.

Though computers have long been a staple in research laboratories, Boston College was on the front lines of a revolution in chemistry education: using computers in introductory-level, undergraduate instruction. The Eugene F. Merkert Chemistry Center, opened in 1991, offers the latest computer and video technology for faculty, graduate students and undergraduates, whether in labs or its two lecture auditoriums. Its cutting-edge technology makes it among the premier education and research facilities in the discipline nationwide.

McMULLEN MUSEUM OF ART RESOURCES
The Micro Gallery: In addition to its trove of paintings, drawings and other works, the Boston College McMullen Museum of Art offers a truly modern medium for viewing and learning about art: "The Micro Gallery." Located on the museum's ground floor, this interactive computer enables users to examine details of paintings displayed at the museum, or call up information relating to the works and artists. "This is a very exciting addition," said Museum Director Nancy Netzer. "The reproduction of the paintings on the computer is of a very high quality, so students in particular will benefit from using it."

The Art Museum Image Consortium: This not-for-profit coalition of 23 prominent art museums in the United States and Canada, chose the University as one of only 20 institutions to serve as a trial site for a new on-line archive of art slides in the fall of 1998. This "virtual library" of paintings and sculptures contains 20,000 high-resolution images, and is expected to be made available under license to all higher education institutions in the 1999-2000 academic year. Galleries participating in the on-line art consortium include the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and 20 others.

BC School of Nursing students use interactive video and a Nursing Simulation Laboratory to hone their clinical skills in a well-controlled environment. This educational tool permits users to experiment and explore intervention alternatives with no risk to patients.

In 1997, the O'Neill Computing Facility completed an upgrade of its services and changed its name to the Student Learning and Support Center to reflect an emphasis on customer service and user-friendliness. The center maintains personal computers, e-mail stations, photo scanners, and four other terminals in public computing facilities that are open up to 16 hours a day and provide access to the Internet and electronic mail services provided through Agora at Boston College. It also offers courses in several software programs and nine new printers for the estimated 2,000 students who use the computer facility daily. In addition, the University has a teaching lab which is available on a reserved basis.

Freshmen who take the University's required writing course each year now receive an introduction to World Wide Web research techniques, thanks to a multi-media classroom inaugurated during the 1998-99 academic year. Located in O'Neill Library, the classroom is equipped with 18 laptop computers wired to the Boston College network, two video projectors, and a wireless keyboard that allows a lecturer to access the Internet while roaming the room. English Professor Paul Lewis, acting director of the First-Year Writing Seminar, said the computers also enhance the discussion and editing of writing assignments, summoned at the click of a mouse to an individual laptop or a central screen.

Computer Science Associate Professor Peter Kugel has taught an "Artificial Intelligence" course, in addition to a variety of independent studies with advanced students. Some write programs that diagnose problems with radios or advise on stock investing; others write programs enabling the computer to play complex board games like "Othello."

Carroll School of Management Professor Mary J. Cronin was among the first to point out that the Internet is changing the way America—and the world— does business. Cronin surveyed or interviewed 100 corporations of varying size on many aspects of their use of the Internet, and presented this research in her book Doing Business on the Internet: How the Electronic Highway is Transforming American Companies and its second edition, Doing More Business on the Internet.. In addition, her book, Global Advantage on the Internet, offers an analysis of how the Internet is being used for business and electronic commerce in countries around the world. She also edited and contributed to The Internet Strategy Handbook: Lessons from the New Business Frontier, a collection of chapters written by managers from Fortune 500 companies describing the variety of Internet applications in business, and has been a regular columnist for Fortune magazine on Internet-related business issues.

"We do all of our data analysis and plotting for our experiments with a computer," says Biology Associate Professor William Brunken. "All of our scientific charts and bibliographic searching are also done on a computer and two of our experiments are directly computer-driven." One such experiment involves stimulating the eye with a set of images generated by the computer and displayed on a computer screen or oscilloscope. While the computer is generating the pictures it is also controlling data collection and analysis.

Music students at Boston College can compose on computer—rather than musical—keyboards, thanks to computer programs, which provide them with valuable practice for ear training and a better understanding of musical composition.

Biology Associate Professor Grant Balkema—an electrophysiologist—records single cells in the brain and categorizes them according to their receptor fields. An area of Balkema's research focuses on the effects of pigmentation on how well animals and humans adapt to darkness. He uses computer technology to plot the melanin pigment in the back of the eye and produce a visual representation of it.

Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Rebecca Valette helped develop Discovering French Interactive (DFI), an innovative French language instruction textbook and CD-ROM video package that garnered several major awards and is in use in many parts of the country. The expanded package also has been well-received in Japan. DFI, Valette says, was the first language instruction series to combine text, video and audio with CD-ROM technology.

A process allowing users to control computers with a glance—through electrical signals generated by eye movements—has been developed by three BC faculty members: Computer Science Professors Jim Gips and Associate Professor Peter Olivieri and Psychology Associate Professor Joseph Tecce. Dubbed "EagleEyes," the process operates via a series of electrodes attached around the eyes of the user. The BC professors worked out a way of amplifying the signals generated, and converting them to corresponding movements of a cursor. The developers modified the system to enable students at the Boston College Campus School for children with severe physical disabilities to "finger paint" by directing the computer through eye movements.

The EagleEyes team also succeeded in miniaturizing the technology from the approximate size of a stereo system to that of a videocassette. Disabled children can use the new model at home or at school, opening a world of possibilities for people who might otherwise be closed off from the world around them. EagleEyes also has been combined with commercially available software to enable users to compose music by moving the cursor to sound notes on the computer screen. When the music application is running, a screen appears on the computer that resembles an old TV test pattern, with a series of concentric rings corresponding to a range of notes. The user can make musical notes sound by setting the cursor on a chosen section of the screen. And, by adding a joystick, an able-bodied parent or friend can play along in a duet.

The system was one of the finalists for the 1994 Discover Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation, chosen from nearly 4,000 nominees nationwide, and the developers were invited to return to Epcot Center in 1999 for an exposition honoring a decade of Discover Award winners

Psychology Professor Randolph Easton has refined a device to help the blind "see" via echo-location. The device, called a Trisensor, looks like a personal stereo and sends out inaudible sound waves, which bounce off nearby objects and are detected by receivers on the Trisensor's headset. The electronics in the device convert the signals in audible tones of varying pitch, enabling the user to determine the direction, distance, texture and approximate size of objects within about a 12-foot range along his or her path. Easton has found that the device also aids blind people's ability to balance.

A group of eight research experts from Internet pioneer BBN Corp. joined the Lynch School of Education in 1998 with the aim of establishing a new educational technology center. Known as the Research on Learning Communities team, the scientists—whose specialties include artificial intelligence and use of technology in teaching mathematics and science—are affiliated with BC's Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy. The researchers had previously formed the educational technology wing of BBN, a Cambridge high-tech firm that developed the precursor to the Internet in the 1960s, and had achieved international distinction for their pioneering work in applying emerging technologies to learning and teaching.

Professor of Sociology Sharlene Hesse-Biber feels that the much-discussed "gender gap" in mathematics and science also extends to computers. Many computer games reinforce old-fashioned stereotypes about sex roles, she says, while computer hardware and software are generally geared to the male culture. But Hesse-Biber has developed an approach she hopes will help close the gap and enable women to reap the benefits of computer technology.

Women learn computer use best in courses geared to their interests and personal experiences, she believes, and where their computer anxiety is addressed. For example, Hesse-Biber has her students work with computers in cooperative groups to help build confidence and lessen feelings of intimidation. The students also use the computers to explore topics such as the gender gap in earnings, and balancing work and family—issues which are central to their lives and seldom discussed in other classes.

Many students reported that "using the computers has been a rewarding experience that helped them overcome their fears about the technology," Hesse-Biber says. "Using computers in the feminist and the social science classroom has the potential of closing the gender gap not only in technology, but in math and science as well."

Lynch School of Education Associate Professor Alec Peck has conducted landmark work in the field of orientational mobility. Peck's research, which was honored by the American Foundation for the Blind, focused on street crossings, taking him as far as Japan and Australia and as close as Watertown, Mass., to study audible traffic signals used to assist blind pedestrians cross streets.

Physics associate professors David Broido and Krzysztof Kempa are researching the possibility of developing ultrafast computers by studying a phenomenon that could lead to technologies for building very fast, highly miniaturized processors (the central brains of a computer). Their work is in the field of nanotechnology: the construction and study of systems tinier than the head of a pin. Together, they are researching systems of Quantum Dots (pools of electrons).

ROBOTICS

The first robotics laboratory in the US to be open to undergraduates is at BC, and students from diverse majors are taking advantage of it. A biology major, for example, did an independent study project which involved programming robots to participate as actors in a futuristic student-written play. A computer science major developed speech recognition software for the robots, an alternative to more expensive computer chips. Other students test their knowledge of robotics by programming the machines to negotiate an obstacle course. Students are also assisting in the EagleEyes project (see separate entry), a system by which users control computers through electrical signals generated by eye movements; they are helping construct a wheelchair that would utilize this technology.

Lynch School of Education doctoral student Michael Youmans was one of four teachers in the state to receive the Massachusetts Software Council's 1998 Above and Beyond Award for promoting technology in schools. Youmans was honored for his innovative use of computers in an 11th-grade humanities class he led as a student-teacher at the Maimonides School in Brookline. He used interactive CD-ROMs as learning tools in the Philosophy, Art and Culture course he taught, while giving his pupils assignments in Internet research that included setting up their own World Wide Web sites. He also helped in the creation of a student Web page at the school.

"SMART" BUILDINGS

In her 1999 book, Direct Digital Control Systems: Application and Commissioning, Planning Department Mechanical Engineer Mary Nardone offered architects and engineers a primer on the sometimes finicky workings behind "smart" buildings, which employ computers to control everything from heating systems to fire alarms to elevators.

Nardone, who worked on the Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building in Boston during the 1980s, says that building-control systems are far more advanced today than when the technology was introduced – back then, "A lightning storm would wreak havoc," she notes, and "even a hand-held radio could affect the system." Now, she says, elevators are programmed to come to rest at floors where they are most likely to be called, or inside temperature controls are set to read the weather outside.

Medieval scholar Stephen Brown, a professor of Theology, is working on a project that will bring the vast holdings of the Vatican Library to the computer age with the creation of a "digital library." The project, which also involves IBM and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, will allow scholars to call up via the Internet images of the Vatican Library's 150,000 rare manuscripts. IBM technicians are using heat-proof digital scanners that do not harm parchment to captured images the manuscripts, while Brown is advising the technicians regarding which works are most significant, to determine which should be scanned first. The project, he says, will enable researchers to view centuries-old works over their computers as clearly as if they were holding the parchments in their hands.

Each summer, graduate students in BC's Lynch School of Education offer youths from the Allston/Brighton neighborhood of Boston a two-week computer camp. Thirty local youngsters, ages nine to 13, have come to Boston College during each of the past seven summers to participate in the program, which is designed to teach the practical use of computers in conjunction with independent writing projects.

When the Newton, Mass., Public Schools needed help selecting and implementing a new administrative computer system, it turned to Boston College. Lynch School of Education Professor Walter Haney, a group of his students in his graduate-level course "Management Uses of Computers In Education," and the Information Technology Department helped the Newton schools select the most useful computer system for its needs and trained administrators to use it effectively. This is the latest in a series of collaborations between the University and NPS.

Through the initiative of Boston College Chancellor J. Donald Monan, SJ, Boston College developed a relationship with the computing services staff at the University of Central America in El Salvador and donated computer systems to that institution. Although no longer of use to Boston College, the systems are compatible with technology on the UCA campus and have been a welcome addition to supplement the limited resources of that institution.