Title: Usable Digital Libraries for Distributed Education

Number:

Executive Summary:

This initiative will promote economic growth in Virginia's Information
Industry. It will support corporate activity with applied R&D on
digital libraries. The testbed for that research will be distributed
education.  Thus, WWW-based course and reference materials will be
developed for use by thousands interested in working in Information
Technology, and related research results will ensure that the digital
library systems used by those learners are user-friendly and are
highly interactive.


Description:

Information is necessary for human survival, and access to information
is crucial for a free citizenry and a flourishing economy.  Today, the
broad activities relating to information have focused attention on
digital libraries as the confluence of work previously specialized
into information retrieval, hypertext, hypermedia, records management,
library and information science, multimedia systems, database
management, electronic publishing, Internet information services, and
the World Wide Web (WWW).

Digital libraries research thus is essential for growth in the
Information Industry, and for supporting distributed education in the
Commonwealth (since students far from a campus do not get to the
regular library, and since state resources preclude building new
libraries).  Hundreds of Virginia corporations, including many of the
largest ones, depend upon advances in managing information. To support
their future growth there must be a strong R&D program in digital
libraries as well as supporting areas that increase effectiveness and
efficiency: human-computer interaction (HCI) and modeling and
simulation (mod/sim).

Virginia Tech has been the first university in the Commonwealth to
explore these areas, with well over $10M in research support and
scores of grants and contracts.  Courses in information storage and
retrieval date back to the early 1970s, research in HCI and mod/sim to
the early 1980s, work with CD-ROMs and multimedia to the mid-1980s,
and funded research on digital libraries to 1991.  Research
Infrastructure support from NSF has led to the Information Access
Laboratory and to the Commonwealth's best usability laboratories
(suitable for use by a broad range of corporate and governmental
agencies), to help with development and refinement of easily usable
digital library systems.  Education Infrastructure funding from NSF
has led to an Education Innovation program in Computer Science whereby
over 40 courses have been placed on the WWW, leading to over 150,000
accesses each week.  Southeast Universities Research Association
(SURA) and U.S. Department of Education funding, as well as
significant donations by IBM, Microsoft, and Adobe have allowed
Virginia Tech to lead the world in developing the Networked Digital
Library of Theses and Dissertations to advance graduate education and
to unlock university resources to improve technology transfer.  NSF
and support by Apple has aided serving K-12 with advanced educational
technology methods as well.

Virginia has no Library School.  Virginia Tech's undergraduate and
graduate courses --- including those with extensive WWW-based
materials on: digital libraries; information storage and retrieval;
multimedia, hypertext, and information access; human-computer
interaction and other areas --- are a unique resource to fill the
void.  With many other states providing large sums of matching funds
to help make their university programs competitive for the scores of
millions of dollars available to support digital library research, it
is imperative that the Commonwealth support its own university efforts
and its own industry.

* actions

This initiative calls for a specialized staff to relate R&D in digital
libraries to the needs of industry, in collaboration with faculty and
staff in Computer Science, the Center for Human-Computer Interaction
(with over 30 members), and the Computing Center.  A research director
and coordinator will liaise with industry to transfer new technology
into the private sector and to establish distributed education
activities for the Information Technology field.  An instructor will
coordinate the outreach and educational programs, to include special
certificates, short courses, and reference services.  An instructional
designer will work with the Department of Computer Science to extend
existing course materials to be suitable for Internet-based distance
learning.  A programmer and six graduate assistants will support these
R&D, educational and outreach needs in the main areas related to
digital libraries.

The six assistants will engage in collaborative research to suit the
needs of Virginia industry: designing and developing digital
libraries; making interfaces to WWW and information systems more user
friendly, helping convert traditional and multimedia information into
digital forms, assisting with electronic archiving and preservation
for the future, simulating planned information systems to ensure that
they are fast and can handle the ever growing numbers of users, and
making sure they serve the distributed education needs of the
Commonwealth.

Specifically, this initiative will lead to a broad range of short
courses becoming available over the Internet for study by individuals
aiming to fill the thousands of open Information Technology jobs in
Virginia.  Through Net.Work.Virginia, companies will be able to
encourage in-house network-based continuing education in Information
Technology for their employees.  The role of the coordinator, together
with the instructional designer and instructor, will be to work
closely with industry groups, as well as large corporations and
agencies, to tailor learning materials and short courses to their
needs.

In addition, this initiative will support R&D collaboration with
Virginia industry in all the areas directly or indirectly related to
digital libraries.  Virginia Tech usability labs will be opened for
in-depth or distance studies to make the interfaces of software
developed in Virginia meet human factors and human-interface
guidelines, thus helping them gain more market share and be more
user-friendly.  Training and counselling will be provided on
scenario-based design methods, preparation of electronic documents by
authors, and serving information over WWW.

* anticipated results, objectives

The end result of this initiative will be industrial growth in the
Information Technology field and training for thousands to work in
this area.  This should make Virginia residents more competitive in
the job market.  Virginia Tech and information industry companies
should get millions of dollars in federal grants and contracts for
R&D, that should in turn lead to millions in new products and services
in this fast-growing field.

* critical issues of agency

Digital libraries is one of the key areas in two of Virginia Tech's
Cross-Cutting Initiative areas: Advanced Computing and Information
Technology, and Learning Communities.  Virginia Tech has made a strong
committment to this area, with over 6000 square feet devoted to R&D
space for digital libraries and HCI. Over 4000 square feet of
additional R&D space for these areas will become available when the
$25M Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center (ACITC)
opens in 1999, and about 1/3 of that building will support electronic
library services.  This initiative will support key staff to help
launch and maintain R&D efforts in those spaces.

* ongoing need, funding increase, federal connection

NSF, ARPA and NASA provided $24M through the Digital Library
Initiative for 1994-98, which has led to significant industrial growth
in states whose universities received awards.  Three of the six grants
in 1994 went to California, which provided substantial cost sharing;
Virginia Tech had no state support for its proposal but neverthless
its proposal was highly rated.  A much larger NSF-led initiative will
be announced late in 1997; without support from the Commonwealth it is
unlikely that a large grant will come to Virginia.  Help through this
initiative would count as substantial cost sharing, and lead to
additional leveraged aid from CIT and Virginia industry.  The theme of
Virginia Tech's NSF proposal will relate to supporting distributed
education, and be linked closely to this initiative.

This initiative reflects the state's support for applying information
technology to support access to information and continuing education.
It is not enough to support library operation and acquisition (through
direct funding and through VIVA), or to support
capture/preservation/archiving; there must be some ongoing R&D to
develop, explore, apply, and provide training regarding new methods
and technology.  Other leading universities around the nation have
significant staffs of this type.  A relatively small continuing
investment by the Commonwealth should lead to considerable leveraging
of outside funds on an ongoing basis.

* CIM?
* Information Technology connection

Though this initiative relates to Information Technology, it is
fundamentally an effort relating to R&D and to education, thus falling
outside the scope of CIM and other state Information Technology
groups.

* Code, Act

No legislative proposal is needed to amend the Code of Virginia associated
with this request, and no language in the Appropriation Act needs to be
added, revised or deleted.

Rationale:
* consequences if not approved

If this program is not funded, Virginia will be severely disadvantaged
relative to other states in upcoming federal grant competitions, and
ongoing commercial opportunities, related to information technology in
general, and digital libraries in particular.  The hard-won stature of
Virginia Tech digital library and HCI activities cannot alone win
competitive grants where substantial state and corporate cost sharing
is expected, as in this area.  Important transfer of knowledge to
learners, and of technology to industry, will also be missed if this
initiative is not funded.

* other alternatives

Virginia Tech's resources in all areas related to this initiative
(e.g., Department of Computer Science, Computing Center) are woefully
inadequate due to budget cuts of the last decade.  Virginia industry
and government needs for those trained in these areas, which number in
the thousands, will go unmet without such assistance.  Though Virginia
Tech has the largest and most efficient Department of Computer Science
(with ratio of majors to faculty approximately 40:1, ignoring the
additional service load) in the Commonwealth, it cannot stretch its
staff any further without additional support.

Activities:
* instruction
The instructor and instructional designer listed below would undertake
primarily training/educational efforts, officially as part of the
Department of Computer Science.

* research
Most of the staff for the initiative would engage in applied research.

* service
The coordinator would liaise with industry to ensure service of
Virginia industry takes place, adding staff if "soft money" is added
for specific contracts.

Resource Narrative:
(see separate file)

Source of Funding:
        General funds