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Issue 35, Winter 2006
by Devon Cancilla and Patricia LeClaire
In 2004, Western Washington University’s Integrated Laboratory Network (ILN) won one of five Sloan Consortium awards for Most Outstanding Effective Practices in online education. The ILN concept had been developed at Western using an earlier Student Technology Fee (STF) grant, with further development supported by a proof of concept grant from the National Science Foundation, as well as funding from the Sloan Foundation for a summer workshop on development and use of ILNs in higher education. Successful ILN collaborations have already been established with the University of British Columbia, Purdue University, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. More partner institutions are expected to actively participate following a very successful presentation at the national Sloan-C Conference in November 2005. So what is it about the Integrated Laboratory Network concept that’s generating so much attention?
Background
Historically, access to and the use of expensive analytical instrumentation in undergraduate programs has been limited by factors such as cost, scheduling of space and equipment, availability of technical personnel, and too-large enrollments in courses. Access problems have been even more acute at high schools and community colleges. These limitations on access to scientific instrumentation often mean that students will graduate without ever having the opportunity to use state-of-the-art research instrumentation to test theories and hypotheses within an authentic problem-based learning environment. Even at those institutions which can offer access to instrumentation to some students, these students may still perceive the scientific process as something which can only occur in isolated three-hour laboratory sessions, rather than as an on-going activity inherent in all science learning.
Enter the ILN
Western’s Scientific Technical Services group developed and implemented the concept of an Integrated Lab Network (ILN) to solve many of the access problems outlined above. Using the ILN, undergraduate students can for the first time actually use advanced scientific instrumentation. For example, Purdue University students had their first opportunity to use mass spectrometry instrumentation through Western’s ILN. An ILN provides an electronic instructional “Collaboratory,” using electronic tools to make advanced scientific instrumentation like mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs, and scanning electronic microscopes available to students over existing computer networks.
In addition to access to the instrumentation itself, ATUS worked with Scientific Technical Services to ensure that the ILN also includes essential instructional tools to supplement and enhance access to instrumentation. These tools include instructional materials and templates for the development and analysis of experiments, tools for managing class use of ILN services, and tools for student completion of class assignments.
The initial STF grant focused on the feasibility of remote access and control of advanced scientific instrumentation from Western’s classrooms. Following implementation of this grant, Western’s faculty and students were able to
- remotely access most of Western’s instruments, using automatic samplers, 24 hours a day
- remotely access instruments from any mediated classroom and lecture hall
- remotely access and perform in-depth analysis of data from instruments
- integrate use of scientific instrumentation into both classroom activities and student assignments
The additional grants from the NSF and Sloan Foundation allowed the ILN to move into a second phase, focused on the development of a design for a comprehensive ILN web portal optimized for the addition of educational materials related to use of the ILN. This design phase was completed in December, 2005 [add screen shot and link to this area]. The purpose of this ILN portal is to both provide easy on-campus access to ILN tools and easy dissemination of ILN concepts and materials.
Much care was given to providing inclusive technology options for use of the ILN, as well as innovative pedagogical strategies appropriate for a diversity of students and faculty from many types of institutions. The ILN web portal thus was designed to facilitate
- problem-based, case-based and generative learning
- handling of multiple learning styles
- synchronous and asynchronous options for communication and collaboration
- authentic assessment of learning outcomes
- accessibility
- development of ILN communities-of-practice
- faculty professional development in use of instrumentation and the ILN
- adaptation and sharing of experiments among multiple institutions.
Looking Ahead to the Next Phase
In the next phase of development of the ILN, educational materials will be added in the categories of service noted above. Web-based resources will thus be developed which will allow instructors and students to
- download and use supporting curricular materials (e.g. multimedia tutorials, introductory lectures, lab manuals, electronic notebooks) in a format designed for specific use at Western or in a modifiable format that can be adapted to the specific instructional environment of another participating institution using the ILN portal
- participate in real-time events related to the ILN, such as Webcasts and Web conferences
- communicate and collaborate about ILN’s between institutions via discussion forums, blogs, RSS feeds and podcasts
- integrate ILN resources within course management systems such as BlackBoard
- modify existing labs and case studies, or create new ones, then submit them for peer-review and inclusion in the ILN repository
- use blogs to share ideas on iterative modifications of labs and case studies
Western has already prototyped collaborative use of Integrated Laboratory Network concepts and practices with institutions in Canada and Switzerland. Several U.S. institutions have also expressed strong interest in partnering with Western in the continued development and deployment of ILN. Therefore, the next phase of the ILN project will focus on performing collaborative needs assessment and beta testing of educational materials and web portal features with those institutions. Development of a decentralized database of ILN labs and case studies is proposed, to allow easy sharing of educational materials developed at a variety of participating institutions. Western’s ILN group will contribute its own labs and case studies, coordinate peer-review of all ILN submissions, and provide a searchable master index of all ILN teaching and learning materials in the network.
For additional information about the ILN, please contact Dr. Devon Cancilla, Director, Scientific Technical Services, at 650-7785.
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