Educational Efforts
Collaboratory for Undergraduate Research and Education
The Collaboratory for Undergraduate Research and Education (CURE) is a coalition of regional colleges and universities formulated to represent a full gamut of institutional types and missions, specifically in regard to their undergraduate liberal education programs.
The project's mission is improving undergraduate science education at all levels of instruction by supporting:
- learning science by doing science
- interacting with real data, professional scientists, etc.
- working and learning collaboratively
- project-oriented and interdisciplinary work
In 1996-97, the EMSL Collaboratory participated in the CURE effort and held a series of workshops to frame the issues and challenges for scalable, Internet-based research/education collaborations. These workshops focused on faculty development, curricular reform, and student-centered engagement with the scientific work. The results of these workshops were reported in the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Quarterly. We also completed several small pilot projects.
Since CURE ...
The EMSL Collaboratory has not stopped doing education projects
We continue to do remote lectures and remote labs, and to support longer-term student research projects.
- Our Virtual NMR Facility efforts are now allowing 25% of the external users of the NMR facility to do their experiments remotely. The VNMRF collaboration capabilities are typical of what is possible for most instruments/research areas in the EMSL and it is described in detail on our website. Some undergraduates are involved in these research efforts, participating as members of an external researcher's group.
- There are now several schools using the Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) as a way to keep students (high school through graduate level) and mentors in contact. The ELN allows groups to "publish" text, screen captures, equations, data files, etc. to a password restricted web notebook organized into chapters and pages.
- The Rattlesnake Mountain Observatory, a 31" telescope, was renovated and put back on line by a local non-profit corporation together with volunteers from the EMSL. The first images are just now appearing. We hope to use the collaboration tools used in the EMSL to let students work with other students and astronomers.
- We also support remote lectures from time to time, primarily about mass spectroscopy, NMR, and Collaboratories. Talk with an EMSL researcher to arrange a lecture.
If you would like to get involved in a project with EMSL (or just visit), start by contacting an EMSL researcher. EMSL has ~200 researchers and 70+ research instruments. The EMSL resources which can be connected to colleges/universities via Internet-based technology include:
- scientific instruments
- shared scientific work
- experimental data
- science expertise
- computing resources
If an education project sounds promising and you would like to do some/all of the work via the Internet, your group would contact the Collaboratory support team and we would help you install tools, learn how to use them, etc.
- An example of a simple project would be sending a student to EMSL for a summer internship, and using the electronic notebook to let you keep in touch over the summer.
- For more complex projects, we might need to work with you and your EMSL collaborator to secure additional funds.
CURE Workshop Reports and Articles
Preprint of "COLLABORATORIES: Bringing National Laboratories Into The Undergraduate Classroom And Laboratory Via The Internet," which appeared in the Council on Undergraduate Research's Quarterly.
October 1996 "Hands-On" CURE Workshop
- Registered Faculty Attendees for the Workshop
- Info on participating EMSL researchers
- October Workshop Agenda (with notes)
- Three draft Collaboratory scenarios with analysis
April 1996 Workshop
- An Information release on the April Workshop
- Summary of the April Workshop
- April Workshop Breakout Group Reports
The Collaboratory Concept in Education
Other Pages of Interest
- The CoVis Geosciences Project
- Web Conferencing Resources
- The Internet Resource List from the EMSL Collaboratory page
CURE Pilot Projects
Study of porphyrin compounds using FTICR mass spectroscopy
... relying on the EMSL electronic notebook to let students, faculty and researchers share mass spectroscopy results and the subsequent analysis and interpretation of the data.
Participants
- Portland State University: Carl Wamser and students
- EMSL: Gordon Anderson, Jim Bruce
Materials
Student research investigating the kinetics and mechanism of CCl4 degradation in groundwater
... with students remotely running samples prepared at Heritage College on the EMSL's ion-trap mass spectrometer and using video-conferencing to view the mass spectroscopy lab and interact with researchers at the EMSL.
Participants
- Heritage College: Hossein Divanfard, and Elsa Camacho and Jerrad Roetger (students)
- EMSL: John Price, Jim Amonette
Curriculum development in subsurface coupled fluid flow and transport with chemical and biological reactions
... with EMSL researchers supporting a WWW based curriculum with remote lectures, discussions, and live display of transport simulations conducted on the EMSL supercomputer.
Participants
- The Evergreen State College: Ken Tabbott
- Bellevue Community College: Melodye Gold
- EMSL: Steve Yabusaki
Materials
- Subsurface Reactive Transport Talk (Steve Yabusaki and Jim Szecsody)
- Reactive Transport Science: Mechanistic Process Modeling and Engineering Analysis (Yabusaki et. al.)
- Implementing a Reactive Transport Algorithm on Multiple Processor Computers (Yabusaki, Rosing, Steefel)
Remote lectures, and open discussions/"brownbag lunches" between researchers and students
... on scientific topics including the Collaboratory project itself, the EMSL and its environmental mission, and reports from EMSL research projects,
... involving participants from three or more institutions simultaneously,
... relying on videoconferencing, shared WWW browsing, and the TeleViewer display sharing software.
Participants
- All
Materials
Early December, Dr. Jim Myers, an Associated Western Universities (AWU) 1996-97 Distinguished Lecturer, presented the Collaboratory project to faculty and students at Eastern Oregon State University without leaving his office.