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James L. Hilton

James L. Hilton

Contact Us

P.O. Box 400217
Suite 116
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4217

Phone:
434-982-2249
Fax:
434-924-3579
Email:
gh3w@virginia.edu

IT Around Grounds

Technology Initiatives Going on Around UVa

Coursera Partnership Gives UVa Global Reach

The Internet has become revolutionizing force in higher education, and UVa is pioneering this new world through its recently-announced partnership with Coursera to offer courses online. Anyone who has an Internet connection may join these massive open online courses, or "MOOCs."

Through Coursera, UVa will begin offering a few select classes in early 2013 at no cost:

  • How Things Work — a practical intro to physics and science in everyday life from Physics professor Lou Bloomfield.

  • Know Thyself — a philosophy course investigating "the nature and limits of self-knowledge" taught by Mitch Green, Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor in Humanities.

  • The Modern World: Global History Since 1760 — a survey history course from the late 18th century to contemporary times, taught by Philip Zelikow, the White Burkett Miller Professor of History.

  • Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Private Businesses — a two-part entrepreneurship class from celebrated Darden Professor Edward D. Hess.

  • Foundations in Business Strategy — this "Strategy 101" course teaches organizational strategy, from Associate Dean and Executive Director of Darden's Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Michael J. Lenox.

UVa Students Participate in Nationwide e-TextBook Pilot

UVa is one of 5 schools nationwide to pilot an electronic textbook program evaluating the costs and benefits of providing electronic textbooks to students during the Spring and Fall semester of 2012. The goal is to help schools advance a new model for the purchase, distribution, and use of digital course materials.

With the rising costs (and substantial weight) associated with traditional paper textbooks, eTextbooks present students with a compelling option, given their lower price and greater portability.

eTexts also take advantage of the increasingly popular mobile technology that students already have—including laptops, eReaders, and tablet computers.

The 25 participating institutions will assess eTextbooks for appeal and pedagogical benefit to faculty and students, scalability of the approach, ease of integration with the campus learning management environment, and especially how the model supports increased value and lower costs of educational materials.

The Digital Media Lab Gets a World-Class Refresh

The Robertson Media Center and Digital Media Lab (DML), located on the third floor of Clemons Library, were recently expanded and redesigned for the UVa community.

With the DML’s trove of new 3D digital tools, it will serve as a gateway to emerging media technologies for UVa faculty and students, while better accommodating world-class digital collaboration and scholarship.

The newly-redesigned floor plan now offers 4 areas to facilitate the typical workflow of projects—planning, learning, making, and seeing—and features unique, cutting-edge technologies appropriate to each mode. Specifically, the new space offers:

This redesign pushes the DML dramatically closer to its goal of assisting the UVa community capture the analog world and digitize it.