Proposal - Oncourse - Indiana University

creating an online organic chemistry KB that will house an ever-growing database of student
questions and IUPUI faculty content.
The development of this tool will be overseen by one chemistry faculty and one information
technology faculty, with the full support of their respective departments. To assess the value of
the KB as a novel educational tool in organic chemistry, we will focus strongly on a chemical
education research approach to the above problem. Available tools including standardized
exams, semester exams, student focus group analysis, and student surveys will provide concrete
data to assess the value of the proposed KB. Student researchers in chemical education will
synthesize conclusions from multiple data sources to direct the future course of this research.
CILT undergraduate students will research current software solutions for collaborative teaching,
including the so-called “wiki” model, to analyze the effectiveness of existing products and
initiatives. Practically speaking, there are a wide variety of theories about the effectiveness,
scalability, and proper algorithmic structure of “knowledge bases” as a whole. 1 The team will
work closely with faculty from the C&CB to fully document the needs of the faculty and
understand the expected outcomes from the product. This firsthand understanding of the
intended use of the tool will allow students to determine which methodologies should be invoked
when selecting a design model for the knowledge base. Finally, with the support of science
students acting as “subject matter experts,” the development team will design and implement a
software solution that meets the explicit needs of the C&CB.
By far the majority of information accessed by the modern student is digital in nature. An
August 2007 study by comScore found that “more than 750 million people age 15 and older, or
95 percent of the worldwide Internet audience, conducted 61 billion searches worldwide in
August 2007 alone, an average of more than 80 searches per searcher.” 2 However, in the firstsemester
organic chemistry lecture, students remain reliant upon information accessed in a
traditional textbook and/or course notes to answer all problems/questions assigned. Though
course notes are given as digital slides, the student typically relies on paper copies for their
study. With a growing population of students equipped with multiple devices to access the
World Wide Web, online organic chemistry information sources are becoming more prevalent. 3
According to the most recent solicitation for the National Science Foundation’s Research and
Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program, “The reconceptualization
of how, when, and where learning can take place has strong implications for
how to effectively educate 21 st century learners who are already digital natives.”
As students’ learning styles become increasingly associated with online applications, we believe
a knowledge base format offers significant advantages to other more common alternatives:
online textbooks, blogs, and wikis. The concept of the knowledge base as a teaching
methodology is not new, 4 but its use is still rare in pedagogical practice for undergraduates,
particularly in the sciences. To our knowledge, no knowledge base in organic chemistry has
been created or is currently available. There have been several attempts to integrate some new
media for information dissemination into the classroom, such as electronic texts, blogs, and
MURI Mentor’s Project Proposal Form, Updated: 1-25-2011 4