August 12th, 2008
Posted in web science by monica
[For the full entry, please see the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Programme wiki]
During her presentation to our SDP group, Wendy Hall mentioned that if two people type the same thing into Google, regardless of their purpose for the search, they will get the same results. Jim Hendler raised similar concerns when he spoke of efficiency trumping accuracy in Google search results. Certainly, if users had to wait five minutes or longer for a search engine to deliver a correct answer, they would likely not use search engines with the frequency that they currently do. That said, why can’t search engines be fast and accurate?
Through our SDP discussions, I realized that small studies, such as my dissertation research, can contribute to our understanding of why people search, what they expect, and how best to deliver this information. For example, currently, the consequences of inaccurate search results are minor and thus users are willing to modify their terms multiple times to find what they need. While delivery of search results is quite fast, how long do people spend modifying their terms until they happen upon information that answers their question, or completes their task? The human side, then, absorbs much of the work that the system could potentially provide. Understanding the cognitive process of information search and use could thus better inform the development of more accurate information delivery systems.
In addition to improving the accuracy of information delivery, understanding users’ cognitive processes could inform the depth of information provided about the data itself. Online information is currently, for the most part, opaque in terms of reporting authorship and authority, which makes determining credibility difficult. In developing the semantic web, perhaps an additional question to consider is how we can leverage its ontologies to provide more transparency in terms of who is providing the information, when it has been updated, who is linking to it, and other relevant credibility criteria/measures.
August 5th, 2008
While still in many ways an elusive topic, the study and definitions of web science became more tangible during our SDP discussions. Before attending OII, I thought web science simply meant the study of how people use the Web. This definition in many ways reflected my disciplinary bias by focusing on the who of the Web, rather than what it is or how it works. In his presentation to our group, Tim Berners-Lee described web science as taking fundamental things and looking at how the Web changes them. Hendler, Shadbolt, Hall, Berners-Lee, and Weitzner (2008) extend this definition to broadly include the study of systems, their development, efficiency, scalability, flexibility and the people who use them, their uses, interactions, interpretations, appropriations, and the communities that form in response to or as a result of, this use.
In addition to addressing the what and who of web science, our discussions addressed an additional how, the methods by which we will study it. The medium of the Web challenges us as researchers to both re-think traditional methods of data collection and analysis and develop new, more flexible methods to measure and record interactions that are in a sense, spatially invisible. Communication online can be both asynchronous and in real-time, remote and co-located. While older communication technologies certainly allowed remote or asynchronous interaction, the Web’s flexibility presents this challenge on an unprecedented scale.
As Hendler, et al. (2008) state, “…web scientists need to develop new methodologies for gathering evidence and finding ways to anticipate how human behavior will impact on the development of a system which is constantly evolving at such an amazing rate.” In a sense, the dynamic, flexible nature of the Web forces interdisciplinary study because a single discipline cannot possibly account for its multiple layers, even when the research has a narrow, specialized focus. In our discussions at OII, Li Zhang used the metaphor about three blind people attempting to describe an elephant based on the parts they see. This discussion summarized the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to web science: without each of us communicating the parts of the Web we see, whether it be its architecture or use, we run the risk of seeing the Web as solely its tail, or foot, and never understanding the dynamic, flexible phenomenon we study.
Reference
Hendler, J., Shadbolt, N., Hall, N., Berners-Lee, T., & Weitzner, D. (2008). Web Science: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding the World Wide Web. Communications of the ACM, 51, 60-69.
March 31st, 2008
Online literacy is currently a moving target. Whenever a new online communication tool emerges, it seems that those who study it attempt to re-define literacy practice in terms of the new tool’s features…for example, engagement, participation, dynamic content, data filtering, hyperlinks. True, a moving target is hard to study, but if we know a little about targets and a little about motion, we have a starting point. When I first started my study, I tried to compose a definition of literacy, based on the literature I read. I cast a broad net and studied perspectives from library science, communication, education, educational technology, composition, media studies, computer science, psychology, art, new media, sociology, even geography. What I realized is there are things we know about literacy and how to study it that transcend the medium. We know that learning can be measured using established retention and transfer tests. We also know that literacy practices can be studied using think aloud protocols and writing assessments. While these methods are neither infallible nor comprehensive, they provide a starting point to anchor the target and to understand what it is we’re aiming at. The next step is to test these measures in preliminary experiments by first narrowing the type of literacy practice we wish to study and then leveraging the combined strength of quantitative and qualitative approaches.
February 14th, 2008
The Trouble with Information: How students gather and evaluate online resources.
Intro: Increasingly, university students are required to find and synthesize online resources to complete academic assignments. I’m interested in studying the process students use to complete these assignments…where do they start, what are their priorities, where do they go and how much time do they spend on the search process versus the composing process?
To answer these questions, I compared undergraduate and graduate student performance on a writing task that required them to gather information online and briefly respond to a writing prompt.
Drawing on Flowers and Hayes’ (1981) cognitive model of composition, I am studying the gather, evaluation, and integration processes involved in writing academic texts. I’m using an expert-novice comparison to get at differences in source use (Wineburg, 1991). To cast a broad net, I’m using a combination of established qualitative (Coiro, 2007) and quantitative (Azevedo & Cromley, 2004; Brand-Gruwel, et al., 2005; Holscher & Strube, 2000; Lazonder, 2000; Metzger, Flanagin, & Zwarun, 2003) models of studying online literacy practices. I started my study with two main questions:
1) how do experts and novices differ in their overall process when engaging in an online academic research task?
2) which, if any, of these practices predict the quality of the final product?
I define experts and novices by years spent in school. Ideally, I would like to compare faculty and/or researchers with undergraduates, but for this study, my experts are pre-service teachers (graduates) and my novices are first-week freshman (undergraduates).
I use a mediational model that first examines how the two groups differ and then identifies predictors of high performance.
Method:
data collected during Fall quarter 2007
154 participants
65 experts (TEP students enrolled in Copeland’s “Teaching with Technology” course)
89 novices (first quarter freshmen enrolled in Writing 2 and 2E courses)
Procedure and materials:
Held in Phelps computer labs, each session lasted 70 minutes
Participants were first given pre-questionnaire that included questions about domain knowledge and interest, technical skills, and general demographic information. [show sample]
Participants were then given a prompt and told they had 50 minutes to write a 1-2 page response using information they found online. [show prompt]
During the gathering and composing phase, students were told when they had 30 and 10 minutes remaining.
After students submitted their work, they completed a post-questionnaire which included questions about their process (which sites they used, how they evaluate credibility) as well as follow-up questions about domain knowledge and interest. [show example]
Once students left, log files were collected from each computer. [show example] Log files included information about computer actions: how many sites they visited, how many times they revised their search term, how many times they returned to a site, how many links they followed within sites, and keystrokes (e.g., text entries and copy/paste).
Analysis:
Developed rubric to score student written responses. [show rubric] The main challenge was figuring out how to measure use of source materials, specifically, how to measure critical engagement with these materials. Used a combination of counting (quantitative) and holistic (qualitative) scoring.
Findings in progress
I am in the process of analyzing my data. What do you think will be a difference in the way experts and novices begin their search? My hope was that experts would use a database or at least Google Scholar or Eric Digests to begin their search. My preliminary results show that 82% of the expert participants and 72% of the novices started with Google. Less than five participants in each group started with Wikipedia, Dogpile, or ask. One expert started with Eric and one novice started with Google Scholar.
Furthermore, as I start the paper scoring, I’m finding that a majority of participants in both groups used the top five Google results for their first or second search terms. At first, this finding was a bit disheartening, but then I found that the preliminary differences seem to lie in how each group uses the source. For example, experts tend to consider the implications of the source material rather than simply inserting it into their texts.
Participants in both groups use personal experience and observation, but differ in the ways they use it — a few of the experts evaluate their experience in terms of other source materials, while most of the novices use personal experience/observation to make unsupported generalizations.
Future directions:
–Complete data analysis
–Conduct textual analysis using Pairwise to quantify degree of re-mixing (Jenkins, 2007) occurring in student academic texts (compare student texts with web pages they visited).
–Study usage patterns in non-academic settings: task-specific and recreational browsing among different age groups.
February 5th, 2008
When I started my dissertation research, I struggled to describe what I was doing. Was I studying online reading, digital literacy, information processing? While the exact phrasing is still up for grabs, I understand the process, the experience I’m studying. I’m studying how students use online resources to complete academic assignments. Specifically, I’m trying to measure the cognitive processes involved in gathering, evaluating, and integrating online sources to compose academic texts. This first step is part of a larger agenda. I am starting with students in a relatively controlled environment to develop baseline measures to later study how this process plays out in other scenarios, such as task-oriented searches or recreational browsing. I’m using a cognitive science model to identify differences in the processes of domain expert and novice students’ approaches to this task. However, this model is just the starting point. I am also blending qualitative methods of textual analysis from the fields of Education and English to look more deeply at the practices behind the process. Specifically, I’m interested in quantifying Jenkins’ theories of re-mixing. In Convergence Culture, Jenkins (2007) describes re-mixing as a process by which users blend a variety of media from multiple sources to create their own work. Basically, this process is what new media is: combining media from multiple sources and modes to create a new whole. Certainly, new technologies fit into this paradigm, but more importantly, how the users appropriate technologies to suit their needs is what interests me. While media theories can certainly describe trends in use, cognitive science provides an actual method of applying and testing these theories.
February 3rd, 2008
The Body Shop in Santa Barbara closed this month. I stopped by last week to see movers actually taking out the last of the boxes. Most people may not know, but for a while the majority of Body Shops were franchised, to empower women to become small business owners. Our local Body Shop was franchised by Anita Roddick (she had a house in SB) for, I think the past 8 years, but maybe longer.
I went to The Body Shop in the Ventura mall yesterday, a 30-45 minute drive, because I wanted to support the stores — I want them to continue to exist. When I walked in, I said without thinking, “this doesn’t look like The Body Shop.” In fact, it could have been any mall store. Gone were the trademark green walls. There were no provocative slogans hanging in the windows or on the walls. A sales girl introduced me to their new line “Japanese Cherry Blossom.” I asked if it were community trade and she said no, but the body butter had “organic” olive oil and the unique thing about the product was they used real cherry blossoms. I felt like a small part of me died.
“Made with Passion” is L’Oreal’s new slogan for Body Shop. As a writing teacher, I tell my students to show, not tell. Anita’s Body Shop would never need a slogan like that. Walking into the store, happening upon a magazine ad, or reading the product labels assaulted us with passion. Her little beauty products were world-changing, confronting everything from the plight of third-world workers to women’s distorted body images.
Although I tried Body Shop’s products in the early 80’s, I didn’t start using them on a daily basis until ten years ago. I watched a documentary about a community who produced shea butter for the Body Shop. Community members were paid a living wage, worked in decent conditions, appeared to improve their living conditions, and received health benefits such as dental and medical care. Best of all, the community were cultivating something locally in an environmentally sustainable way that had been cultivated by the same community for centuries. That afternoon, I went to the Body Shop and bought three of their Brazil Nut products.
Every morning, I use the Brazil Nut body butter and I feel like in a small way, I’m doing my part. That’s the beauty of Anita’s work: she allowed all of us to collectively make a difference, just by using her products.
Before curbside recycling programs were widely available in the U.S., Body Shop stores offered a 10% discount on purchases if you brought back used product containers for recycling. I’d save my containers in a Body Shop bag bearing one of my favorite slogans “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” Again, whenever I brought the containers in for recycling, I felt like I was part of something much larger.
I’ve always felt empowered to vote with my dollar. As often as possible, I buy local organic foods, support local businesses who support local charities, and generally try to make as many of my purchasing decisions matter in the larger scope. Anita certainly made this easier. As I was preparing to go to Ventura yesterday, I took stock of all of the Body Shop products I use — pretty much 60% of the products I use are from Body Shop.
I think I’ll continue to buy the body butter as long as it remains a community trade item, but the new lines of shower gels and lotions that are “made with passion” plus a lot of non-descript ingredients don’t really seem to uniquely contribute to bettering anything, so now I’m going to seek out up-and-coming lines attempting to accomplish Anita’s goals.
Cause-marketing makes it difficult to distinguish products that are truly benefitting our global community from those that aren’t. Anita pushed the envelope with her campaigns and somehow balanced conscientious production with amazing products. Her team must be incredible, but it does seem that one woman made a global difference.
I highly recommend her books “Business as Unusual” and “Take it Personally” — they’re certainly not books you curl around to relax with a cup of tea. They’re energizing and inspiring.
I think I’m rambling now, but just wanted to pay tribute to the amazing force that was Anita Roddick and the difference she’s made in my life. Goodbye, Santa Barbara Body Shop. Thank you, Anita.
January 31st, 2008
At this point, my blog is likely a case of a tree falling in the woods, but I have to start somewhere. My interests are in the pedagogic implications of educational technologies; simply put, I’m interested in identifying instructionally sound methods of using technologies in the classroom.
Why? I spent three years as a Lecturer in the UCSB Writing Program, bookended by one-year stints as a TA. I was recruited because of my technical writing background to teach the Engineering Writing sequence (three-quarter curriculum specifically designed for first-year engineering freshman). At the time, my colleagues had to reapply for their jobs every year until they reached their sixth year: if accepted for “tenure,” they had to reapply every three years. They were under intense pressure to incorporate technology into their instruction. The administrators didn’t really understand the technologies, so there were no models of effective pedagogical use. Thus, I observed many classes where the instructor simply held their lecture-based course in a computer lab and used the board or an overhead projector to post notes. Overwhelming research on the pitfalls of lecture-based instruction in writing courses aside, this practice placed students in front of a highly seductive distraction, and most couldn’t resist checking e-mail or visiting websites.
When I’d argue against this practice in faculty meetings, I got blank stares. In the late 90’s, educational uses of technology were a bit fuzzy. I knew I’d need solid research to back my claims if I wanted to effect change.
I believed that technology was simply a tool and that we should make it fit within our pedagogical goals and not vice-versa. I attended conferences in my field that touted flashy best practices of flash animation creation and website use. While I saw the need for students to be able to communicate with new media, I also saw the content of student writing deteriorating. Sure, the design looked good, but the students couldn’t write. So, what next? We needed a way to better understand how to integrate technology into our instruction in a pedagogically sound way: we needed to determine whether we could use technology to improve learning outcomes.
I took a class with Richard Mayer in 2004 and his research examined exactly the same issue. With a focus on student understanding as the ultimate learning outcome, Mayer’s research considers how multi-media affects student learning retention and transfer.
His research provided a foundation and framework for me to explore issues of educational technology use in writing courses.
In the past four years, I have studied student engagement, instructor engagement, learner expertise, and, currently, effects of delivery modes on learner comprehension. While in each of these studies, I’ve encountered best practice examples, my goal is to build an empirically-based understanding of effective uses of technology in the classroom. At the same time, I’ve been involved in teacher training through the South Coast Writing Project, so I’ve been able to apply this research to training local K-College teachers in effective uses of technology for writing instruction.
Stay tuned…
January 27th, 2008
MONICA E. BULGER
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
EDUCATION
University of California, Santa Barbara
Doctor of Philosophy, Education, expected January 2009
Specialization: Teaching & Learning
Emphases: Cognitive Science, Technology & Society
Dissertation: The Search Myth: Quality Information is Not a Click Away
Committee: Kevin C. Almeroth, Jane Close Conoley, Richard E. Mayer (Chair), Miriam Metzger
This study challenges the myth of information on the Internet: while information may appear excessively easy to find because of quick search results and increased accessibility to materials, locating relevant, high-quality information requires highly sophisticated literacy skills. My empirical study of 150 UCSB graduates and undergraduates examines how college students gauge credibility and usefulness when evaluating online resources and further, how they use this information when composing academic texts.
Master of Arts, Education, June 2006
Master’s Thesis: Engaged by Design: Using Simulations to Promote Active Learning
This study applies Gee’s learning theories by creating an interactive simulation exercise for an engineering writing course and then comparing student engagement levels between the simulation class and a traditionally taught class. I measured student engagement with on-task and off-task computer actions (e.g., websites visited) and found that the simulation exercise resulted in significantly higher engagement levels.
Bachelor of Arts, English, 1995
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Learning and Cognition, Literacy and Technology, Research Methods in Education
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
Networks for Web Science Research Exchange (2008)
Oxford Internet Institute
Extension of two-week institute in which a select number of students reside at participating institutions and collaborate with Web Science faculty. My award funds completion of my dissertation while studying with Oxford Internet Institute faculty.
Digital Humanities Summer Institute Scholarship (2008)
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Image, Text, Sound, & Technology Program
One-week institute hosted by University of Victoria that explores applications of technical innovations, such as text encoding and data visualization, on arts and humanities research and practice.
National Science Foundation Fellowship
IGERT Program in Interactive Digital Multimedia (2006-2008)
Research apprenticeship in which a small number of students are mentored by an interdisciplinary team of faculty and visiting scholars. Our team designed a large scale interactive news visualization and studied learning outcomes compared to reading the newspaper or using Google news.
Outstanding Paper Award, Engaged by Design: Using Simulations to Promote Active Learning
Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (Ed-Media 2006)
Recognizes significant research contributions in the area of educational multimedia and hypermedia.
Teacher Consultant and Composition Fellow
South Coast Writing Project, University of California, Santa Barbara (2002)
Participants nominated by colleagues and selected based on innovative teaching practices in the areas of literature and composition.
Shoreline Preservation Fund Grant, Scientific Research and Writing Mentorship
University of California, Santa Barbara (2000)
Paired undergraduates with researchers from the University and local community to learn scientific research methods, collect data in the field, perform analyses, and present their findings.
PUBLICATIONS
Bulger, M.E., Mayer, R.E., Almeroth, K.C., & Blau, S.D. (2008). Measuring learner engagement in computer-equipped college classrooms. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 17 (2), 129-143.
Bulger, M.E., Mayer, R.E., & Almeroth, K.C. (2006). Engaged by design: Using simulations to promote active learning. In E. Pearson & P. Bohman (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2006 (pp. 1770-1777). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Bulger, M.E. (2006). Beyond search: A preliminary skill set for online literacy. Published online by the Transliteracies Project, University of California, Santa Barbara, http://transliteracies.english.ucsb.edu.
Zhang, H., Almeroth, K.C. & Bulger, M.E. (2005). An activity monitoring system to support classroom research. Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2005 (pp. 1444-1449). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Bulger, M.E. (ed.) (2003). The hands-on handbook: A guide to teaching in the UCSB Writing Program. Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara (Available online at: http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/information/pdfs/wp_final.pdf)
Bulger, M.E. (2002). UCSB in the community. Office of Community Relations, University of California, Santa Barbara.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Bulger, M.E. (2008). The trouble with information, Association of Internet Researchers IR 9.0, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Bulger, M.E. (2008). The trouble with information: How students gather and evaluate online resources, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford, U.K.
Bulger, M.E. (2008). Beyond search: Online literacy practices in academic settings, Writing Research Across Borders, Santa Barbara.
Bulger, M.E. & Bradley, N.D. (2007). Technology in action: Using simulation exercises in university writing instruction, Conference on College Composition and Communication, New York.
Bulger, M.E., Almeroth, K.C., Mayer, R.E., Knight, A., Collins, H.M., & Chun, D. (2007). Effects of instructor engagement on student use of a Course Management System, Poster Presentation, Association for Psychological Science 19th Annual Convention, Washington, D.C.
Knight, A., Bulger, M.E., & Almeroth, K.C. (2007). Is learning really a phone call away? Knowledge transfer in mobile learning, MLearn Conference on Mobile Learning, Banff.
Bulger, M.E., Mayer, R.E., & Almeroth, K.C. (2006). Engaged by design: Using simulations to promote active learning, ED-Media: Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Orlando.
Bulger, M.E. (2005). Student engagement in the multimedia classroom, Graduate Research Network, Computers and Writing Conference, Stanford University.
INVITED PRESENTATIONS AND WORKSHOPS
Bulger, M.E. (2008). The search myth: Quality information is not a click away, Center for Information Technology & Society, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Bulger, M.E. (2008). Measuring student literacy proficiency in online environments, Statistical Cybermetrics Research Forum, University of Wolverhampton, U.K.
Bulger, M.E. (2007). Research experience for undergraduates communications workshop, Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program of the National Science Foundation, 5th Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City.
Bulger, M.E. (2007). Where do I start? Reporting research across the disciplines, Research Mentorship Program, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Bulger, M.E. (2006). Research experience for undergraduates communications workshop, Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program of the National Science Foundation, 4th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C.
Bulger, M.E. (2006). Research experience for undergraduates communications workshop, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), University of California, San Diego.
Bulger, M.E. & Bradley, N.D. (2005). Teaching with technology, Joint Presentation, South Coast Writing Project, Santa Barbara.
Bulger, M.E. (2004). Is student engagement dependent on lecture relevance? IDM IGERT Research Showcase, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Bulger, M.E. (2002). Technology in the writing class: Reflecting on practice, South Coast Writing Project, Santa Barbara.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Director, Graduate Writing Center, Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management University of California, Santa Barbara (2005-2008)
Develop and implement graduate writing workshops, co-develop curriculum for graduate writing courses, and provide writing consultation for graduate students and researcher professionals.
- Strategies for Successful Writing at Bren and Beyond, Winter 2007
- Working and Writing Together: Strategies for Effective Collaboration, Spring 2006
- Common Mistakes in Graduate Writing, Fall 2006
- Using Precise Language, Winter 2006
- Finding Flow: Transitions that Work, Fall 2005
Lecturer, Writing Program University of California, Santa Barbara (1999-2002)
Upper- and lower-division writing courses:
- Writing 1: Introduction to Academic Writing
- Writing 2: Academic Writing
- Writing 2LK: Scientific Research and Writing Mentorship
- Writing 50: Intermediate Research Writing
- Writing 1E: Introduction to Engineering Writing
- Writing 2E: Engineering Communication
- Writing 50E: Advanced Writing for Engineers
- Writing 109ST: Scientific and Technical Writing
- Environmental Studies 193: Writing for Environmental Science
Teaching Assistant, Environmental Science and Management 437: Graduate Environmental Writing, Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara (2005-2006)
Teaching Associate, Writing 1E–50E: Writing for Engineers, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara (2002–2003)
Teaching Assistant, Writing 2: Academic Writing Across the Disciplines, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara (1998–1999)
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Lead Graduate Researcher, Transliteracies Project in Social Computing
University of California Multi-Campus Research Group (2006-2008)
Interdisciplinary faculty and graduate student team that explores participative media, its users, its technologies, and its future. Developing a comprehensive annotated bibliography of the history and current state of social computing.
Design Team, Spheres of Influence News Visualization
National Science Foundation IGERT in Digital Multimedia (2006-2008)
Studying user interaction and learning outcomes with an interactive, multi-screen visualization of how news stories geographically spread.
Graduate Researcher, Pedagogic Implications of Classroom Technology
Mellon Grant (2005-2008)
Examines whether technology use in classrooms improves learning. Using a variety of educational technologies, including Course Management Systems, Personal Response Systems, and multimedia presentations, we compare learning outcomes between courses with high and low levels of technology infusion.
ACADEMIC SERVICE
Campus Liaison and Facebook Outreach Coordinator, American Educational Research Association (2008-2009)
Reviewer, Association of Internet Researchers IR 9.0 Conference (2008)
Graduate Affiliate, Center for Information Technology and Society (2008)
Reviewer, American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (2006-2008)
Dean’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California (2006-2008)
Executive Vice-Chancellor’s Information Technology Fee Advisory Committee, Office of Institutional Advancement (2006-2007)
Classroom Technologies Consultant, South Coast Writing Project (2004-2007)
Founding member, Endowment for Virgil Cordano Chair in Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies (1999-2005)
Engineering Writing Committee, Writing Program (1999-2003)
Outreach Committee, Writing Program (1999-2001)
AFFILIATIONS
American Educational Research Association
Association for Psychological Science
Center for Information Technology and Society
International Reading Association
Modern Language Association
National Council of Teachers of English
National Writing Project
Note: Updated 9/15/08
