The Design and Evaluation of Interactivities in a Digital Library

The US National Science Foundation has established a program to create a National Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL). One of the subsidiary NSDL libraries under development is the National Civil Engineering Educational Resources Library (NCERL). The first phase of NCERL is the creation and collection of digital resources in three areas of civil engineering—geotechnical (soil), rock, and water engineering (GROW). The concept of interactivities guides the design, development, and evaluation efforts of the GROW digital collection. This article describes the salient features of GROW, defines and discusses interactivities as an emerging, integral part of teaching and learning in civil engineering education. Interactivities take place at three distinct levels: the information resource, the collection, and the context. Very simply, the concept of interactivities can be defined as the emphasis on structured representations of interactive multimedia resources. Additionally, resources are designed with rich learning tasks and organized in pedagogical collections supplemented with contextual information. Preliminary evaluation of GROW-NCERL using interactivities is briefly described

An Experimental Study of Seismic Bearing Capacity of Shallow Footings

In this paper, the results of an experimental investigation on the response of model shallow footings to horizontal accelerations are presented. The experiments were conducted on square and rectangular footings resting on or embedded in a dry sand and shaken in a shake box. The shake box was designed to subject the soil to simple shear conditions during shaking. Model footings, constructed from lead, were used to study the seismic bearing capacity. The influence of the magnitude and frequency of the horizontal accelerations, the static bearing capacity safety factor, the footing shape, the depth of embedment, and the relative density of the soil on the seismic bearing capacity were investigated. It is shown that the initial shear fluidization acceleration is the maximum acceleration sustainable by a shallow footing regardless of the static bearing capacity safety factor. Critical accelerations from limit equilibrium analyses do not compare favorably with the experimental results except when the change in angle of friction from cyclic densification was taken into account

Creating and Operating a Digital Library for Information and Learning - the GROW Project

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this project is the first phase of the National Civil Engineering Education Resources Library (NCERL). The aim is to provide high-quality educational resources in the field of civil engineering and meet the needs of a diverse audience by developing Interactive Learning Objects that are easy to use, measured, and meet learning objectives

The Design and Evaluation of Interactivities in a Digital Library

The US National Science Foundation has established a program to create a National Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL). One of the subsidiary NSDL libraries under development is the National Civil Engineering Educational Resources Library (NCERL). The first phase of NCERL is the creation and collection of digital resources in three areas of civil engineeringâ geotechnical (soil), rock, and water engineering (GROW). The concept of interactivities guides the design, development, and evaluation efforts of the GROW digital collection. This article describes the salient features of GROW, defines and discusses interactivities as an emerging, integral part of teaching and learning in civil engineering education. Interactivities take place at three distinct levels: the information resource, the collection, and the context. Very simply, the concept of interactivities can be defined as the emphasis on structured representations of interactive multimedia resources. Additionally, resources are designed with rich learning tasks and organized in pedagogical collections supplemented with contextual information. Preliminary evaluation of GROW-NCERL using interactivities is briefly described

Hybrid approaches for measuring use, users, and usage behaviors: A paper submitted to the NSF NSDL Webmetrics Workshop, Costa Mesa, CA, Aug. 2-3, 2004.

This paper was submitted as part of the requirements and statement of interest for participation in the NSF funded NSDL Webmetrics Workshop in Aug. 2004. It documents GROW's experience with regards to development of webmetrics software and intention to include webmetrics strategies as a part of evaluation. GROWâ s evaluation strategy was articulated in conjunction with the library design and development framework (Budhu & Coleman, 2002). A digital library is a complex thing to evaluate and the â interactivesâ evaluation framework we proposed uses hybrid methods to study distinct layers and objects in the digital library (resource itself, the interface, the search engine, etc.) and understand users and evaluate educational impact. Our Interactives Evaluation strategy has been shared with users and stakeholders at various venues such as the Harvill conference and the NSDL Participant Interaction Digital Workshop, February 200

Seismic settlement of shallow footings on sands

In this contribution, the progressive seismic settlement of shallow footings on cohesionless soils is calculated using a sliding block model. Beyond a critical horizontal acceleration, shear displacements occur freely along two defined slip planes resulting in seismic settlement of shallow footings. A series of shake box tests on shallow footings was conducted using a box (427 cm long ×92 cm wide ×92 cm high) with two rotating ends. A sand mass supporting the footings was deformed in a manner compatible with simple shear. Square and rectangular footings, constructed from lead to give factors of safety of 1 and 3 against static bearing capacity failure, were configured and tested as surface and embedded shallow footings in the shake box. The results of tests using these footings are in accord with the theoretical predictions.ASC