IAM Proposal

IAM Grant Proposal, Fall 1997

Purpose | Background | Description | Expected Outcomes | Evaluation Plan

Project Purpose:

To design and implement a web-based, multimedia system by 10 June 1998 for introducing students to ancient Mediterranean landscape and culture in the context of courses taught at UNC-CH and other institutions. The Interactive Ancient Mediterranean (IAM) will open the ancient world to students in an unprecedented way. Faculty teaching western civilization, classics, ancient history, art and archaeology courses will be able to employ interactive, digital maps in the classroom-maps that will also reach faculty and students in dorm rooms, homes, computer labs, junior colleges and high schools across the state. These clickable maps will be linked to a customized and extensible set of images, site plans, descriptions and web sites directly related to the instructional goals of the supported courses.

Rationale/Background:

The teaching of the ancient world has suffered since antiquity itself from the difficulties inherent in visualizing and communicating the physical layout of ancient societies and in relating that layout to the literature, history, art and culture of those societies. Instructors are regularly reduced to using a hodge-podge of generalized maps, xeroxed site plans, and other ad hoc materials that make it difficult to communicate the full scope of the relationship between human beings and the world they inhabit. What instructors need is a tool that provides a visually compelling representation of the ancient landscape (mountains, rivers, ancient cities and roads) and relates this landscape to other historical and cultural information in a meaningful way. IAM, which will meet this need for introductory courses at UNC-CH, will incorporate the latest scholarly achievements in the field.

IAM will capitalize on work done for the Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (also directed by the PI), which will produce, in 1999, the first complete scholarly atlas of the ancient world in this century. The atlas's six large overview maps, covering the vast area from the British Isles to the Indian subcontinent, are being digitally prepared by professional cartographers using the highest quality satellite imagery, topographic information and historical/archaeological data available in the world. Funding for the creation of these static maps has already been provided by the American Philological Association (APA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and many other donors, but the scope of the atlas project cannot extend to delivery of the maps in multimedia format or their enhancement for interactive instructional use. IAM will take these maps the next step by bringing them to North Carolina students and teachers via the Internet.

IAM will complement and cooperate with other technology projects. If the Classics Department's "Infrastructure for Teaching the Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval Worlds" is funded by the Chancellor, Classics has agreed to provide access to its web server and workstations for development and hosting of IAM (IAM will purchase 4GB of disk space to add to the server). IAM will leverage visual resources compiled by new and ongoing projects in the Classics and History departments by linking to them from the interactive map, thereby providing one of the first avenues of access to those invaluable image databases. Pages built with funding from the Chancellor last year will also be featured, including those created by K. Sams (CLAR 49), W.J. McCoy (HIST101) and G.W. Houston (CLAS 44). Should the Classics server become unavailable IAM can be implemented with Ra as the host, although some high-end and evaluation functions will be lost.

Project Description:

The project will be completed in three phases, all under the direct supervision of the PI.

A graduate student with experience as a commercial programmer and systems designer will obtain the digital overview map from the PI and modify it for web delivery and for linkage with a database running on the server. At the same time, a second graduate student with similar experience will design and develop the database that will link map queries to images. Meanwhile two more graduate students and two advanced undergrads will work with cooperating faculty in History, Classics, Archaeology and other programs to identify ancient sites for which content will be added to the clickable map. They will compile a list of places, requisite content information, and relevant images, site plans, and other materials that can be incorporated and enhanced for multimedia use. Latin and history teachers at area high schools and community colleges will also be consulted. The team will interface with personnel working on Classics and History IT projects to identify materials that can be used by both groups.
The entire team (4 grad, 2 undergrad) will digitize and enhance the materials identified and collected in phase 1, linking them via the database to the digital map.
The PI and graduate students will coordinate a thorough review of the multimedia system with the cooperating faculty. Corrections and changes will be incorporated and tested. The system will be on-line and operational by 10 June 1998. North Carolina high school teachers will be informed about the project through the NC Classical Association. Community college instructors will be informed about it through the History Department's Project in Historical Education.

Expected Project Outcomes:

Over 1,000 UNC-CH undergrads each year will gain an understanding of the relationships between landscape and ancient culture. They will pursue individual research using digital resources selected by their instructors.
High school and community college instructors state-wide will have access to the tool for use in their classes.
IAM will support the teaching efforts of faculty in several disciplines (history, classics, art, archaeology) and will serve as a model for other similar efforts.

Program Evaluation Plan:

Reactions and suggestions of cooperating faculty, especially those made during the final review, will be documented and incorporated into the Year-End Report.
Evaluation forms will be built into the web site to obtain comments and suggestions directly from student and faculty users. Their comments will be evaluated in the Post-Project Report.
Usage statistics will be produced by the Classics server, facilitating evaluation of usage patterns and performance. This data will be included in the Post-Project Report.
Reports on the project and its success will be presented to university faculty from around the country at the 1998 APA convention and to high school and college instructors at the 1998 meeting of the Southern Section of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS).
Cooperating faculty will be asked to include a question concerning the web site on course evaluation forms. This feedback will be employed during planning for future expansion of the web site.