Since 2000, an increasingly constrictive Oregon state budgetary climate made it clear that we could not, at present,  implement Option 1 (Cyber Rhetoric course) or Option 2 (Humanities course: Student Perspectives on World and Multicultural Writers) as permanent course offerings.  See Final Report: Part V. Lessons Learned, submitted by Kathy Walsh, 15 May 2001: <http://www.cocc.edu/hum299/ccha/finalrpt.html>.  Thus, to achieve the primary objective of this mini-grant, I have pursued a third curricular option: develop a collaborative web resource on our college's server for instructional web projects to support Humanities courses, as well as those of related disciplines.  Anticipated "advantages" of this curricular option were to enable students to work together or individually, within Humanities and across related disciplines, to produce and publish course web work, with the faculty oversight needed to ensure responsible web authoring and source citation.  I proposed to overcome anticipated "disadvantages" of this curricular option (e.g., costly faculty load, tech support, tutoring assistance) by:

• using existing COCC Instructional Technology resources - e.g. COCC server space, hardware & software, IT support staff & training opportunities;
• developing the collaborative web resource--Humanities Instructional Resources (HIR)--within the existing COCC Humanities Dept. web (which I created in summer 2001);
• creating easy-to-use web templates and online forms for faculty and students to use in developing online instructional resources and completing course assignments.

Report on Activities Completed during the Mini-Grant Period
(February 6, 2002 – August 1, 2002)

Winter-Spring 2002:  Created & Field Tested FrontPage 2000 Directions, Web Page Template, New Web Genre Assignments, FrontPage Discussion Web Wizard
Once I had submitted my CCHA mini-grant application in Jan. 2002, I began adapting Cyber Rhetoric lessons (first developed for 2000-2001 HUM 299 CCHA/NEH grant project) for use in my on-site upper division course Writing 316-E, focused on prose writing for publication and required for aspiring K-12 teachers in Eastern Oregon University MUDD/Discourse Studies program, offered by COCC's partner institution Oregon State University - Cascades Campus. Thus, in Spring 2002, I was able to create and field-test a set of introductory FrontPage 2000 directions and web page templates, as well as conduct web genre research, update relevant WWW links, create new web assignments, and experiment with FrontPage Discussion webs.  These my WR 316-E students used and adapted successfully to create E-Papers, Annotated Bibliographies, and Term Web Projects for the course.

• WR 316-E Course Web Site: http://www.cocc.edu/wr316ca/
• FrontPage 2000 directions: http://www.cocc.edu/wr316ca/FrontPage/index.html 
• Example web page template: http://www.cocc.edu/wr316ca/FrontPage/template1.htm 
• Assignments: http://www.cocc.edu/wr316ca/assignments/index.html 
• Student Webs - Table of Contents: http://www.cocc.edu/wr316ca/studentwebs.html 

June 1 -  14, 2002: Collegial Planning & Conference Proposal

• I engaged in discussions with Humanities Dept. colleague Stacey Donohue (English) and Instructional Dean Kathy Walsh regarding creating web forms and genre templates for developing online instructional materials and student web-writing and research-based assignments.  
• I collaborated with Stacey Donohue, Karen Huck (Speech Communication), and Kathy Walsh to submit a successful panel proposal to the November 2002 CCHA Pacific Northwest Regional Conference, in which I plan to report on the results of this mini-grant project.  
• I met with IT Coordinator Barbara Klett to discuss organizing the Humanities web space, to arrange training and technology support needed to complete my mini-grant project, and to identify recommended upgrades of the operating systems and software of my home and office computers.  

June 17 - July 5, 2002: Technology Training & Web Experimentation

• I participated in a special two-day workshop, organized by Barbara Klett, to learn Macromedia Flash software (June 17-18, 2002).  
• I  tried out Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro with FrontPage, and decided to upgrade (at my own expense) my home computer (on which I do most of my instructional web work).
• Barbara trained me in using FrontPage New Page options, especially Form Page Wizard; and I experimented with creating web submission and results forms for potential student assignments.
• I reviewed Barbara's experiments with timeline software. 
• Stacey Donohue shared potential assignments that she is planning to use in Hum 240 - Native American Literature and Culture in Fall 2002; and she reviewed my experimental web submission & results forms.
• I experimented with various formats for organizing and presenting my mini-grant web work on the existing Humanities Dept. web.  To organize the Humanities Instructional Resources (HIR) web space, I decided that a genre-based scheme might be cleaner than a topic-based scheme, which seemed to produce a greater  confusion of proliferating overlapping categories (webfolders, cross-referenced links, etc.). 
  (In Fall 2002, I plan to impose a FrontPage search option on the Humanities Dept. & HIR web--with Barbara Klett's help--and invite COCC colleagues to test and critique the usability of the HIR web and its organizational schema.)
• I began identifying, moving and/or linking, reformatting and updating existing Humanities instructional materials and student web work from (primarily my own) individual course webs on the COCC server to the Humanities Dept. web space.
  (This web work is still, and probably forever will be, in progress.)

July 5 - 31, 2002:  Humanities Instructional Resources (HIR) Web Space
Web work, of course, can never properly be called "finished"; and mine was somewhat disrupted by unanticipated call to Deschutes County jury duty requiring four working days of service during July 2002.  The bulk of my project working time in July 2002, has been devoted to designing and developing this web space:

Humanities Instructional Resources (HIR), collaborative shared resource web, nested within the Humanities Dept. web site on the COCC server.  
HIR Index:  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/index.htm

Web research to identify relevant instructional materials, assignment types, online handouts, student work examples, etc., already featured on COCC faculty web sites revealed a wealth of web resources dispersed on COCC server; links and notations on these resources have been stored on draft web pages for future development if given permission of the authors.  HIR resources currently featured are mine and Stacey Donohue's.  I've organized this web by types of resources (all of which are labeled "under construction," but some of which are more "finished" than others).  Of the five categories, the contents of Reviews, Study Guides, and Timelines are most developed at this point (more detail below).  I intend to continue working on all webfolders in August (and probably forever after), and then present the HIR web for collegial review and further development in Fall 2002.

• Assignments: Online handouts & example student work for Humanities & WIC courses
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Assignments/   
• Links: WWW Links and Bibliographies on Humanities Dept. Course Topics
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Links/  
• Reviews: Annotated Bibliographies, Critical Reviews, & Recommended Reading Lists
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Reviews/ 
• Study Guides, Critical Introductions, & Lecture Notes
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/StudyGuides/
• Timelines on Humanities Dept. Course Topics
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/

HIR Web Forms (for student assignments and others' contributions), Web Templates (for instructional materials), and Student Web Work featured so far, have been reviewed by Stacey Donohue, Barbara Klett, and Kathy Walsh; are based on assignments used by Stacey and me in past courses or planned for future courses.

• HIR/Reviews: Africa and the African Diaspora: Annotated Bibliographies & Critical Reviews of Sources
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Reviews/Africa.html 
  • New Submission Form:
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/Reviews/Africa/submission.htm  
  • Results (displayed on the following web page for editing):
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/Reviews/Africa/results.htm
• HIR/Reviews: Multicultural Education: Annotated Bibliographies & Discussions
  (Student Web work is based on adapted FrontPage template referenced above) 
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Reviews/MCEducation.html 
• HIR/Timelines: Women's Studies Timelines:
  http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/women/index.htm 
  • New Submission Form: Women's Studies Timelines
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/women/submission.htm
  • Results (displayed on the following web page for editing):
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/women/results.htm
• HIR/Timelines: Native American Timelines 
  • Index Template: 
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/nalit/index.htm 
  • Samples (Image Gallery):
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/nalit/samples.htm  
  • Timelines Part 1 Template:
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/nalit/part1.htm 
  • New Submission Form: Native American Timelines
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/nalit/submission.htm  
  • Results (displayed on the following web page for editing):
    http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Timelines/nalit/results.htm 

Future Activities Planned:

• August 2002: I will continue to develop the Humanities Instructional Resources web space, to ensure all its main subdivisions (especially Assignments, Links, Study Guides) are finished enough to present their functions and potential for development by Fall term.  I plan to create additional web forms and example templates to represent a wider range of possibilities for student and faculty web work.  An additional priority is to create and maintain an up-to-date web page on avoiding plagiarism and citing sources, offering a range of examples using academic documentation styles across the curriculum.  I believe that this feature alone will lure many COCC faculty and students to the Humanities Instruction Resources web. 
• Fall 2002: I will prepare a web presentation (online and in person) for faculty in Humanities and related disciplines, and all other instructors who teach COCC WIC courses (Writing in Context of other disciplines) to introduce Humanities Instructional Resources web, invite faculty review and participation, and explore avenues for future development both of the Humanities web resources and of those of other COCC departments.
• November 2002:  Panel Presentation on Instructional Technology accepted by CCHA Pacific Northwest Regional Conference, San Francisco, CA.
• Field-testing (& further development) of web forms and templates will be begin in Fall 2002, but will continue (and I hope attract wider instructional participation) in Winter-Spring 2003 & beyond.
  Currently scheduled for participation in AY 2002-2003:
  Cora Agatucci, English 104 (Introduction to Literature: Fiction), Fall 2002
  Stacey Donohue, Humanities 240 (Native American Literature & Culture), Fall 2002
  Cora Agatucci, Humanities 211 (Cultures & Literature of Africa), Winter 2003
  Stacey Donohue, English 254 (Survey of American Literature), Winter 2003
  Rise Quay, Women's Studies 101, Winter 2003
  Cora Agatucci, English 103 (Survey of British Literature), Spring 2003
  Stacey Donohue, English 360 (Multicultural Literature), Spring 2003

Conclusion

I have long believed that a collaborative web space like Humanities Instructional Resources (HIR) would be invaluable for students and faculty, and I am enormously grateful to CCHA and NEH for supporting the development of this web project!  While such web work is by its nature always in progress, HIR is "finished" enough to suggest its potential value and open up possibilities for future development.  The time is ripe--not only because a sizeable number of our faculty and students are now able and willing to use instructional technology, but also because the World Wide Web is an unrivaled medium for pooling and sharing instructional resources so essential in tight budgetary times.  

The advantages of collecting key Humanities Instructional Resources in one, central, easy-to-locate-and-access, and collaboratively maintained web space are many.  At present, individual faculty typically invest enormous amounts of time and energy searching out, creating, and updating instructional materials --unknowingly re-inventing or duplicating others' work. Even when such materials are freely available on individual COCC course web sites, too few of us are aware of, or have time to search out, each other's course resources.  Building upon existing resources, or collaborating on development of new resources--many of which are adaptable across the curriculum--would be so much more time efficient and cost effective.  As important, our curricula, faculty, and students benefit immeasurably from regular collegial exchange of ideas, materials, assignments, techniques--but time constraints, work load, and scheduling conflicts make such exchanges difficult to create and foster.  Paper repositories of instructional materials, such as those our Humanities Department--and our overworked Secretary--try to maintain, are often incomplete, out of date, with access restrictions that do not apply to the World Wide Web--virtually 24/7!  

The advantages of developing and demonstrating web forms and templates for specific types of assignments, web genres, and instructional materials are also many.  While Barbara Klett and the rest of our Instructional Technology staff do a fine job of assessing faculty needs, offering training, and providing support; specific instructional examples that produce demonstrably effective results can be uniquely effective in broadening participation and fostering collaboration among faculty.  Plus web forms open participation to our students, including those with only basic computer competencies.  Note, too, that my web form submission pages purposely extend invitations to contribute to Humanities Instructional Resources to the cyber community at large.  I began my own COCC course webs in 1997, for use by my own students, but I underestimated the implications and responsibilities of open WWW access, much less the amount of interest and comment some of my web resources would generate among sectors of the WWW educational community--both near and far.  The best results are stimulating educational exchanges and strengthened educational resources. Opportunities to publish on the World Wide Web afford students--traditional and non-traditional, our own and the world's--unique learning experiences inimitable in a conventional classroom.  WWW publication is a real-world action open to real-world reactions, demonstrable evidence that any of us can make a difference.

References:
Stacey Donohue, Associate Professor of English, Humanities Department
Central Oregon Community College
E-Mail: sdonohue@cocc.edu

Barbara E. Klett, Instructional Technology Coordinator
Central Oregon Community College
E-Mail: bklett@cocc.edu

Kathy Walsh, Vice President for Instruction
Central Oregon Community College
E-Mail: kwalsh@cocc.edu