UCSB English Department Knowledge Base:About

Project History

The English Department Knowledge Base was the product of a developmental grant in the Summer of 2003. The project was initiated by a group of English Department graduate students under the supervision of Professors Alan Liu and Rita Raley. The original development team included Mike Frangos, Zia Isola, Sarah McLemore, Michael Perry, and Melissa Colleen Stevenson.

In the Summer of 2007, an additional grant was received in order to migrate the existing EDKB content into a wiki-style format that would allow more democratic contribution and editing of materials. The new format, engendered by the availability of new software technologies, also allows for faceted organization customized to the audience's needs. The second EDKB project group, also led by Professors Alan Liu and Rita Raley, consisted of Ryan Boyd, Kim Knight, Marthine Satris, and Ben Shockey.

Open Access to Information

The second phase of the EDKB development, which includes its migration to a Mediawiki-based format, is founded upon principles similar to that of the open-source movement. As such, the site has been organized in such a way as to encourage open access while still protecting the intellectual property and sensitive information (such as quizzes, etc.) of the contributors. As such, the user groups of the site have been structured as follows:

Anonymous Users - can read all open pages but may not edit them.
Users - can read all open pages but may not edit them.
Editors - can read and edit all open pages.
Bureaucrats - can read and edit all pages, including those with restricted access; can restrict access to pages and grant "Editor" status to "Users."
SysOps - the administrators of the system.

Original EDKB Mission and Vision Statement

Mission Statement

The English Department Knowledge Base is intended to serve as a a resource to facilitate the transfer of shared teaching information among faculty, staff, and graduate students in the English department here at UCSB in order to improve teaching standards and foster a greater sense of community. It is also meant to represent the dedication of the UCSB English Department to the enrichment of the larger academic community.

Project Achievements (Summer 2003): During the Summer of 2003 the project team succeeded in creating a suite of resources to enrich instructional development.

These resources include:

The English Department Knowledge Base - a compendium of teaching resources, including course-specific materials, topical materials, practical and administrative guides, the English Department TA training handbook, first exam resources, technological guides, and links to campus-specific and external teaching resources. The EDKB is designed to serve a variety of audiences and includes a tripartite locking system. Resources may be designated open, UCSB-only, and instructors only. The site is fully documented here in order to facilitate the future development of the site.

The English Department Knowledge Base Voice of the Shuttle Companion - a collection of topical materials and external links to a variety of teaching resources.

The development team also participated in a project to facilitate the adoption of CourseBuilder, a department-created program, designed to ease the posting of course web sites.

Course web sites constructed with the aid of the summer development team include:

Vanessa Colura's Summer 2003 English 102 Enda Duffy's Fall 2003 English 104B Andrea Fontenot's Summer 2003 English 104A Elizabeth Freudenthal's Summer 2003 English 192 Sara Gerend's Fall 2003 English 187BA Richard Helgerson's Fall 2003 English 101 Shirley Lim's Summer 2003 English 106 Jeanne Provost's Summer 2003 English 152A Rob Wallace's Fall 2003 English 10

Vision Statement

The English Department Knowledge Base is designed to develop with the department. The How-To section of the Knowledge Base offers guidelines for future site developers.

A meeting of the 2003 summer development team revealed several directions for the growth of the knowledge base.

These areas include:

• Quarterly/Annual Addition of Resources to the Course Materials Section of the Site (gathered through e-mail requests to the entire department).
• Development of Specially Targeted Course Materials through individual e-mails.
• Incorporation of more faculty-generated materials though direct e-mail requests.
• Development of a complete suite of Master's Exam resources.
• Annual Introductory Presentation to both new Graduate Students and New Teaching Assistants.
• Further Development of CouseBuilder to increase adoption and to address compatibility issues and user-friendliness. This might include a way to upload images without ftp, blank or customizable topic buttons/pages, and a full user guide.
• Link to a compendium of completed UCSB English department dissertation abstracts to increase the professionalization aspect of the site.