1. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0126793, 0341468 and 0717624. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation DISSEMINATION OF NUMERICAL METHODS RESOURCES BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK, CONFERENCE, AND A PAPER Autar Kaw and Melinda Hess, University of South Florida; Egwu Kalu, Florida A&M University; Steven Barnicki, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Duc Nguyen, Old Dominion University Resources on a Website All resources are available in multiple forms on the website at http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu. These include a) background information, b) textbooks on Numerical Methods and Introduction to Matrix Algebra, c) PowerPoint presentations, d) worksheets in MATLAB, MathCAD, MATHEMATICA and Maple, e) multiple-choice tests, f) anecdotes, g) eBooks, h) videos (prototype), i) blog, and j) experiments. The website is evaluated via three avenues – 1)Students rate the website based on five major factors of content, learning, delivery support, usability and technology. A 20% improvement in ratings has taken place in the last five years. 2)Four external numerical methods instructors evaluate each module of the website. These evaluations conclude that the resources are effective without being overwhelming, while appreciating their holistic and customized nature. 3)We use Google Analytics which shows how people found the site, how they explored it, and how we can further enhance their visitor experience. The website was awarded the 2004 ASME Curriculum Innovation Award, received the 2006 ASEE DELOS Best Paper Award, is ranked #9 out of 2.18 million hits in Google™ search for numerical methods, and is viewed by more than 100,000 unique visitors annually. We firmly share the following two philosophies: We firmly share the following two philosophies: First, provide open dissemination of educational materials, philosophy, and modes of thought, that will help lead to fundamental changes in the way colleges and universities utilize the Web as a vehicle for education – MIT OCW. Second, provide resources that are pedagogically neutral that can be modified to suit anyone's needs. Introduction – John Lloyd Young playing Frankie Vallie (Frankie Castelluccio) in the Broadway play, Jersey Boys. The label is nuts for Marianne. Gaudio and crew had written just another one – just for me - a solo number. The President of the label isn’t interested, “I do not know Bobby, it is too hard to be pop, and too soft to be rock.” You want to get a hit song – it is like stations at the cross, you got to get past the record company, program directors, the Deejays, and if you are lucky, you get to the people – John Lloyd Young playing Frankie Vallie (Frankie Castelluccio) in the Broadway play, Jersey Boys. Dissemination Avenues For the 21 st century, a cliché from the 20 th century needs to be borrowed – we need a paradigm shift in thinking about dissemination avenues. It used to be that presenting a paper at a national conference, printing it in a journal and having a textbook contract with a nationally known publisher was more than enough. Avenues are now available that compel us to go beyond the traditional dissemination. These include but are not limited to: Resources on a websiteResources on a website BloggingBlogging Digital Audiovisual contentDigital Audiovisual content Self published textbooksSelf published textbooks Wikipedia or WikisWikipedia or Wikis Digital Audiovisual Content Video lectures are a necessary and technologically possible component to the content factor of any online learning resource. The case for the modular lecture videos was made at USF via a prototype study comparing 1)Traditional lecture (traditional face-to-face mode without benefit of web-based materials) 2)Web-enhanced lecture (face-to-face mode with active learning via multiple-choice questions and small calculation questions, and benefit of supplementary web-based content) 3)Web-based self-study (learning only via primary content available on the web), and 4)Combined web-based self-study and classroom discussion (learning via primary content available on the web outside the classroom, and followed by Q&A classroom discussion) Videos (prototype – full version available in May 2009) are available as streaming and downloadable video from YOUTUBE and the project website.