CU's Multimedia Courseware Studio moves into distance learning

John Wolf and Kate Mink in the new Multimedia Courseware Studio facility. Charles Harrington/University Photography

The Cornell College of Engineeering's award-winning Multimedia Courseware Studio (MCS), which assists faculty in producing interactive educational software, has become a part of the university's Office of Distance Learning, and Kate Mink, director of the MCS, and programmer John Wolf have joined the Office of Distance Learning staff.

The move was announced late last year by David B. Lipsky, director of the Office of Distance Learning. "This expansion will allow us to offer Cornell faculty a complete range of options in constructing courses and creating learning materials for distant student interaction," Lipsky said.

The facility's services also will be available to clients outside the campus, Lipsky said.

The Office of Distance Learning already has begun blending interactive video, teleconferencing, Internet video streaming and web-based materials in 35 courses offered to students throughout the world over the past year.

"The MCS staff will now add expertise in interactive simulation, user-interface design, computer animation and CD authoring, production and mastering," Lipsky said, "while the staff of the MCS will benefit from our video and web expertise. This is a win-win arrangement."

The MCS is an outgrowth of Project SOCRATES, a Cornell program which created engineering education software used in colleges worldwide, and the Synthesis National Engineering Education Coalition. It was established in 1993. The studio has conducted workshops for engineering faculty about multimedia, supported several small development projects and planned, developed, produced and tested a complete, interactive multimedia textbook on CD, Fluid Mechanics: An Interactive Text (ASCE Press 1998) by James A. Liggett, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, and David A. Caughey, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The textbook won the 1998 "Creative Solutions in Technology" award from the American Society of Association Executives.

Kate Mink has been developing interactive, graphical and multimedia computer programs since 1983, when she joined the engineering college's Computer-Aided Design Instructional Facility. In 1986 she became the manager of the facility and its software development group. Over the next five years, she was instrumental in completely upgrading the computing facility, establishing and conducting Project SOCRATES (which developed workstation-based instructional simulations) and launching the Synthesis National Engineering Education Coalition. This work brought over $4 million in grants to the engineering college. In addition to managing the MCS, Mink contributed to it technically as a designer, illustrator and animator. She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT and pursued graduate work in animal behavior at Cornell.

John Wolf has been applying computing technology to solve problems, enhance productivity and strengthen communication at Cornell since 1983. Since 1995 he has served as the lead designer and software engineer for the MCS. In the five years preceding his joining the MCS, he played a leadership role in the College of Engineering's Educational Computing Facility. He holds a B.S. in chemistry and an MBA from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.