Department of English 
Information Technology Plan 

revision of 21 October 1994 
[Committee: Baker, Crocker, Duggan, Gibson, Grant, Howard, McGann, 
Sedgwick, Unsworth]


I. 	School Mission Statement  

Computers, and particularly networked computers, are increasingly 
compelling tools for research and teaching in the humanities.  However, 
as any experienced user will attest, this particular branch of 
information technology is still far from mature: change is rapid and 
unsettling, both in hardware and in software, and the user who wants 
information technology to serve his or her needs, rather than the other 
way around, is still asking for a special dispensation. Nonetheless, the 
basic goal of the English Department, with regard to information 
technology, is to ensure that this technology is deployed to maximum 
effect and with a minimum of frustration and wasted time.  More 
specifically, it is the Department's intention  

 	To provide faculty and graduate students with access to 
up-to-date workstations capable of running LAN-based applications, 
including current versions of basic software (such as Windows and 
WordPerfect),  internet tools for information discovery and retrieval 
(gopher, World-Wide Web, ftp, archie, veronica, etc.), and electronic mail.

  	To make better use of computers in the classroom and outside it, 
and beyond that, to begin producing our own multimedia instructional 
materials.  

  	To make better use of I.T.C.'s training, outreach, and 
user-support services, while exploring ways of providing significantly 
improved in-house user support and training.  

  	To minimize systems administration tasks within the Department, 
in order to free up our current computer support personnel for user 
support; to ensure that the resources provided within the Department run 
smoothly and without avoidable frustration or interruption; and  to 
flatten the learning curve as much as possible for faculty and graduate 
students who are acquiring new information-technology skills.  

  	To look for ways to streamline administrative operations within 
the Department by taking advantage of LAN-based computing, shared files, 
and network standards.

 As the Department moves into Bryan Hallwith its newly installed network 
infrastructure, with a significant influx of new end-user workstations, 
and with generous classroom and lab facilities for using information 
technologywe have an opportunity to start fresh and, with the advice and 
collaboration of the College and of I.T.C., to provide a model which will 
point the way for other humanities departments.       


II.	Background  

The English Department's last Information Technology Plan (3 November 
1993) noted progress in several areas:  

 	The installation, in fall 1992, of a local area network for the 
Department, connecting 8088 terminals in faculty offices to vt100 
resources such as Virgo, GWIS, and the Electronic Text Center.
 
 	The introduction of the Department's first graduate-level course 
in Computing and Literary Study, taught by Peter Baker and Hoyt Duggan in 
the spring of 1993.

 	Ground-breaking computer-mediated faculty research projects 
undertaken by  Hoyt Duggan and Jerome McGann as fellows of the newly 
established Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities.

 The Plan also discussed two significant Departmental endeavors, then in 
the planning stages: 

 	Computer-assisted instruction:  Bryan Hall will include one 
computer-assisted classroom with about 15-20 computers and a Writing 
Center with additional computers.  

 	A multimedia lab in which faculty and graduate students would be 
able to create instructional materials for use at the University and 
elsewhere.  The intention of the 1993 Plan was to design these facilities 
so that materials developed in the multimedia lab could be moved directly 
into the computer-assisted classroom.

The 1993 Plan also noted some factors retarding progress in the 
Department's use of information technology, in particular  

 	The poor quality of the computers in faculty offices

 	The lack of training and support for Departmental users of 
information technology

"It is still by and large true," the Plan stated, "that English 
professors who wish to make serious use of computers must purchase their 
own and then teach themselves how to use them.  In our view, this 
situation must change before the computer becomes more widely accepted as 
a research tool in English literary scholarship."   


III.	Current Academic Computing Activities  

A number of the problems cited in the '93 Plan have been, or are about to 
be, remedied, and some new initiatives have surfaced, but the issues of 
training and support are still unresolved.  These issues will be 
addressed in detail in sections V. and VI. and (where appropriate) 
touched on in sections III. and IV.   


A. 	Current Instructional Computing Activities  

1.	Writing Instruction   

Last year (1993-94) the English Department applied for two grants to 
upgrade the outdated computers in the Writing Center.  With the money we 
received, we purchased five Gateway 486/33 computers, four ASI 386 
computers, and two HP Laserjet printers.  We also purchased Grammatik 
editing software, chiefly for the use of ESL students.  Given the number 
of students using the Writing Center, and the limited number of tutors we 
are able to hire, it is clear that we need to develop more imaginative 
uses of computer technology to help our students diagnose and correct 
certain kinds of linguistic errors, especially our ESL students.  The 
other group that would benefit from good editing software would be ENWR 
100 students.  

  2.	Graduate Instruction  

Perhaps not unexpectedly, graduate students in English are making more 
extensive use of computers than their teachers are. In a recent course in 
Old English, for example, every graduate student enrolled made use of the 
Corpus of Old English in the Electronic Text Center, with little 
prompting from the instructor. Students working in the rapidly developing 
area of cultural studies are recognizing the relevance of hypermedia to 
their concerns, and theorists are excited by the hypertext as a 
revolution in our concept of textuality. To accommodate these interests, 
Peter Baker and Hoyt Duggan offered ENSP 805, Computing and Literary 
Study, in the spring of 1993.  This course provided  instruction in the 
use of textual analysis tools and the creation of hypermedia applications 
and electronic archives using Toolbook, a Hypercard-like authoring 
package.    

Jerome McGann has begun to involve graduate students in his courses in 
the preparation of electronic editions, with the cooperation of the 
Electronic Text Center.  In 1992 and 1993 his graduate classes produced 
two hypertext editions of late eighteenth-century books of poetry, and 
these volumes were used to inaugurate McGann's online archive of critical 
editions: British Poetry 1780-1910. A Hypermedia Research Archive.  His 
graduate course in the spring term, 1995, will comprise several groups, 
each of which will spend the term on similar editions--probably four in 
all--of late nineteenth-century British poetry. The materials in these 
classes is often drawn from online resources.  Consequently, the McGann's 
students learn not only how to build hypertext editions, but also how to 
use both local and remote electronic networks in their research.  

Graduate students in the English Department also have a Departmental 
mailing list, used for dissemination of Reading Matters and other 
relevant materials.  In addition, graduate students in the Department 
have also started their own mailing lists independently: for example, 
amlit@virginia.edu is a list for Americanists, with some faculty and 
undergraduate participants as well.  

3.	Computing in Advanced Undergraduate Courses  

Relatively little is being done in this area now, primarily because of 
the inadequacy or unavailability of computing facilities. The lack of a 
comput