Plus and Minus using Adobe Acrobat in University Courses
Prof. James Baird

Positives

  1. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free and the format us univerally readable.
  2. Any word processor may be used and with Adobe Acrobat Exchange may be encoded into the pdf format.
  3. I use Textures 1.7.6 from Blue Sky Research a marvelous scientific word processor. Printed lecture notes may be made from this Textures output and using Adobe Acrobat Exchange on the DVI file (what shows on the computer output screen) the pdf file is produced. This is the origin for the Adobe Acrobat lecture notes on the server.
  4. The notes for missed lectures may be read and portions of the lecture notes may be selected for reading.
  5. The Adobe Acrobat pdf file may be searched and if wanted material may be printed.
  6. The Adobe Acrobat pdf file may be made secure (no doubt there is a hacker out there who can circumvent this) with a password so that reading and printing may be controlled. It is kind of against the spirit of the internet, but I am trying this out for now. Naturally, screen images can be printed as bitmap entities.

Negatives

  1. Time Costs:
    1. The lecturer must prepare lecture notes on a computer and these must be compiled by Textures, or other word processor.
    2. A TA, or someone, must encode the files using Adobe Acrobat Exchange.
    3. The encoded pdf file must be added to the course web page.
  2. Need to purchase Textures. This is such a good scientific typesetting word processor everyone ought to have one in my opinion.
  3. Need to purchase Adobe Acrobat Exchange.
  4. Need to have a server.
  5. Students and others must have appropriate computer equipment set up for reading Adobe Acrobat pdf files.
  6. There is a time cost to students to listen to read lecture notes.
  7. As with RealAudio, such a system may promote lecture absenteeism.

Answers to the Negatives

  1. There is no answer to the cost in time. If this technique is found to be worth while then the time cost will be borne. Using a Power Mac 7100/80, or a MacII running at 50MHz, Textures compile time is nominal and Adobe Acrobat Exchange compile time is somewhat longer. However, once set in motion these just compile without intervention.
  2. In my case lecture notes have always been in digital form from the beginning of local computer networks. The transition to personal computer was just a downloading question. For others there is the time spent putting stuff into the computer, but who, excepting possibly the Unibomber, does not do that?
  3. The cost of Textures ($100 for upgrade) and Adobe Acrobat Exchange ($200) is nominal in my view.
  4. Equipment problems. Again this is a real one. Not every student can afford a computer. More and more have them and universities have clusters. It is best to be connected to a network since large lecture note files (450K) can take several minutes using a modem at 14.4K. At Brown University computer clusters are widely used and most dorm locations are networked.
  5. Down loading RA files over modems at 14.4Kb/s is time consuming. An ethernet connection is the only practical method. Many dorm rooms have ethernet connections and computer clusters provided by the University are so connected. The answer to this is also to have a Real Audio server so that the entire audio file does not need to be down loaded.
  6. As to lecture absenteeism this is already an effect. There is an advantage to attending lecture. Besides the personal touch, there is the possibility of asking questions and getting answers and the give and take of the classroom. Also, lecture demos, while capable of being videoed and digitized (see the oscillating reaction in the Special Topic Cicadian Rhythms in Chem 22) are very computer space demanding and also time consuming in terms of preparation. There are commercial video disks that take care of this problem. Eventually, there may be many video disk players around the campus.
  7. The introduction of "ConcepTests" advocated by Eric Mazur where students engage in peer instruction in class requires attendance.
  8. Public accessibity has been the purpose of the internet. However, commercial ventures are changeing that and the case of lectures at universities are not immune to these problems. This is the reason for experimenting with the password in Adobe Acrobat mentioned above.