The George E. Brown Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulations (NEES) has many stakeholders for the education, outreach and training (EOT) program with various needs. The EOT development team has customized the core hub code with additional modules to support continuing education for students, faculty and practicing professionals. Several third party modules have been seamlessly integrated into NEEShub to host courses with assessment, deliver live presentations to a mass audience and share educational content all within a single sign-on environment.

For example, a lightweight course management system called Moodle, is a free and low-barrier-to-entry method for hosting learning modules. This popular alternative to the more expensive Blackboard system contains the same basic administrative methods and delivery systems. Its potential is now extended with modules to link with traditional hub resources which provides a "contribute once, reuse many times" environment for instructors and professional organizations wishing to provide learning modules linked with assessments.

The NEES development team has established a new "Learning Object" resource type, and increased the fidelity of editing in the associated contribution steps. This allows educators to create rich content pages within the hub, and easily embed information from other sources, such as images, videos and other course content.

The NEEShub can provide freely hosted live content using a flash based media server to stream content to and from any browser. This content can be a simple webcam stream, or a more sophisticated webcast, comprised of desktop presentations, video and Q&A sessions with attendees. We are exploring the feasibility of this system as a low cost alternative to provide webinars for professional development and teleprescence methods during large scale testing operations.

This presentation will show these highlighted NEES EOT customizations, their uses, and how each was seamlessly integrated into the hub architecture.

Jason Lambert is the web systems software engineer at NEESComm located in the Purdue Research Discovery Park where he builds cyber-infrastructure for education, outreach and training efforts. He has been given the mandate of making education and training accessible, integrated and engaging by integrating existing and new technology into the hub architecture. Jason received his Masters in Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University where he also worked in research groups including virtual worlds for engineering education and carbon emission visualization.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Jason Lambert (2011), "Enhancing hub technology for education, outreach and training efforts," https://help.hubzero.org/resources/413.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. Hubbub 2011