Stanford University (STANFORD, USA)

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Today, Stanford has 1,671 tenure-line faculty, senior fellows and center fellows at specified policy centers and institutes, and Medical Center line faculty. Fifty-six percent of the faculty have earned tenure. Faculty at Stanford are expected to be among the best teachers and researchers in their fields. There are 314 faculty members appointed to endowed chairs. Twenty-three Stanford faculty have won the Nobel Prize since the university's founding.

In 1891, 37 students were registered in graduate standing at Stanford, representing the first opportunity for graduate study on the West Coast. Today, 7,700 students in 63 departments and programs are pursuing postbaccalaureate degrees in seven schools: Business, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law and Medicine. Stanford's 6,500 undergraduates and 7,700 graduate students are distinguished by their initiative, love of learning and commitment to the larger world. Independent thinkers and relentlessly curious, students at Stanford bring passion and imagination to everything they do. Exchange programs with the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at San Francisco enable graduate students to take courses not offered at Stanford. About 75 percent of Stanford graduate students receive financial assistance, excluding loans, from Stanford or external sources. About 47 percent of all matriculated graduate students at Stanford live in university housing. Two laboratories will work on the project: Center for Design Research and Stanford Learning Lab.

The Center for Design Research
The Center for Design Research is a research institute affiliated with the Design Division of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. The Center for Design Research (CDR) is dedicated to facilitating individual creativity, understanding the team design process, and developing advanced tools and methods that promote superior design and manufacturing of products. Its goals are to contribute to the development of cost-effective, quality products; to develop new enterprise R&D tools; and to develop a deeper understanding of the technical culture that produces new products. CDR provides facilities for research and education in computer-aided engineering and design, concurrent design and collaborative engineering, design knowledge capture and retrieval, telepresence and virtual design environments, among others. The CDR has recently built a lab for the design and assessment of user needs related to mobile devices. This lab will be used for the design and assessment of mobile devices and applications that can be used to support learning during the many phases and aspects of the design process, including knowledge acquisition, user-needs analysis, idea generation, collaboration, and project management. CDR is equipped with powerful computing tools in the form of a variety of Unix workstations and personal computers, as well as peripherals such as high-resolution colour printers, scanners, projectors, and other multimedia development and presentation devices. IP Multicast Backbone service is provided at CDR on properly configured workstations, allowing Internet-based video conferencing, and the Center is also connected to SITN, the Stanford Instructional Television network. The CDR director is Professor Larry Leifer, founding Director of the Stanford University Learning Lab. CDR research staff and graduate students played key roles in the 2000-2001 Mobile Learning experiments at the Stanford Learning Lab (http://acomp.stanford.edu/acpubs/SOC/Back_Issues/SOC55/#3).

The Stanford Learning Lab
Established in 1997, the Stanford Learning Lab was charged by then President of Stanford University Gerhard Casper with promoting the research, development, and deployment of educational technology and innovative teaching methods to improve the learning experience of all Stanford students. In 1999, the Learning Lab established the Wallenberg Global Learning Center and Network, which acts a coordinating body for a network of affiliated Learning Labs across the world: the Stanford Learning Lab (SLL), the Swedish Learning Lab Consortium(SweLL) as the two founding members, and the Lower Saxony Learning Lab (L3S) in Germany.

Vision and Goals. The Learning Lab's vision and goals for the next three to five years are all focused on the opportunities provided by Wallenberg Hall. The facility, which will have six experimental classrooms, is a state-of-the-art applied research facility. Because the classrooms will be fully instrumented with technology for learning as well as technology for research, the Lab can, for the first time, conveniently observe and measure instructional practices on a day-by-day basis in regular classes. Furthermore, the Lab can do so unobtrusively, more economically, and with less effort than is required when conducting research and experiments in conventional classrooms. As a result, the Lab will be able to study 15 to 30 courses per quarter instead of only two or three. This significantly accelerates the pace as well as the quality of the research and development. The Wallenberg Global Learning Center (WGLC) makes the Lab's pursuit of three strategic goals during Phase 2 possible. The Lab and its partners in the WGLN are successfully developing and implementing tools, services, and spaces to support and enhance meaningful learning. The Lab is excited about the role the it plays in developing technology to support, promote, and enhance meaningful learning. Stanford's vision and commitment to meaningful learning and to the development of pedagogically relevant tools, services, and spaces to support it is unprecedented. The Lab is proud of its achievements and intends to fulfil the expectations placed on the Lab within Stanford and around the world

Key people: Professor Larry Leifer, Melissa Regan

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