AGLO - Applied Geophysics Learning Objects

Introduction

This website hosts resources developed with support from the Online Development Fund Project OPDF1 Project #59, entitled "Modular Resources to Support Specialized Teaching and Learning: Applied Geophysics for Earth Science Courses". The project was funded by BCcampus between April and December of 2004 to produce Learning Objects aimed at facilitating the teaching and learning of a specialized technical subject in courses and programs that are related but not focussed on that subject. The project lead was Francis Jones, lecturer in applied geophysics at the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC.

Version 1.0 was delivered to BCcampus in May 2006. Resources are now housed on BCcampus's "Shareable Online Learning Resources" server (SOL*R) - a repository for online programs, courses, and learning resources. Students and instructors can create their own accounts on this system using the "Create an Account" tab at the top of the BCCampus home page.

The current collection can be viewed at the pubically accessible BCCampus SOL*R repository.

A more "user friendly" version of the collection is at HERE but an ID and Password are required; please ask F. Jones.

AGLO project motivation

One challenge facing those in higher education is that career pathways are increasingly specialized yet institutions and programs are being forced to become more generalized in order to meet the conflicting demands of increasing enrollments and decreasing teaching resources. This project focusses upon developing materials for the subject of applied geophysics. Three types of learners were targeted: (i) students with general backgrounds; (ii) geoscience students, and (iii) students studying more detailed aspects of applied geophysics. Our initial priority was to target the first and second of these three groups.

Unlike many other geophysics learning materials, our activities are focussed more on the process of applying geophysics and less on physical and mathematical details of the techniques. We have attempted to build a cohesive collection by having each individual resource presented in the context of a well defined seven-step framework for applying geophysics to practical problems.