June 2006 - An ingenious schematic for creating instant, flexible indexing of course material won the grand prize in a contest for students at the USC Viterbi  School of Engineering's Distance Education Network (DEN).

"We always believed our students were creative and technologically-savvy" said DEN Executive Director Kelly Goulis, "and these contest entries prove it."

The contest asked DENs more than 1,300 students:

“How do you creatively use technology to enrich your educational experience in DEN courses?

Rick Kunzler, an employee of the Boeing Company in Anaheim, California, won first prize, an HP iPaq.  His winning response:

“I created a 'Class Item' database that I use to keep all of my course information organized. I hyperlinked the class lecture files in a master worksheet using Microsoft Excel. I click on the link, and it takes me to the data quickly. I don't have to hunt through my entire directory structure to locate the files. Similarly, I have links to all the WMV lecture files, as well as all of the extra PDF files that my professor has handed out through the semester. I have also included my original homework files and DEN graded PDF files. All the information for the whole course is organized on a single worksheet. I also use the 'Screen Tip' hover text feature, so that when I hover the mouse over the links it will pop up key word data related to the hyperlinked file contents. This really is a neat way to keep everything at my finger tips.”

Kunzler's method is being considered as a possible add-on feature to the award-winning and highly imitated DEN Internet teaching interface.

Runner-up winners each won a Sandisk MP3 player for such suggestions as:

• Keeping the laptop charged in the car for viewing classes on long drives (and on top of mountains) enabling the student to maintain his rock-climbing hobby while pursuing his Master’s degree;
  
  
• Hooking laptops up to bigscreen TVs for the full surround-sound in-class experience;
  
  
• Using instant messaging to connect with fellow colleagues with questions or comments and using the notepad text file open to take quick notes;
  
  
• Using the “fast forward” feature of Windows media player to speed up the pace of the lecture, significantly decreasing the amount of seat-time for a class and thereby having more time to spend with baby daughter.

The contest will be repeated next year. "And we can't wait to see what new ideas will come in," Goulis said.

About USC DEN

For 34 years, DEN has been a pioneer in distance learning, providing thousands of working professionals the opportunity to obtain their M.S. degrees in over 30 disciplines. DEN’s cutting-edge technology allows students to view lectures conducted to on-campus students, transmit homework assignments, and interact with professors via chat capabilities, all from the comfort of their homes and offices. Currently, DEN students from over 40 states, as well as from Canada and Korea, are pursuing engineering graduate degrees from a distance. DEN offers the widest selection of engineering graduate degrees – more than any other leading research university.