VUBeam - The Online Master's and Ph.D. Program in Beam Physics
College of Natural Science, MSU 10/12/2001
Accelerator Physics and Why Courses in it
Accelerator/Beam Physics: A subfield of Physics dealing with design
and understanding of particle accelerators, some of which are the largest
scientific instruments. Size of device depends roughly on energy that can
be achieved.
High Energy Machines (Particle Physics): CERN
(Europe, Birthplace of WWW),
Fermilab
(US), DESY (Germany), KEK
(Japan)
Medium Energy Machines (Nuclear Physics): NSCL
(MSU), IUCF (IU), ATLAS
(ANL),
...
-
Large number of physicists in Field: American
Physical Society Division of Physics
of Beams has more than 1,000 members
-
Many are outside universities at national laboratories
-
Formal graduate curricula in Beam Physics exist only at a handful universities
in the US (including MSU since 1992)
Almost ideal scenario for distance education!
The History of PHY861
The introductory course in the MSU Physics-Astronomy Beam Physics curriculum,
PHY861,
was up to be given for the third time in Spring 1997. A few people at Fermilab and Argonne expressed interest in participating
remotely, and so in the Fall of 1996, we transformed the course into a
format suitable for distance education.
We sent e-mail to a distribution list, made a website,
and put notes in a few newsletters. Since then our life has not been peaceful again; In a very short
time, we had about 100 participants
registered! They were located at about 30 remote sites in eight
countries.
Obtained rush funding from DOE, secured the help of Jens
Hoefkens and Bela
Erdelyi, upgraded our technologies, and embarked on the largest beam
physics course ever.
VUBeam, the MSU Virtual University Beam Physics Initiative
Upon the success of PHY861, the entire Beam Physics Graduate
Curriculum at MSU was made available online, and mechanisms
to obtaine MSc and Ph.D. degrees remotely were implemented, resulting
in VUBeam. Currently, VUBeam
has
- about 20 degree students, about 10 M.Sc. and 10 Ph.D.
- serves about 100 course students per year, about 50 for credit
- is the largest Beam Physics Degree program in the US
- is one of only two Physics Online Ph.D. programs in the US, according to Petersons
- has continued funding >$100k per year from DOE
| Site Name |
Country |
Participants |
| Argonne National Lab.
|
USA
|
23
|
|
Beijing University
|
China
|
6
|
|
Brookhaven National Lab.
|
USA
|
9
|
|
Calcutta University
|
India
|
3
|
|
CEBAF (T. Jefferson National
Lab.)
|
USA
|
11
|
|
Dubna Laboratory
|
Russia
|
2
|
|
Fermi National Accelerator Lab.
|
USA
|
10
|
|
Kansas
State University
|
USA
|
2
|
|
KVI
|
Netherlands
|
4
|
|
Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab.
|
USA
|
7
|
|
Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab.
|
USA
|
2
|
|
Michigan State University
|
USA
|
18
|
|
Notre Dame University
|
USA
|
2
|
|
Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center
|
USA
|
2
|
|
St. Petersburg State University
|
Russia
|
6
|
|
TRIUMF
|
Canada
|
3
|
|
University of Texas, Austin
|
USA
|
2
|
|
Unaffiliated
|
|
37
|
Distance Education Technologies Utilized in VUBeam
-
Course Home
Page from which all services can be reached
-
Live two-way ISDN-based
teleconferencing using PictureTel
and others, with six permanent sites using bridge service
-
Live two-way Internet-based
A/V transmission using CU-SeeMe
-
Lecture audio tracks on www using RealAudio
- Example.
For participants in inconvenient time zones, and with time- or technical
conflicts. Using RealVideo, eventually
full video tracks
-
Lecture
notes on www - Examples 1,
2
-
Interactive homework based on WebCOSY
system (login demo, password webcosy).
-
Discussion board; updates about lecture notes, homework, etc. Links to external
pages, like CEBAF Newsletter
article about PHY861.
-
E-mail; excluding mass mailings, more than 1500 messages are exchanged
in one course.
References
After so much Virtual Education, next you may want to embark on
a Virtual
Lunch!
