Proposal

Narrative

The purpose of this tech fee proposal is to purchase a large format multifunction plotter/scanner for use by our undergraduate students to support class research projects and conference presentations.  In response to FAU’s Distinction Through Discovery initiative, the Geosciences’ department is increasing the use of research and inquiry based projects in undergraduate course curriculum.  In fact, we have four courses with a total enrollment of about 75 students that are part of a Distinction through Discovery Undergraduate Curriculum Grant.  In addition to these research focused courses, we are strongly encouraging our undergraduate students to present their research at academic conferences as well as FAU’s Undergraduate Research days.  To meet these goals, our students need to produce research posters.  Our department purchased a large format plotter about 8-10 years ago, which has had significant use and many repairs.  It is no longer reliable for such critical operations and obsolete in capabilities.  However, having a department plotter available has been invaluable to our students and very cost effective with poster costs being just a few dollars compared to having them done outside at $40-$120 each.   Also, our turnaround time is about 20 minutes by printing internally.

Connected with our undergraduate research focused curriculum in Geosciences, many of our students utilize historic and/or out of print maps and other large format documents.  Most of these are not available anywhere in digital form.  To enable our students to be able to convert these critical maps to digital form for use in analysis and printer posters, we have identified a multifunction plotter that also scans in large format.

This proposal will help Geosciences meet the FAU Strategic Plan Platform of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry: Distinction through discovery and research experiences that promote scholarship and graduation.  Presenting research posters in class and at academic conferences truly enriches a student’s educational experience.  Presenting one’s own material to peers in their discipline builds confidence and instills a true understanding of one’s own research. Poster creation is part of the academic research process and leads to the next step of presenting conference talks on one’s own research. The creation of the poster itself is a creative activity in that students must identify the most important results and discussions to present in a concise and informative manner.

Facilities

NA

Hardware Requirements

Software Requirements

NA

Personnel Costs

NA

Other Costs

NA

Timeline

Purchase as soon as funds are available.

Sustainability

Our last plotter lasted over 10 years so we expect that this unit will provide a similar length of service without additional costs.

Resource Matching

Geosciences will contribute its own dedicated PC workstation to drive the plotter/scanner.  Geosciences will also contribute all paper and ink supplies.

Implementing Organization

Geosciences