DEVELOPMENT OF THE EDUCATION, OUTREACH AND TRAINING PROGRAM FOR THE NEES COLLABORATORY
Thalia Anagnos, Dante Fratta · 2004
SUMMARY The United States National Science Foundation has funded a project to develop an education, outreach and training (EOT) strategic plan for the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). When NEES becomes fully operational on October 1, 2004, it will be a state-of the-art earthquake engineering experimental research facility consisting of 15 geographically distributed laboratories networked together and supported by advanced information technology (IT) infrastructure. NEES capabilities such as tele-presence, a curated data repository and advanced IT simulation and visualization tools provide an unparalleled opportunity to improve understanding of earthquake engineering concepts and to change the way these concepts are taught and disseminated. This paper describes the development and framework of the NEES EOT strategic plan, and some of the challenges associated with EOT programs for a distributed facility. In the plan, emphasis is being placed on addressing the needs of the diverse earthquake-engineering constituency and the unique features of the NEES collaboratory.