Take a walk down the corridors of our classroom buildings, and you will observe that many of the lecture halls – once the domain of the dusty lectern and chalkboard – are now filled with the hum and glow of computers and projectors. Screens flash with graphics and multimedia content. Students work alone and in teams wirelessly searching the Web for resources, conducting virtual experiments, charting and mapping data and creating computer presentations and movies to fulfill assignments.

Scientific visualization has jumped from mainframe to mainstream. In the last decade, digital technologies have broken down the barriers between words and pictures, and many instructors meld text with image to construct new meaning, put concepts into context and meet the needs of a student body with a diverse set of learning styles. George Lucas, best known as the creator of the Star Wars series has argued: “If students aren’t taught the language of sound and images, shouldn’t they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write?”

Fortunately, Ohio State is out in front in taking a systematic institutional approach to formalizing curricula that teach visual literacy skills and initiating dialogue on issues related to how these new literacies support research and, ultimately, society. Following are examples of how the university is integrating digital media into coursework and building the needed facilities.

1) The GEC “WOVE” Requirement. OSU just released a major rewrite of its 1987 undergraduate general education curriculum that includes a graduation requirement that students demonstrate skills in written, oral and visual expression (WOVE). While still in the draft stages, a faculty panel is working on defining visual literacy and determining the best way to provide students with the skills to analyze, interpret and share, and/or communicate visually and create and compose visual materials.

2) The Digital Union (digitalunion.osu.edu). Located on the third floor of the Science and Engineering Library, this laboratory is a gathering place where students, faculty and staff can use production facilities and obtain expert consultation and training to complete multimedia projects, learn about emerging technologies, see them in action and take part in strategic conversations about digital scholarship and eLearning.

3) Research on Research: Student-Faculty ePartnerships (digitalunion.osu.edu/r2). R2 is a an ongoing summer program that pairs an undergraduate student with a faculty member to create a publicly accessible, multimedia-rich, digital portfolio chronicling the faculty member’s research. Undergraduate students are paid a stipend and gain firsthand knowledge of the research process specific to their major. In addition to the professional portfolios, faculty members gain insight into the design process.

4) Literacy Studies @ OSU (icrph.osu.edu/literacystudies). In 2004, The College of Humanities hired an Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies to establish a cross-campus, interdisciplinary program to build a new awareness of the complexity of understanding and making meaning in diverse media and cultural contexts. The group has sponsored an array of public programs, events and activities and its leadership is proposing a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies.

Becoming visually literate alters the way communities are prepared to perceive the world, solve problems, make decisions, collaborate and communicate. Students, faculty and staff can be proud of the way OSU has faced the challenge of enriching teaching, learning and research by incorporating multimedia technologies and visual literacy into the curriculum and broadening the definition of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century.

This editorial was based on the article: Metros, S.E. and Woolsey, K. (2006). “Visual Literacy: An Institutional Imperative,” EDUCAUSE Review, 41 (3), May/June 2006, 80-82.

Susan E. Metros is a professor of design technology and the deputy chief information officer.She can be reached at [email protected].